Keeg

Havent tried banana, but the puffer did eat some strawberry

It looks like he's just lost some scales from running into stuff. Goldfish are pretty clumsy and its pretty common for them to run into aquarium decor and lose a couple scales.

White spots are a good signature of ich. It would be very helpful if you could post photos to this thread to further help identify the issue. Adding new fish to an aquarium might not directly cause ich, but could cause stress which can lead to ich. I can't be certain if it is ich without photos unfortunately. If you look on google and you can confidently say "yep, he has ich" then I would go ahead and quarantine him and treat him with Ich medication, like Ich-x

NEVER! I wish people would do this in my community, I feel like so much is wasted when people quit the hobby. This is honestly one of the best practices I've seen from a fish store. 10/10, co-op should consider a "thrifted" bucket if they dont already have one.

If it is a sponge, that means you have some of the best water parameters ever! Have your tried to grow a small chunk of it? Like one pebble? I know theres some freshwater sponges in the US, is it possible that you brought in some hardscape, or something from outside?

Sounds like better treatment than how they make foie gras 😂

I would say that fish keeping is like learning how to cook. Cooking can get expensive as you venture out to more exquisite meals and tastes. The only way you get better is with time. Yes you can take a class on how to make the perfect soup, but you can also pay for membership videos on "how to do the perfect scape". Start out small and simple, and eventually you'll be able to rely on your instincts rather than continuously returning to the cook book. A lot of the more experienced hobbyists got their skills from trial an error. Mistakes will, without a doubt, happen. The important thing is to learn from them and move on. Start with some fake plants, slowly move onto some hardy plants, start upgrading, try experimenting. I can't tell you how many times ive killed a new species of plant, because like everyone else here, are still learning everyday. When you feel confident and want to move onto more advanced setups, go ahead and try it. "Practice does not makes perfect, only perfect practice makes perfect" To summarize, you'll never get it right on your first try, but learning from those mistakes will allow yourself to better understand the hobby and care of your tanks.

What is your ideal gourami shape and color? With so many to choose from, I was only fond of certain ones. Kind of like bettas (but were talking about gourami gourami, not fish like bettas and paradise fish) Personally, I love full powder blue females with slight yellow tipped fins, short body, long pelvic fins, a slight hump on their head, and a stubby tail. I got mine from the co-op and I loved how perfect she was. I like the female ones more because of the rounded dorsal fin vs. a tipped one.

I totally agree that when using the longer and more specific names or organisms, my writing gets the red lines all over!! I don't think theres any "rules" to aquascaping, it's more like an art form where it's all subjective to each individual. When I first started with plants, I really only loved anubias and that was my aquascape, still love the look. But I know others would absolutely despise the look because of how different it was. For your tank, with only epitaphytes, I think it would be cool to see some green wavy buce tucked in between the cracks on the top of the rocks. Your scape reminds of a desert style and green wavy always looks like Christmas cactus to me.

I personally havent because im not a huge breeder or anything, but I feel like those who fish keeping more as a job and have large operation, I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

Never hear of keeping nettle as a floating plant, but I wouldn't touch the stuff to begin with. My best guess would the fuzz like needles could cause harm. Ive seen people boil them for shrimps but never live. Pretty cool plant to see alive in water.

SAME! Or just some top fin tropical flakes, everybody gets the basics.

Also kind of a joke but also not, it would be cool to have a natural puffer here, one that can't bit your fingers off at least. Most of the time, ive heard theres a ton of success with removing giant salvinia with salvinia beetles and then removing those beetles with other native species of beetles.

5 is pushing it, I would even say 10 is a bit small for 2. a 20 long would be great for 2 and I think a minimum size for a pair.

Does anybody else basically skim through practically the whole post to reach the oddballs😂? 10/10 love teugelsi bichir

Yeah I havent had any issues with dishwasher cleaned containers either. Havent tried it on things like bamboo sticks. But when I get a cup, I just rinse it out with some water and I think its good to go.

You never want to underdone antibiotics because they will adapt to it over time creating antibiotic resistant bacteria which is very bad and is why Canada banned the general use/ purchase of antibiotics for things like fish tanks. I would do a full and complete treatment

Its shaped kind of funky, but y'all get the point. Real experience meme 😬😂

I concur with @Atitagain, hot water does the trick. If its like a short tube, I occasionally use a fine bristled tooth brush.

I dont have very much experience with CO2, I feel like cutting it off quickly won't do anything to the fish. but if you're worried, I would tamper it slowly.

Ive seen ammonia be present in the water when the water treatment plant of the area used chlorine and ammonia to make chloramine to treat the water. The way I was able to "correct" it was by tripping the dose on my conditioner. The bottle explicitly said to on the directions. With ammonium, its dependent on the ph levels of the water. I would say that your ammonium problem is a result of your CO2 dropping the ph relatively fast. The first thing I would do would to stop the CO2 and ferts and fully complete the cycle. Personally I like a "fish in" cycle because thats always how ive done it, but you could remove the tetra and kulfi loach because where I t stands right now, 3.0 ammonia is already pretty bad for the fish. If you choose to keep the fish in the tank, do some water changes to lower the ammonia levels temporarily (and or add some Prime), then add some beneficial bacteria to help the cycle finish out. Then add the fish back to slowly adjust the bio load. And if everything runs smoothly, start dosing ferts again, check everything is alright, then I would start doing CO2 again. Summary: Your CO2 probably caused your ph to crash pretty fast, causing the ammonia in the tank to convert to ammonium. Solution: Stop CO2 and ferts, remove fish, and complete the cycle before adding them back. Then start CO2 and ferts in the future.

Definitely not frog eggs, they dont have a coating around them. And they are shaped like a grain of Japanese rice. I dont know if it counts as nearby. but I had a pond on the same property, around 200 feet away. Or if it helps, there was a rain storm before they showed up. They looks pretty similar except that these pods seem shiner and more black than the eggs on google images. Im still working on getting my hands on a microscope, in the meantime, I have a cluster of them in some tape and they seem to e holding really well.