Odd Duck

Chilis are very tiny and if you haven’t seen both in person you might not realize how different they are in size if you’re only looking at their length comparisons. They are great in a good sized group with appropriate tank mates but most gouramis have a large enough mouth to eat a chili easily. Harlequin rasboras are both longer, thicker, and deeper bodied and should be safer with a honey gourami if the harlequins are not too small when put together. Adult chilis are probably just a bit less than 1/4 the body mass of an adult harlequin to give you a better idea of size. You might get crazy lucky and raise a honey gourami with chilis but chances are your chilis would gradually disappear at some point. The risk to harlequins would be minimal even if you got the slightly smaller species.

Both julii and trilineatus have notable black spots in the dorsal fin. I’m not sure what species this one is but I don’t think it’s either of those. Try posting it on the Planetcatfish forum and see what they say.

Meh. Tannins are good for the fish. They’ll water change out . . . eventually. 😆 Tell her it’s a blackwater tank! It’s supposed to look that way! You might change your mind at some point just for her. Then when it water changes out she’ll know you did it for her.

I just noticed you’re in Texas, Howdy and welcome to the forum. You’re only 6.5 hours away from me. 😆 I also see both gold and ivory ramshorns in your pics. What would be the chances of you shipping some of each color to me? Or maybe you’re planning a trip to DFW for the eclipse? 😉

Same, @jwcarlson, same.

Some of the plastic ones are OK but if you do much adjusting, they wear out quickly. Plus the metal ones tend to be a bit more precise.

Yes, ramshorns. And yes, blue leopard and pinks. I’ll attach a basic chart of colors.

Looks like more ramshorn snails. A couple (or maybe a trio?) of larger ones (much smaller than the biggest one in the pic) plus a couple more tiny ones hanging off the “medium” ones. Ramshorns look quite flat and proportionately wider when they are smaller than pea sized. They get a bit less “square” looking as they grow and you can start to see that one side of the whorl is indented further as they grow.

I see that you said pandas, you posted pictures of pandas, and my silly old brain still was thinking pygmies. 🤦🏻‍♀️ 🤷🏻‍♀️ Sometimes I wonder where it’s wandered off! 😝 Most pandas are sold large enough to be OK with all but adult angels and they grow faster than angels so usually if juveniles are put together you would be OK with pandas and angels. I would guess that particularly cantankerous angels might pick on very young juvie pandas so I can’t completely rule it out although it's certainly much less likely an issue than pygmy cories would be. They are so tiny and adorable! Pandas are adorable, too, and I would have a shoal of pandas if I had a tank right for them. I’m hoping that once you get everything in the tank sorted and everybody dewormed that your fish will show you nice, robust health!

I could be wrong, but I believe orange is usually a pigment, not a structural color. It can be seen differently depending on muscle control of chromatophores, but it’s usually an actual pigment. Blue is nearly always a structural color with how the light reflects off microscopic structures in the skin or on the surface like on a blue butterflies wings or bird wings. Google tells me less than 1% of animals have blue pigment but there is one species of butterfly that produces a blue pigment - the obrina olivewing butterfly (who knew), and the blue poison dart frog also produces blue pigment. I’m sure if I dig deep enough into google there I could fine more, but it’s exceedingly rare. That is why we need some light on the animal to see the blue clearly and why blue is sometime metallic looking in some animals. More nerdy info that will bore most people. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Albinism is specifically lack of melanin, which is why leucistic is sometimes considered a form of albinism despite sometimes still having other pigments present. Leucism is also defined somewhat differently in different species of animals. Generally it’s defined as reduced pigments (including melanin, yellow, orange, etc) but leucistic animals usually still have a dark eye. Lucy snakes species are usually all white with dark eyes. Axolotls the same - white with dark eyes. Leopard geckos usually still have a bit or a lot of yellow. Leucistic cockatiels (usually called lutinos) also have both yellow and orange still present and usually (nearly always) have dark eyes. Many lucies will develop pigment spots as they get older and they can be born with pigment spots. “Dirty” and “calico” super red bristlenose plecos and blue-eyed lemons whether they have spots or not, are all likely some form of leucism. Snow white plecos are also probably lucies since they are white with dark eyes. I’m definitely not an expert but it’s been an interest of mine and I’ve occasionally taken a dip in that genetic knowledge pool over the years. 😝 I don’t think the chocolates qualify as albino even with lack of melanin in the eyes. It may be an unusual manifestation of albinism but I don’t think the fish would qualify as a true albino with that much melanin in the skin. It might fit into a long stretch of the leucistic definition but I’m not sure. I’m not sure how much that clears anything up or if it confuses things further. I have not watched the linked video to see what they say. All this is just definitions to start, then my personal experience on what people generally call lucies.

