JettsPapa

Most people will say to have one male to two or three females, and that's likely best, but at one time my tank had about 2/3 males and I didn't have any problems (that wasn't intentional; it's difficult to sex them when young).

I'd say try to find some white guppies, but they sometimes don't mix well with bettas.

It sounds like that clerk needs to stick to selling dog food, or anything except work in the fish department.

Hello, I'm the weirdo that has had up to fourteen of them in a single tank (currently eleven in a 40 gallon breeder). I'd also suggest giving it a few days, but if it persists there are a couple of things you can try. First, are there large plants, or other structures that give hiding places and line-of-sight breaks? If not, adding some stands a good chance of helping. Second, it might be counterintuitive, but adding more of them will likely spread the aggression around so that no single fish is being repeatedly harassed. This is assuming you have room for more, of course.

This was playing on Pandora when I read your post. It will not only date me, but give a strong indication of my location. I remember seeing him play at local county fairs 40 years ago.

Most plants do just fine for me in sand (which is the only substrate I've ever used). I occasionally add in a few root tabs, but they seem to get enough nutrients from the water. If you want to use an enriched substrate, I tried a budget rich soil in the last tank I set up. I started with about 1" of dry cow manure at the bottom (I have cows, so it was free, but you can buy it in the garden department in home improvement stores). I put 1" of potting soil on top of that, and then about 2" of pool filter sand. I haven't had it going long enough yet to see how it works, but so far it seems to be okay. I had bubbles come up through the sand for weeks after adding water, but they didn't seem to bother the guppies.

I had a very small horned nerite snail show up in my 40 gallon breeder tank a few months ago. I assume it came in with plants also, but I'll never know for sure.

Yours is a special situation instead of a brand new tank. I don't think it really matters much which order you stock it. If there are no other inhabitants in the tank you're moving them from you could move the filter over to this tank when you move the fish, but it's probably not necessary.

Normally I'd recommend adding the more fragile fish, like otos, last, but that's for new tanks. In this case, you might want to add them fairly soon, especially if there's still algae, biofilm, etc in the tank. My typical recommendation for a community tank is to add the less expensive and more hardy inhabitants first, which would generally be fish like tetras or rasboras. When they're all in, wait a couple weeks then add the center piece fish, followed by bottom dwellers (since bottom dwellers are often more susceptible to poor water conditions). In new tanks I don't recommend adding shrimp or otocinclus until the tank is at least three months old, but again, this is a different situation. Snails can go in just about any time.

If you don't want offspring then putting him in the tank with the other males would be the best option. Do you mind if I ask why you don't want them to breed? They have a very small bioload.

Don't believe everything you read. I've used two different brands of pool filter sand (don't remember the names). I haven't rinsed either one. One of them didn't cause any cloudiness when I filled the tank, and the other one only had a small amount that was cleared up the next day, so I don't consider that a big enough issue to bother with cleaning. I get mine from pool supply stores. I saw some at one of the big box home improvement stores, but the label said it has some kind of special additive. It didn't give specific information on that additive, and the brand name of the pool filter sand was Clorox, so I was concerned about using it in a fish tank and buy it. I use Black Diamond sandblasting sand from Tractor Supply when I want a darker substrate. It does need a considerable amount of rinsing.

I've not noticed that they show up better at different angles, but it's certainly possible. And as far as I know there isn't a mechanism for marking answers as correct (other than the options when hovering on the "Like" icon at the lower right of each reply).

I'm pretty sure that line was there when you bought her, and you just didn't notice it. It's not an indication of impending molt, but a common marking referred to as a "racing stripe". It's somewhat common in red shrimp, very common in yellow ones, and uncommon with blue shrimp (in fact, I've never seen it on a blue one). It will typically get wider, with more ragged edges, as a shrimp gets older. Below is a picture of a brown shrimp in one of my cull tanks that has it.

Tetras are shoaling fish that will often be stressed, and harass their tank mates, if they don't have enough of their own species to help them feel safe and keep their attention. You will often see six cited as the minimum number of a species to have in a tank, but more is always better, as long as you don't overstock. I prefer eight as a minimum.

I would separate them and spread them around. When they get well established you can cut them in half and plant the cut off portion. The parent plant will sprout new growth, and the cut off part will grow roots and then start getting taller, so one plant turns into two. Repeat as needed.

I hate to be a wet blanket, but if you already have three species of tetra in a 20 gallon tank I wouldn't add a fourth. How many of each do you have currently?

I went to a used book store yesterday and picked up a few books to take on vacation. The one on top is by an author I'm not familiar with, but it looked interesting. The others are all from authors I've read before. I don't think I've read a book before that Steve White wrote solo, but I've read a number of them where he collaborated with other authors, and I liked all of them. Hopefully I'll like this one, but I also like books that Linda Evans collaborates on, and I didn't much care for the one I read that she wrote by herself. I think I have all of Elmer Kelton's novels, but this book is a collection of some of his short stories. I couldn't stand waiting and started on it last night. As I believe I mentioned in a post earlier in this thread, in my opinion he's the best ever to write westerns, with Elmore Leonard a close second, and then Louis L'Amour.

As long as they're completely dead and brown I would think they're probably okay, but I don't have any experience with them. The only ones I've used have been post oak, red oak, magnolia, and sycamore.

Water sprite does better floating than planted for me also. I've had it get close to 12" across.

Believe it or not, I added rams horn snails on purpose. The bladder snails were a surprise though.

I believe it would.

The individual containers is a good idea, but I've also used a set of the small measuring spoons. "Pinch" isn't a very precise measurement. How long will you be gone? Unless it's a week or longer the fish would probably be fine without feeding.

It's a little high for fish, especially in high pH water, but not really very bad. Fish are generally okay as long as the combined ammonia and nitrites don't exceed 1.0 ppm (for short periods, of course; they should both be near zero long-term). And that amount is definitely not a problem for plants.

Malaysian trumpet snails will take care of that for you.

I believe @Chick-In-Of-TheSeanailed it. My pH is higher than yours (8.2), and most plants do just fine. Also, plants use ammonia, so that's also unlikely to be the problem (unless it's extraordinarily high; you just said it's high and didn't give a value).