Odd Duck

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!

I watch how fast it’s growing and how big each leaf grows. If the plant is growing gangbusters it’s likely getting too much nutrients so I dial back the feeding. I tend towards being too heavy handed on feeding. If it looks puny and it’s in planted tanks (vs the tanks where it’s the only plant) then I likely need to step up ferts for the sake of the other plants. Red root floaters can be used to roughly judge the amount of nitrates present - kind of an overall picture over time. They turn red better with somewhat scanty nitrates and plenty of light. It can be hard to get them to a nice red with too much nitrates.

Some like zucchini better than cucumber. Or yellow squash. I’m not sure what else to recommend. You seem like you’ve got everything covered and parameters right.

BAND app is another option for finding local sellers, fellow aquarists, or clubs. Frogbit usually grows like mad once you get it established since the leaves have access to much more CO2 than is in the water. Red root floaters are slightly more finicky but once they establish they can choke out a tank, too. I’ve thrown away gallons worth of both when I’ve had tanks that were producing like mad. I sometimes use their growth rate to help determine how often I need to change water. 😆

Sure. They hide so much that it was hard to see them. Even the solo Bad Pea Daddy (AKA BPD) would hide a lot. He had fish in the tank next to him so he had visual contact with “dithers”. He got fed the most enticing live foods I could manage every day. He got frequent water changes to optimize his health. Yet he still hid most of the time to the point I didn’t realize he had yeeted himself out of the tank for 3 days. The shoal of peas that I worked soooooo hard to acquire and raise the right sex ratio - 2 males and 7 females in a heavily planted 29 G, with all the same consisting as BOD, would still hide so much I could rarely get an accurate count on them. There were always some that were so sun-dominant I barely saw them eat. They had plenty of live foods every day: 3 different species of snails, whiteworms, blackworms, Grindal worms, Daphnia, and / or scuds daily. Adults wouldn’t eat microworms or vinegar eels, rarely ate any frozen foods, never ate any dried or freeze dried foods and never ate any live wingless fruit flies. They were such jerks to each other that they whittled down their population to 4 (1 male, 3 females) by the time I finally moved them to a ridiculously heavy planted 10 G. Then they whittled down to a single female who just recently passed, possibly of old age. When / if I found bodies they always had bite marks and other injuries. They don’t call them murder beans for nothing! While all fish have potential to be territorial and have occasional battles, most nanofish won’t actually kill each other. I’m not really fond of fish that regularly kill each other. Angels are as far as I go and if mine start to be bullies they get pulled out of the tank and go into isolation for a few weeks. My Jack Dempseys when not breeding are far wimpier than my angels (not in the same tank) and the bigger of the little festivums is the tank boss over the Jacks. The silver dollars in that tank only spar among themselves. So it boils down to fish being jerks which is not my jam. The Jacks and Festivums are tolerable, the angels are tolerable. The pea puffers are stone cold killers. BPD killed 6 pea puffers (3 peas x 2 tries at breeding groups when he was younger) and tried to kill number 7 before I gave up on integrating him into a shoal. And the dominant male in the shoal and whoever else helped him, plus the dominant female, between them killed 7 more peas. Not my jam. I really did learn a lot about keeping live foods when I had them and still keep live food cultures for other fish. But I won’t deliberately choose another highly aggressive yet territorial, shoaling fish.

That all sounds perfect. Have you tried offering some veggies yet so they can munch if they want? Maybe that will trigger more appetite. I would still offer the meaty foods daily, too. Did you buy the fish from a breeder or pet store? Did you have to have them shipped or buy directly? If they had to be shipped they might have gotten some ammonia burn on their gills and not want to eat. Have you noticed them breathing faster at all? Can be hard to see with plecos depending on how they position themselves. I can’t think of anything else right now. Your answers have ruled out most of the obvious potential issues. I know it probably feels like I’m giving you the third degree but I’m just floating out questions as I think of them trying to help you figure this out. It’s hard when we aren’t right there and able to look, test, etc, ourselves. I guess I would still add an air stone to the tank, too. You can’t have too much air without doing crazy stuff and a little more air just might help. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Wood present and is it seasoned / aged? Veggies? Was the tank fully cycled? How did you cycle it? How big are the plecos now? Do I have it right that the tank is 4 weeks old now? How long have you had fish in this tank? Was the filter brand new? Did you see the tank go through a full cycle? Did you challenge the biofiltration before adding the fish? I forgot an important question - are the plecos wild caught or tank raised?

