JettsPapa

What are you afraid of? I have either pool filter sand or sandblasting sand in all eight tanks. I've never had gravel.

I've posted it here before, but I took an acrylic measuring cup and drilled a bunch of holes in the side to use when adding water to a tank. I hang it on the side of the tank and pour the water into it to disperse the flow so it doesn't disturb the plants or substrate.

Did you see my reply above?

I don't have guppies and black neon tetras in the same tank, but I do have them both, and I don't do anything to alter my water chemistry.

Here.

What is the stocking in the tank? Unless it's something that really needs low pH I wouldn't worry about it too much (assuming it doesn't keep rising). I have a wide range of fish, shrimp, and snails doing just fine in 8.2 pH water.

I'll have to disagree with the reply above. That doesn't indicate a readiness to molt. However, it's not anything to worry about. It's commonly called a "racing stripe", and is just a characteristic of some shrimp. It will commonly get wider, with more ragged edges, as the shrimp ages. It's fairly common with red shrimp and very common on yellow ones, but I don't think I've ever seen a blue shrimp or rili shrimp that had it.

My experience has been 10% to 20% of retail for fish and shrimp and around 30% for plants. That's for payment. You can probably do better if it's for store credit.

They will be small, but they're considerably less expensive ordering from Aqua Huna.

I said that I use pool filter sand, and will almost certainly use it again in the future, but I get mine from pool supply stores. I saw some at one of the big home improvement stores, but it said it had some kind of additive to make it work better. It didn't elaborate on the type of additive, but the brand name of the sand was Clorox, so I was reluctant to try it.

MTS (Multiple Tank Syndrome) strikes again! I'd be surprised if there's a fish keeper out there who hasn't done the same thing. I know I did. It doesn't have to be. I have eight tanks, and they all have either pool filter sand or Black Diamond sandblasting sand, depending on which color I wanted. Neither is expensive.

I'm late to the party, but I'm a big fan of shallow tanks. My 40 gallon breeder and 20 gallon long are some of my favorite tanks. I sometimes hold a drinking straw with one end just sticking up above the top of the water and drop the food in it. That way it gets past most of the fish that would otherwise grab it on the way down. Obviously that's when feeding pellets or similar food; it wouldn't work for flakes.

Nice. One of the LFS's I go to in Houston has "Buy 6, get one free" on almost all of their fish all the time. I like it because it encourages less experienced fish keepers to get adequate numbers of shoaling and schooling fish.

I've mentioned this here before, but I still use buckets, but not the typical 5-gallon buckets. Instead I use a 2-1/2 gallon bucket that I got at one of the chain pet stores. It has a spout , and a recess at the bottom on the opposite side, to make pouring easier, and marks on the inside in 1/2 gallon increments. It takes twice as many trips as with a 5-gallon bucket, but so what?

That isn't likely to become an issue. Neocaridina shrimp have a small bioload. I've taken 50 out of a 10 gallon tank to sell without making a noticeable difference in the population. A 29 gallon tank wouldn't be overstocked with 300 of them. If you do ever get more than you want it's likely that any locally owned fish/aquarium store will be happy to take them, and may give you money or store credit. If your water parameters are okay for them I'd recommend getting some. The link below has some basic information about them that I posted a while ago that you might like to take a look at.

I have also seen reports that serpae tetras are aggressive, but I haven't seen it. I've had some in a 40 gallon breeder with pristella tetras, Corydoras trilineatus, and 12 pearl gouramis for well over two years, and have never seen any aggression from them. The numbers of the serpae tetras have never been less than eight. While I of course can't promise anything, I think it's likely that adding four or so will help with the aggression problem. And I agree that they're gorgeous fish, especially in planted tanks. Their color contrasts nicely with green plants.

I saw a tip for cooking kale online a while ago. "Always add a little oil to the pan when cooking kale. That makes it easier to scrape it out of the pan and into the trash can."

I don't know how cold it gets there, but I don't move my guppies inside until the air temperature is forecast to get below 55°.

I think they're Red rainbowfish (Glossolepis incisus, also known as Irian rainbowfish).

I have a simple method. It's not scientific, and won't give numbers, but it will give you a rough idea. The next time you take a shower, after you've rinsed the soap off but are still wet, run the palm of your hand along the opposite forearm. If it's kind of jerky, you have hard water. If it's smooth, and feels like the arm is still soapy, you have soft water.

I bag fish when I'm taking them to the store. I figure if they're okay being in transit for several days when people ship them they should be okay for an hour or so in my truck.

I agree with @nabokovfan87. We could help more if we knew what you plan to stock the tank with.

Same here. I only clean the glass I look through, which is never more than the front and one side, and often just the front. Oddly enough (though maybe it isn't that odd, and it happens with everyone), the larger the tank the less scraping they need. I can't remember the last time I cleaned the glass on my 65 gallon tank. I cleaned the front on the 40 gallon breeder last week, but it had probably been a year since the last time. The smaller tanks usually need it once or twice each month.

I have bladder snails, rams horn snails, and Malaysian trumpet snails in all my tanks, and the rams horn snails are much more prevalent than the bladder snails in all of them.

You wouldn't need a 55 for them, but female albino koi guppies are relentless fry hunters. That's been my experience, and I've had other people tell me the same thing. I've had three of them in a moderate to heavily planted tank with a male for a year or longer. I've seen one fry . . . and I only saw it once.