Goosedub

Good morning, Inam setting up a tank with some larger species of fish. I’m thinking some large corydoras would be good to add. What varieties of Cory cat are on the bigger side?

I also really like my black mollies

Hello, I just bought this stem plant. I totally forgot what it was called. Can anyone ID it for me. Sorry for the cloudy water, stirred up some stuff before planting.

Endlers have a pretty wide range of temp tolerance, and Variatus platys, not as wide as a rice fish or white cloud though.

Biscuit the pea puffer

Going to get some African Dwarf frogs for some fry control. Do you guys QT? I know many don’t QT inverts but wasn’t sure on frogs.

Also you can make your own caves out of slate tile and silicone if you can’t find one.

They are going to be longer than the 55 is deep pretty soon. I would go with the deeper 75gallon if you are upgrading size. Otherwise they soon won’t have room to turn around.

I find it preferable to have clear sides on the QT so you can see your fish better. It is better to take some filter media from another tank and use that. It is going to take you a really long time to cycle a bucket and usually you need a qt I’m a hurry. It is good to have some PVC or plastic plants or something for the fish to hide in for their comfort

I live In Chicago. It’s hard to get a sense of the popularity here. There aren’t as many LFSs as I would expect. They also seem to be Cichlids or saltwater heavy. I have one that does a really good job with plants and community fish that I like to go to. That being said I don’t venture to the suburbs much so there may be more out there.

You can definitely have a betta in a community tank. It might eat your shrimp babies. It should go fine with the corydoras and Otos. I would add the Betta last, as then it is coming in to another fishes’ “territory” but totally doable.

I have an UGF on one of my tanks. The water is really clear and I have never had an issue with nutrients. It’s not a very old tank though. I mostly set the tank up this way to try it out, seems to be working really well and it is aesthetically pleasing.

I just don’t worry if I miss a day of feeding. I don’t feed 7 days a week, probably 5-6. My endler tanks with fry get fed multiple times per day, the other tanks once per day.

Alright. So I did a thing… I decided to try am experiment. My 20 L display tank is well established. It had hundreds of snails in it. So I decided to move Biscuit the pea puffer in to see how things go. So far things have been going really well. Biscuit and King (My Betta) had a square off when Infirst put the pea puffer in the tank. I think King was just checking him out, and Biscuit backed down. Ever since, they have mostly avoided each other and Inhave seen zero aggression from either of them. I have been watching very closely for the past few days since going in. I love these 2 fish and hope they continue to get along. They both just kind of roam around and stay out of the other’s way. No chasing at all. Let’s hope it stays that way

Pygmy Cory’s are pretty small. I suppose I can see it. I have never kept blood parrots, but would like to. I though a Corydora would be a good roommate. Interested to see if anyone else has experience with this combo.

Blood parrots have tiny mouths and can’t even close them all the way. I would be amazed if they ate a Cory. where did you see this @Colu?

I have it in one of my tanks. It spreads fast and sucks up nitrates. I don’t have any experience with duckweed m. I think it looks nice and my endlers love it.

Thanks I’m going to check it out

I think they are the same! Where did you see the video? I have just never seen a Variatus with this coloration. The ones on your pictures look awesome

I have not idea why it would be taboo. People cross guppies with endless all the time, its how a lot of the fancy endler’s we have came about. The same way people used to cross swordtails with platies to get color on their swordtails (natural swordtails are very bland) That’s bonkers. I have heard they can be sexually mature at 3 weeks, but that is super early. Diversifying genetics will probably make them a little more robust, but these fish have been inbred for decades so teasing out those weaker traits is hard.

The only downside to QT in your display tank of 75 Gal is if there IS an outbreak of some illness, it gets very expensive to treat. Honestly, just go slow. If you want to speed it up, Quarantine The only downside to quarantining new fish in your display tank is that if there IS an outbreak (which I would argue is more likely with fish coming from chain stores) then it gets very expensive to treat. If it were me, I would stock slowly, Get a couple 10 gallon quarantine tanksn or just totes from Home Depot . Quarantine with the med trio for a couple weeks, move those fish into the display. Rinse and repeat. I have a 20 gallon that is my main display tank and I am still taking my time quarantining. What I am doing is getting small numbers of fish I want and seeing if I can breed up to the amount I actually want in the display tank before I add them to the display tank. There are a couple other types of fish I am growing to breed for an eventual 75 gallon display tank as well. Take your time, find ways to have fun with it while your display tank is more empty. You will have a much healthier ecosystem in that tank if you go slowly. If you go too fast you are going to be battling illness and algae and all sorts of things. Tanks take time to adapt to new fish no matter how many cycled sponge filters you add.

Female guppies are almost always pregnant. If you want to preserve the fry, just go to the petco half off sale and get a 10 gal. Put in a cycled spong filter and an air stone and throw in a bunch of real or fake plants, then pull the moms when the guppies give birth. Otherwise, ya the gourami will likely eat them

Also on sexing livebearers, I have found with my endler and platt fry, that you can tell by the anal fin at a pretty young age and separate them out. The females have a fan-shaped anal fin and the males have a long pointy one. My males don’t try to mate until they are close to colored up, so if you are paying attention, you can probably do it before they breed.

If you really want to make these guppies indestructible, you need to breed them out and put them through the ringer. They need to be exposed to temperature extremes, nutrient extremes, neglect and let the weak ones die off and then keep breeding the strong ones. Do you want to subject your fish to that lifestyle? That’s up to you. I think it will take more than just diversifying the genetics as much as possible. Maybe throw in some endler crosses along the way to make them more robust. It will probably take several years until you have a bullet proof strain.

Also, We have another member of the family. His (or her) name is Biscuit the murder fish, as their job will be murdering snails for me. Currently in QT. Super adorable!