Fish Folk

They'd be alright with your substrate. Sand may be preferred by some aquarists, but in the wild, they're not just on sand at all. They'll all get along alright. As @nabokovfan87 says, with Guppies, you'll be seeing loads of more fry. That's for sure! Here's a couple 10 gallon stocking videos of ours from the years past . . . Platys: Mollys:

I'd love to learn bit more how you keep your Discus. What maintinenece practices? Stocking? Fertilization plan? Water Changing? Just curious how other Discus keepers roll. (I'm definitely not the "rules committee" with Discus! 😆)

Well, during the night, even fish that often are up out of bottom waste end up down there anyway all night. I'm working on German Blue Rams, and (knock on wood) I've not cleaned up a thing from the bottom. Snails eat waste and leave behind molm, which I suspect is less problematic for fish fry than decomposing food. But my container is a DIY flow-through, so ammonia / nitrite / nitrate is sorted out by the overall aquarium filtration.

I'm sure everyone has different ways. Here's how my son did it for his final BAP project...

Wow! For a beginner, you’re off to a well-informed start. Every aquarist has a different view of how to populate an aquarium. Since you’ve got hard water, you might consider investing in some beautiful guppies. Get two males and four females from the same line, and you’ll have a tank full of babies before you know what happened. Forum guidelines prohibit us from selling on the forum or from naming aquarium fish sellers apart from AquaHuna. But (without saying where from) these are all guppy lines available that you could order in the mail delivered to your door today…

Great! Swords are my favorite plants.

Doing this again! “Cometh the hour, cometh the Betta” or some such… Atta-boy… Mmm Hmm… Courtship is a wee rough 😬

@Odd Duck and @Beardedbillygoat1975 I never new until now how badly I need a new tank 🤓

Hooah! We’ve got wigglers!

I know the craze has passed… but today made me smile…

Is this a Festivum (Flag Cichlid)?? I’ve never seen them in stores out here. Colors are amazing. Do they get huge? Like… 8” long?

I've been keeping a journal about the Betta Imbellis on the Forum here...

My most photogenic fish… What are yours?

This is my 2nd go at breeding Betta Imbellis. Here’s a video showing the setup - clear “chastity sleeve”; floating Catappa leaf; male display; future jug rack…

So sorry to hear. Some questions: - Can you run a full spectrum water test: pH, KH, GH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate? - Is this your usual maintenance routine? - What sort of filtration (if any) are you running? - Have you assessed factors such as temperature? Stray current? Source water contamination? Had pH crashed? Were there any worrying signs that led you to this maintenance? - Did any large stinky gas bubbles come up as you worked the substrate? - Can you try to post some before and after photos? - What was your stocking? Again, so sorry about your losses. So frustrating. I guess I’d want to figure out causes of death before tearing apart the whole setup. I have heard certain stories about anaerobic bacteria gas releases that can harm fish. This thread from another forum hints at that. I am not sure how much stock I put in that.

Ram fry on to flake food! Got some runners. Batch still looking very strong…

Oof! Yikes… very sorry. BNP or L204 maybe. Do loaches do that??!

Likely. Long finned Bettas often struggle with fin rot. Keep water clean, don’t over feed, and consider medication if it gets noticeably worse. You say female?? Are you sure?? Looks at first glance like a male to me.

Before that … what livestock is in the tank? What are the wounds like?

Well, this much has happened. Tails have unfurled…

I’m not sure if this is what you’re asking… but I like the look of this “bamboo charging station”…

As long as you're able to change water once every 2 weeks, no I do not think it will be a problem.

Absolutely! Emperor Tetras are gorgeous. I definitely think that could work. I always like to have at least 12 tetras if they's schooling fish. To "rabbit-hole" just means I had to look that up . . . and then I got really fascinated with zodiac stuff (you mentioned "I'm a libra") I am a Leo. My wife is a Scorpio. My kids are Gemini, Sagittarius, and Taurus. Which may be why I call my middle child a "communist" often 😂

I get mine from Chick-fil-a. But I saw clear jugs in grocery market too last week.

71-82°-F — they’d be fine. See details below on in situ parameters…