Biotope Biologist

Depending on your locale, you may be able to find other betta species that are kinder and a bit more shy. They from what I have seen of others tanks, like to hide often and only come out when they fully trust their owner. I have always had a soft spot for Betta macrostoma and Betta albimarginata. Bettas other than Betta splendens are rare, so if you live in a place without a LFS you may be out of luck. Bonus betta species Betta foerschi if you want a more subdued "centerpiece" since pearl danios tend to steal the show from all but the most impressive species of fish. Be prepared to pay anywhere from $30-$125 for these bettas

If I recall correctly those tanks come with a light that sits on a glass screen in the plastic canopy correct? Although I know they changed to those flimsy LED light bars that produce the most horrid white light ever so maybe that is no longer the case. If you can keep the canopy really I think @Fish Folk's idea would be best. If you have access to a sawzall and you want like a finnex or similar bar. Measure the dimensions of the bar you want and cut out a section that width. The Top Fin hood is it's biggest downfall. In an attempt to be cheap they kinda missed the target of maintenance and feeding convenience. You also can't just swap the aqueon hood on because of course they are different dimensions.

Looks like a type of brown hair algae. Seems to enjoy growing on people's java ferns. Bearded algaes are more tufted and slow growing. When I had a tank my pleco and siamese algae eater loved this algae. Each other not so much.

Depends like @Kirsten said heavily on your overall water parameters. A lot of the plants we see commonly in the aquarium trade come from slow moving streams or rivers with lots of bioload. Often times they require softer lower pH water. Based on your water parameters we can make recommendations on what species will tolerate or thrive in those conditions.

You have plenty of room. Sex your gourami, males can be quite territorial towards eachother.

Another thing to do for stands is hunt your local goodwills and such. It can be a bit of a treasure hunt to find the right dimension cabinets but when you do it's oh so sweet. Many of the furniture they sell are 90's and older furniture that people got rid of in a move. Almost always these things are made of oak and are HEAVY. But the beautiful thing about oak is it is sturdy and generally water resistant. Also unrelated but Kessil seems to be killing it in the high end lighting department. I will be investing in 2 a160we tuna suns soon. The fact that the light replicates sun shimmer is impressive to me. After finishing a car project high end aquarium stuff seems cheap to me 😆

It is interesting that you talk about the over-reductive thinking. Lately, I have been reading books about how to do ecological research effectively. In college, we touched on it a bit, but ultimately our research topics became narrow to make life easier and not have so many variables. I have always wondered how do you study the forest for the trees and the trees for the forest so to speak at the same time. Because when you do research on an ecosystem, like the home aquarium, the task seems quite daunting to separate all of the variables that go into it. From the physical level of mechanical processes such as filter speed and flow rate and temperature and thermodynamics, to the chemical processes such as the nitrogen cycle, oxygen saturation, and organic wastes, to the biological inputs such as fish and bacteria and plants. Then you have how all of that interacts with each other and it's a wonder how anyone has the patience to build an aquarium in the first place. In Washington state we always talk about the Salmon and the Orcas. Someone has to save them, and the public wants a silver bullet, but the truth is there are SO MANY variables. And now thanks to Laurie Weitkamp and her fellow Oregon State colleagues we know that Lamprey populations are in severe decline and yet another variable to add to the mix as to not only Salmon and Orca populations but creek and river ecosystems as a whole. I got off topic, but I encourage more people to look at her research and watch her talks if they are interested. Lamprey are adorable and awesome. Maybe @OnlyGenusCaps has more insight into ecology research.

The stand is low quality from what I remember. But I am also kinda a snob when it comes to my furniture so i'd take what I say with a grain of salt

Fenbendazole or praziquantel is typically what is recommended for deworming. I believe both are found in API general cure

This is one of the wonderful things about science. We may state things as matter of fact, but we never are truly certain and hope to be proven wrong. This is why we constantly test eachother's hypothesis. Even if it has been proven 200 times or 200,000 times all it takes is one experiment with good controls to throw a wrench into what we assumed was true from the initial experiment. I wish you luck in your endeavors.