If you can place the tubes in front of the white portion of the card it’s much easier to tell the color. Those look OK from what I can tell, but with such low nitrates, was the tank fully cycled? I going to ask a lot of questions because the more we know about your set up and experience, the more likely it is that we can help you pinpoint any issues and get things back on track. What size tank? What type of filter? How long has the tank been set up? Have you fed any vegetables? Is there well-seasoned wood in the tank? Are there caves in the tank and how many? What size caves? How many total fish and what size are they? How long have you had them? Do you have experience with other pleco species? What pH? What temp do you have the tank? It should be 76-86’F (26-31’C) with midrange to slightly higher usually suggested. By the way, not many cories are going to like the middle or high end of the normal temp range for zebra plecos. In fact, most fish aren’t going to really like this temp range. They’re from a small section of the Rio Xingu river so you may need to try to match those parameters for them to do well. Do you have extra aeration in the tank? They do like higher temps than most plecos but need extra aeration since they are from warm, but fast moving waters that tumble over lots of rocky areas, so they still carry good dissolved oxygen levels (which tend to drop at higher temps so extra aeration is important). I know this is a lot, but we need you to help us help you. This is a more particular species than most which is why so many questions.

Pea puffers are TOUGH and very challenging to maintain. The last of mine finally passed and I won’t be getting more as they aren’t really the right fit for me, either. And I tried very hard, even raised some babies from eggs (somewhat by accident, honestly). I would leave the tank running with no fish for at least 2 weeks, 4 weeks would likely be better. Leave snails in, they’re fine. Then just work on getting plants back the way you want them. Root tabs, liquid ferts, dial in the lights, etc. Make any necessary adjustments to flow rate of the filter you need for flowy-finned bettas if that’s what you settle on. Outflow baffle, for instance, to slow any current without reducing flow rate through the filter. Then you should only need to pick out the fish you want. You shouldn’t need any big changes to the tank as your filter will be fine as long as any excessive current is controlled / baffled, and your substrate isn’t really important to bettas other than making sure it isn’t sharp. Make sure you feed the snails so your biofiltration maintains. You may (or may not) have a tiny ammonia / nitrite / nitrate bump as you have some beneficial bacteria die off from decreased feeding without a pea puffer in the tank. They are such messy eaters! But you should still maintain enough to account for a betta as long as you keep at least a little bit of food going in for the snails.

Levamisole or fenbendazole are more likely to take out the species of internal parasites pea puffers are more likely to get. ParaCleanse gets other species of worms that are possible but less likely. Deworming with Expel-P (if you’re in the US) would be the first step I would recommend. There are highly variable differences on expected age of pea puffers depending on the source you’re reading. Some as low as 3-4 years, some as high as 6, some say even up to 12 years but I find this last extremely unlikely. My oldest pea puffer was about 3 years old when she finally passed a few months ago. My biggest was a solo male (see 6 G Buce link below) was HUGE for a pea puffer before he yeeted himself out of the tank when I took my eyes off for a second during a water change and I missed it completely. He was around 2 years old as near as I can estimate from his size when I got him and he was at least double the mass of any of the other pea puffers I’ve had and I’ve had several including raising a dozen or so from eggs and raising multiple juveniles trying to form a solid shoal with the right sex ratios to keep the tanks within reasonable behavior expectations. I mention all this because none of mine ever had teeth issues. And your kiddo may just be showing signs of age and a potential internal issue that may not be parasites. But it’s possible to treat for parasites and worth trying at least. @Colu, I was nearly done with my reply when I saw you posted. We’re both thinking along the same lines, for sure.