JettsPapa

I'm glad you liked them. It's difficult to tell from those pictures, but while the front/top of the leaves on that variety are green, the backs/bottoms are a reddish-bronze color.

. . . or a 65 gallon tank. It has the same footprint as a 40 gallon breeder, but it's taller.

As promised. Please excuse the photo bombing fish.

I would guess the parasite dip has a better chance of being the problem than parasites.

About your second question, getting a Python system is certainly an option, but not necessarily the only one. Instead of a 5 gallon bucket I use one that holds 2-1/2 gallons. I'm 61, and not as strong as I used to be, but I can still lift that much when adding water to the 65 gallon tank. The top of the tank is about even with my shoulders.

I always laugh at the line that starts with ". . . but he was a gentleman about it."

Cryptocoryne usteriana is my new favorite, and is doing well in one of my tanks. I'll try to remember to get a picture this evening and post it.

I'm not a big fan of his, but I always liked that song. It reminds me of another "novelty" song I'm fond of:

I agree with the replies above. I'm convinced that in most situations netting the fish, putting them into another container, and then netting them to return them to the tank causes more stress than just leaving them in the tank while you're working in it.

Assuming I could get a count on the guppies, it would probably break that website.

Hello, I don't have much experience with them, but from reading posts in this and other fish keeping forums it seems like it depends on the betta's personality. Some wouldn't bother the kuhlis but would eat the shrimp, some wouldn't bother either, and some will kill anything in the tank with them.

No, but here's an alternative method you might like (I'm pretty sure I saw a video where @Coryused the same method, but I can't find it).

. . . and there are probably 15 small pieces you didn't find.

I've shipped quite a few guppies, shrimp, and plants, and I always use USPS Priority. It usually gets there on the third day, but it's not unusual for them to arrive on the second day. I remember one time I took a package to my little local post office in southeast Texas around 4:00 pm and it arrived in California just over 48 hours later. I've had similar results shipping to Ohio, and other locations at similar distances away. There have been a few times when it took longer, but those are unusual. I do remember one time when I shipped a nearly grown pearl gourami, and it took seven days, but the fish arrived in good shape. As a disclaimer, I suspend shipping anything alive in December.

They'd probably be okay for five weeks. Five days certainly isn't a problem

Try to find an LFS that buys fish from local breeders. Those fish are likely to be healthier and generally more hardy than fish from the big fish farms. I know I've struggled to keep commercially raised guppies alive longer than about 30 days, and I have read many reports from other fish keepers on this and other forums who have reported similar experiences.

I keep goldfish in cattle troughs to control algae and mosquito larvae. They do just fine when there's a layer of ice on top for several days.

It depends on the species, and sometimes the strain within the species. My dumbo mosaic guppies don't seem to bother fry at all, and it's not unusual to see fry feeding right beside adults. On the other hand, albino koi guppies are relentless fry hunters. I had three females and one male in the 5.5 gallon tank on my desk at work for quite a while. The females would periodically be pregnant, and then not so much, but the whole time I kept them I only saw one fry, and I only saw it once. The guy who owns the LFS where I got them told me they'd do that, but I did expect a few to survive. I was wrong.

I have a 40 gallon breeder tank with an Aqua-clear 50 HOB in one back corner and a sponge filter in the opposite one. It works fine. I don't have honey gourami in it, but I do have pearl gouramis. The flow doesn't seem to bother them. In a tank with a smaller footprint it might.

Do you mind if I ask which those are?

The only fry I feed are guppy fry. All the guppy tanks have a healthy amount of floating plants, so I feed the adults and juveniles in one corner of the tank and put the fry food toward the center. It floats into all the nooks and crannies in and between the floating plants where the fry can find it and eat it in relative safety.

I'm afraid not. I've always been puzzled by the name though. Mine have a horizontal stripe that's dark blue instead of black, with the neon lighter blue above it. I've seen serpae tetras mentioned a few times. They're another of my favorites, along with lemon tetras and pristella tetras. They have all been very hardy for me in my hard 8.2 pH water.

I have a moderately planted (bordering on heavily planted) 5.5 gallon tank on my desk at work. It has a light on a timer, but no filtration or air movement. It is currently stocked with seven juvenile endlers, ranging from about half grown to pretty much full size, and God only knows how many shrimp. I decided to take vacation time last Wednesday, so since Thursday was Thanksgiving, and we get the following Friday off for a holiday, the tank didn't get fed for five days. When I got to work yesterday morning the fish were fine. They acted hungry, but they always act hungry.

I often skip one day per week, and sometimes two, and occasionally those two days are consecutive.

I hate to disagree with replies above, but I have a moderately 5.5 gallon tank on my desk that doesn't have a filter or air movement. The only thing on it that requires power is a light. It's been running since June of last year and doing just fine. I change one gallon of water every week to ten days. Shrimp are thriving, and it currently also has seven juvenile endlers, though I'll almost certainly bring them home when I'm not at work over the holidays. As a disclaimer, with heavier stocking I'm not sure it would work.