It will grow reasonably well for most, but might not have as much color as some get without CO2.

Second one looks like Hygrophila pinnatifida. Agree on the first, too, Temple Plant, Hygrophila corymbosa like @EricksonAquatics and @JE47 said.

Yes, both links work!

The bigger the group the less they hide. When you get to 30 or more (might not be possible with your current set up) they are much bolder. They are not as bold as some other species, but the bigger group does help. They do like to have plenty of hides nearby and with a betta in the tank, they are much more likely to use them. I don’t have any bigger top water fish (loads of cories and plecos on the bottom) and they are bolder. When i tried a small group with pea puffers, they hid. Those are now in with others in my 100G nanofish and bottom dwellers tank and much happier.

There are 6 species in the Boraras genus. Chilis - B. brigittae, Dwarf - B. maculatus, Phoenix - B. merah, Three-spotted Dwarf - B. micros, Strawberry - B. naevus, and last but least [see what I did there?] Least AKA Exclamation Point - B. urophthalmoides. Whew, those scientific names! Especially that last one. They can all apparently hybridize so there are hybrids making their way into the hobby and they drop color when captured, shipped, etc, so the three most common ones are easily mistaken for each other. All that said, I’m not 100% certain which you’ve got there, @YAMA! I THINK it’s most likely chili since the exclamation points I’ve seen have significantly less red/pink color and show a gold line above their black line with a very straight, bold, and distinct line that isn’t the somewhat wiggly thing that’s going on in your pics. Chilis often have a slightly narrower, slightly wiggly line that shows a less precise taper than exclamation points if that makes sense. They also have a more distinct, more rounded spot in the tail than chilis which is almost a tiny dash in most of them. The other 4 species are the more “spotted” ones and those can be very hard to distinguish between them. I also don’t remember seeing B. micro in person yet but haven’t looked for them specifically. OK, that’s pretty much the sum of my Boraras species knowledge (definitely had to look up those scientific binomials). Hope that maybe helps? 😆

Most test strips aren’t too bad, but most don’t have ammonia and won’t give you notice as things start to go awry. You have to get separate ammonia strips. I also don’t just trust the strips alone. I double check against my drop test kit if it’s something important. I do use strips as a quick check if I think things aren’t going well. Then I check with my drop kit if I still suspect an issue that my strips haven’t shown me. I’m usually getting fresh water ready by that time, too. I have also sometimes used the strips to see if I need to add ferts. Most of my tanks have lots of plants and if they aren’t doing well, I’ll dip a strip. The tiniest trace of pink on the nitrate strip tells me I likely need to add ferts if it’s plants I really want to do well. 😝 It’s my lazy way to check, honestly. It’s just so much quicker than drop testing.

