L_goodei200

I personally don't think the black diamond blasting sand is the sole cause of your brown diatom algae problem, since: 1: most common aquarium sand/gravel is quartz, which has the chemical formula SiO2 (aka, silicone dioxide) 2: glass is also composed mainly of SiO2 3: I personally haven't seen any difference in the amount of brown diatom algae in my tanks with and without BDBS 4: (this one I'm less sure about) I assume that BDA pulls its nutrients, including SiO2, from the water. And, as far as I know, BDBS doesn't leach much SiO2 into the water

My current breeding projects are: Sailfin Shiners (Pteronotropis hypselopterus), Western Mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis), Orangethroat Darters (Etheostoma spectabile), Red Shiners (Cyprinella lutrensis), Red Dragon Guppies, Wild Guppies, and four different swordtail guppy experiments (all with females from my wild guppies which already have a bit of a topsword, the males for three of them are two topswords and a doublesword (obviously different projects) from my lfs, and the fourth one is an especially colorful male from my wild guppies). Fish I'm waiting to grow out to breed are: Yellowbelly Metallic Livebearers, Blue Paradise Fish, and Panda Corys. Fish to breed in outdoor tubs next summer are: Bluefin Killifish, Golden Topminnows, Blue-spotted Sunfish, Florida Flagfish, and most of the aforementioned fish.

Rainbow Dace (also known as Red Shiners) are a U.S. native, and completely legal in the U.S., as long as you don't live in a state where they're threatened or endangered. There's a lot of fun options with a river tank. Gobies, danios, loaches, catfish, and even natives like shiners, darters, chubs, and madtoms.

I would either do (A) A tank with Orangespotted sunfish, Redfin Shiners, and Orangethroat Darters (B) A Florida biotope with Bluefin Killifish, Florida Flagfish, Golden Topminnows, Brown Darters, Bluespotted Sunfish, and possibly either Flagfin or Taillight Shiners or (C) A darter tank (mixed species) with a moderately sized school of Rainbow Shiners

Thanks! Now I just need more tanks (and obviously a few more fish. Lol)

I had a crazy idea, but I'm not sure it would actually work. Would it be possible to keep multiple species of livebearers together in 40 Breeder sorority and fraternity tanks, and have a few separate 10 Gal. tanks to expose the females to the males? Obviously remove fry as soon as they appear, and watch them closely to separate the male fry from the female fry, and only keep species/strains with easy to differentiate fry together (ie. no platys and swordtails in the same tank). Like I said, crazy idea, but would it work?

I'll be the odd one out and suggest natives. Kansas has some cool ones (Northern Plains Killifish, Red Shiners, Longear Sunfish, Orangespotted Sunfish, even the wild form of the Rosy Red Minnow (Fathead Minnows)) occur in Kansas, and they can handle the temperatures with just a stock tank de-icer in the winter

My initial thought is juvenile creek chub

Here's one of my tubs. Currently it houses 3 or 4 bluespotted sunfish (and their fry)

Bluefin Killifish (Lucania goodei). They're flashy, hardy, easy to feed, easy to breed, and fascinating to watch.

I would suggest least killifish. You should be able to keep a small colony in 5 gal. Of water.

Have you tried yellowfin shiners yet?

For natives, the ones that are on that list, that are best suited for a tub would be: Central Mudminnow (as long as you don't actually want to see it), Redfin Shiner, Red Shiner, Spotfin Shiner, Steelcolor Shiner, Bluntnose, Fathead (or Rosy Red), and Bullhead Minnows, Tadpole madtom (again, not likely to see this one), Blackstripe and Blackspotted Topminnows, Mosquitofish, Orangespotted Sunfish, Slough and Johnny Darters, and maybe Orangethroat Darter (they sometimes occur in intermittent streams).

The top one might be a Bluntnose Minnow (Pimephales notatus), the bottom one is probably a young darter.

I'm pretty sure Chinese hillstream loaches like more flow than paradise fish (I could be wrong though). The dwarf chain loach might work, I think I'll do a bit more research before I decide though. I might mention that my tank's pH is approximately 6.5, so it's within the acceptable range for white clouds.

Hello, thank you for the input. I did notice the habitat preference of White Clouds typically being streams, but it mentions Paradise Fish and White Clouds co-occuring in most White Cloud locations, on Seriously Fish here: https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/tanichthys-albonubes/. I suppose I can only think of introduced populations on White Clouds occurring in blackwater, but I recently had two White Clouds in with my Paradise Fish (two was definitely not a preferred number, but they were given to me by a fellow hobbyist who lost all but those two in an accident), and they had incredibly intense coloration indicating that they were in good health, and I really liked the way they got along with the Paradise Fish (they didn't dart around the tank exciting the Paradise Fish, the Paradise Fish mostly just ignored them and were much less aggressive towards each other with the White Clouds in the tank). I like your stocking suggestion, however I'm having a bit of trouble finding a loach species that likes calm water. I thought of dojo loaches, but they get WAY too big for my tank, I thought about Kuhli loaches, but they like it too warm (I'd say most fish don't like 65°F water... funny). Since I lost the two white clouds I had (breeding tank accident), my paradise fish's aggressiveness has skyrocketed, so I'm going to need the figure out something (though I'm not ordering any fish until at least April). Sorry about the long reply, Thanks again.

I have a 40 Gal. Breeder that currently houses 5 Paradise Fish and a Japanese Trapdoor Snail. My plan is to move 1 or 2 of the Paradise Fish to a different tank, and turn the 40 Gal. breeder into a coldwater blackwater biotope for the remaining Paradise Fish. For plants I'll probably add Nymphaea sp., Cryptocoryne sp., and Pistia stratiotes (and maybe Java Moss). For fish I plan on adding 9 White Cloud Mountain Minnows. Now for the hard part: finding a bottom dwelling fish for this tank... maybe Cobitis sinensis? They seem to occur with both Paradise Fish and White Clouds in parts of their range. Any other suggestions for bottom dwellers? Any other plants? Does it need another fish sp? Thanks.

Here's some pictures of my tanks (not very good pictures, but pictures)

Hello! I'm relatively new to fishkeeping (but have done more than a little research on the subject). My current tanks are: one 10 Gal. of Daphnia, freshwater Copepods, and snails (nothing fancy, just Bladder Snails), one 10 Gal. with a breeding pair of Fundulus chrysotus (Golden Topminnows), one 20 Gal. long with 3 F. chrysotus, 11(ish) Lucania goodei (Bluefin Killifish), 1 Corydoras panda (sort of a gift, I'm going to try to acquire some friends for it when things warm up. So far it's been schooling with the L. goodei without problems), 3 Gambusia affinis (Western Mosquitofish. 1 adult male and 2 juvenile females. these will be getting a 10 Gal. next fall or sooner depending on their behavior), and 3 Adult Planorbella sp. snails, and one 40 Gal. breeder currently housing 1 male, 3 female, and 1 (hopefully) female Macropodus opercularis (Paradise Fish), and 1 Japanese Trapdoor Snail (This one is a tank in progress).