That’s a big drop, for sure. Could potentially have caused issues if it happened fast enough. I do think the angels could have been at least part of the issue with the pygmy cories. Pygmies are bite size for angels and I would not put them together myself. Larger cories are fine but angels do tend to like warmer temps than cories, so keep that in mind with fish selection also. When you keep most cory species with angels you are either pushing the top end for cories or the low end for angels. I keep my Jack Dempseys at the low end of their ideal range to prevent them from breeding. It’s been quite effective for about 3 years now. But it isn’t ideal for their health. Letting them breed wouldn’t be ideal for my mental health, though, so it is what it is unfortunately. When I rescued them I kept them in the middle of,their ideal range and they bred, twice, before I wised up. I had to deal with about 1600 fry between the 2 clutches. 1600-ish. It was insane how many fish I had to deal with. I was giving them away by the hundreds before I was done. 🤦🏻‍♀️ So the Jacks are a bit cooler than they prefer and I do warm water changes instead of cool water changes for them as another way to minimize breeding triggers. It sounds like you have good circulation but if you like bubble walls, then use it. It certainly won’t hurt anything other than cleaning up more spatter but with such low mineral water it shouldn’t be too bad. Those bubbles lifting help stir the water and bring lower level water up to the surface. They will also tend to roll over the whole water mass which is a good thing. Place your other filters in such a way that they will encourage that roll over effect and the entire tank will benefit. Personally I hate Melafix and Bettafix products. Melaleuca oil has no business being in the tank water. It has been proven to be a respiratory irritant and has potential to coat and inflame the gills. It is definitely not something I would ever use and I recommend against its use often. The only use I can see for it would be to paint it on a wound. But there are better, more effective, and safer products for that. It doubt it would ever be an approved product if it had to go through studies like FDA drugs. Just my opinion. Well, that’s a scattered around post - Squirrell! But hopefully some helpful tidbits in there.

I suspect the pet store employee would be truly shocked to know that I recently plopped 10 pygmy cories and 10 ember tetras all in the same 10 G quarantine tank. Plus I put 16 chili rasboras and 16 kubotai rasboras into another 10 G quarantine tank a couple days later. Both tanks are planted, well seasoned, over-filtered, and have some ramshorn snails running around. I moved guppies out of each tank to put these fish in the grow-out turned QT tanks. Haven’t lost a single one of the fish. I “get away with” breaking a lot of “rules” by having a good idea of the bioload the tanks can carry, by doing appropriate water changes, and by being careful to not overfeed (that last part is a constant struggle for me). Lots of plants help expand the biofiltration capacity of the tanks, loads of sponge filtration whether it’s,y sponge substrate over undergravel filters or sponge in the HOB filters, emerse plants, tiny fish going in the tank, etc, etc, etc. I’m quite certain your 6 pygmy cories produce less waste than that single mystery snail. As long as you don’t overfeed and have rotting food laying around you should be fine. Keep track of your parameters! As long as no spikes you can very gradually increase your feeding (the goal is only tiny bits of food are left for a few hours - a bit like a micro version of blind-feeding to cycle a tank) you can gradually increase your biofiltration capacity (your goal is to grow your beneficial bacteria). You should NOT have big globs of rotten food laying around. A few tiny speckles at most and not even every day. In a week or so you should be able to add another 6 pygmy cories. You MUST be aware that any time there are visible bits of food waste you are potentially playing with fire as a less experienced aquarist. I like fire. Heh hehe, heh heh, heh heh. I also have been keeping fish since 1975. Yes, I’m old. It can be a very fine line! But with 30 gallons and tiny pygmy cories, you have some leeway. Just be careful and be ready to change water quickly if needed and dose with prime if needed. Don’t get too carried away with feeding! Good luck.

How big were the angels? I ask because losing an eye can be from other fish picking on them and so can red spots on the body. That makes me wonder if you didn’t have an angel bully (they don’t always have angelic behavior). Then the deaths caused ammonia surges that started everything in a downward spiral? Speculative at this point. I agree with @Colu on doing a very strict regimen on deworming since timing is critical to break the parasite’s lifecycle for the best chance to fully clear the parasites. Gill redness is often secondary to excess ammonia, nitrites, or long term, significantly elevated nitrates. Your parameters don’t sound bad at all, but you could still have had some transient spikes. In a mature tank the spike can get pretty high fast and then clear before you test it. Gasping at the top of the water implies either low oxygen in the water or gill burn causing poor oxygen absorption from inflamed and thickened gills. I definitely recommend an extra airstone or 2 with any history of fish gasping at the surface. If cories are gasping at the surface (not just their normal dash and gulp but persistent gasping), things are very serious and you should immediately add extra airstones, test the water, then change water, or otherwise dramatically increase water surface exchange / turnover. Angels are more likely to surface gasp because they are more likely to spend time at the top. But it’s still a very serious symptom for the tank as a whole. Is there any film at the surface or persistent bubbles on the surface? I know lots of questions vs. the answers you want. But we can figure out more with more information and give better quality of advice if we know more.

Personally, I’m trying to get rid of duckweed since it’s a nuisance when trying to net out fish, move plants around, clean the tank, etc. Aquarist glitter as they say since it sticks to everything, shows up where you least expect it, etc. It has its good points just like any other aquarium plant, but I like plants that are easier to control instead. Frogbit, red root floaters, etc. As far as why you’re having issues, we would have to see your water parameters to give you a better idea of why it isn’t prospering as any parameters too far in any direction could cause it to not do well. Are you testing your water? Do you use test strips or drop tests like the API Master Test Kit? Can you tell us your typical results please? And if you have a series of them, make a chart of list for us if you can. Ammonia: X, Y, Z . . . Nitrite: Nitrate: GH: KH: Temperature: Plus your tank size (is that a 5 or a 10 gallon?), type of filter (or rather what your HOB is packed with - carbon cartridge, sponge, Biorings, other. How often you add your fertilizer? Do you check your nitrate level afterwards to see if you’re getting to the level you need / want? I can’t find the nutrient analysis info on your fertilizer. I do have this handy chart for comparison for others including Easy Green (which looks very good in this comparison chart). To get more precise nutrient control you have to start mixing your own. If you can get Easy Green from ACO, it’s a very good fertilizer as you can see for yourself on the chart.

Then I’d suggest making some floating rings to corral the floaters since none of them like surface agitation. Some can tolerate it but none like it. Most dislike surface spatter or drips but frogbit tolerates it far better than red root floaters. If you get a sense enough mat of floaters they make their own surface calm and block spatters from air stones from getting to the top surface of the leaves. Most floaters tolerate undersurface water flow just fine as long as they aren’t just churning around. I’ve done rings to keep an area free of floaters and rings to keep them contained whichever you prefer. I do like the double diameter silicone airline and matching fittings for floating rings. More expensive but they work 10 times better than regular airline. They also last much longer than regular airline and are very re-usable. Here’s red roots in moderate light and a bit too much nitrates to get optimal color. See the lighter, greener streak across them? That's where the opaque hinge blocked the light. Plus a closer pic showing their adorable, tiny flowers. See the tiny spatter droplets on the surface? They can tolerate some as long as it isn’t too much.

I think you might have more than duckweed there. Those “roots” are very thick for duckweed so I suspect you may have some staghorn or hair algae growing among your duck weed. Could even be some Riccia.

I don’t know the exact number that gets the best color from red root floaters but that is likely a bit high to get maximum red. It’s a perfectly good number for most plants except for the plants that get their best color in “lean” waters. I’m definitely not a plant expert and I honestly don’t fiddle with my water chemistry much other than to blend RO with my very hard tap water to varying mixes depending on the fish species in the tank. My plants have to rough it! 😆 I know just enough to get a feel for the tank status based on hints from floaters and other various things.

Smart to do some salt to start but with hard water you can probably gradually water change out the salt and they should be fine. I have no idea if overseas they use some seawater but guppies do like hard water and never seem to mind some salt. Gorgeous fish, for sure!