If you're crafty I like making a cheap sump for larger tanks. This allows you to hide your biomedia and heater under the tank. For this you will need a 10 gallon or 20 long tank. I usually browse craigslist for these often you can get them for free or $5. Other supplies include: - 450-550 gph submersible pump - 1/4" to 1/2" aquarium grade rubber tubing or ABS/PVC pipe. - Biomedia -Filter sock - Rain bar (optional) -1/4"- 1/2" control valve -1/4" - 1/2" strainer -hose clips -glass panels (optional) -Silicone (optional) You can go to home depot and the glass panels they sell are actually the same exact width as a 20 gallon long and a 10 gallon tank. this makes it so much easier to make water disturbance barriers. You just push them in make sure they sit at a 90 then silicone them in. It will take some time to figure out where to set your control valve to make sure your water flow is at equilibrium with the pump, but once you do all you do is top off evaporation water in your sump and call it a day. If you are losing lots of evaporate you can throw a cheap glass canopy on the sump. You can also run PVC/ABS. I prefer hardlines because they tend not to develop air bubbles in the tubing. I use to build these low-tech ones for around $75.

I'm glad I coud help ☺️

Hey no worries. I would love it if more people got into brackish water tanks. They are quite fun. When I say seawater I do mean saltwater. You can either accomplish this by buying marine salt from a fish store or if you have a local marine fish store they sell saltwater by the gallon. This stuff is the best as it is purified seawater and already has all the trace minerals your fish want. Brackish puffers possess unique cells in their body that allow them to maintain salt ion pumps along their gills even in the absence of salt (sodium chloride). This is what helps them to survive in freshwater for extended periods of time. However, it is not indefinite. So to answer your question the stressor to their gills and kidney is the lack of salt in the environment to maintain their sodium ion channels. Although they do need calcium and magnesium for other biological functions.

Just another filter feeder. I wouldn't worry too much about it if that is what you had. I suppose when people say anenome in freshwater I think either bryozoan or hydra. The hydra are capable of killing fish, so if you have hydra you will need to acquire betel nut extract. If it is a bryozoan, these are harmless and you can just let it do it's thing. In either case both animals will show up again and you can snap a pic and we can I.D it. The fact that you said "anenome shaped mold" makes me lean towards bryozoan especially if you live in the midwest close to the great lakes.

Typically they require high kH, gH, and pH. Brackish water fish do need some seawater in their environment, but it appears to be hotly debated as to how much. For example, bumblebee goby seem to live fine in specific gravities as low as 1.003-1.005. For reference saltwater typically measures in my area 1.024-1.032. Figure 8 puffer also require low-end brackish setups. For them I see people using specific gravity 1.003-1.008. Having that been said. To maintain the health of your fish, it is best to replicate the environment they come from. Figure 8 puffers come from river deltas in the mekong.These are a marine fish adapted to the stresses of freshwater exposure. Some seawater is required for their overall health. I would buy a gravity meter and see how much seawater you will need to maintain a minimal specific gravity. Keeping a figure 8 puffer in a specific gravity of 1.000 or lower will cause long term stress to the fishes kidneys and gills and reduce their lifespan.

There is a mom and pop store that has those San Fran Bay tanks, still in West Palm beach! They also had diatoms, fairy shrimp, and FFA (free floating algae). Also most live foods will stay dormant in the fridge for up to a week or two as @gardenman said. They are a great treat for your fish.

May I suggest fish sedatives and "breathing bags." Fish sedatives will reduce fish respiration during transportation and there are special bags that exchange gases with atmosphere. I am not sure how expensive all of these are as I only ever received shipments.

Welcome! I find it interesting what people's preferences are in aquarium. I myself as my name states prefer biotopes. Us biologists are oddly particular, perhaps by trade I suppose. I am curious is your profile name in reference to people putting the entire scientific name in caps ie: Ambystoma Gracile?

You know I have an interesting anecdote. Maybe only interesting to me. I used to work on fishing boats as a biologist and I would always tell the captain it's a full moon tonight you gotta change your strategy tonight if you want to catch fish. They have been fishing for years they would tell me, what does some punk kid know. And every full moon we would end up with empty hooks, almost like the fish were preoccupied with something else. @Fish Folk for whatever reason your plethora of breeding tanks reminded me of this.

Hello fellow scientist in a related field. I too struggle with translating what we see commonly in our trade into layman so anybody can read my posts and feel like a scientist. It is very hard to come across as sincere especially in the field of science. Thus why I think we should be able to use emojis in research papers (kidding). I tried in my initial post to make it succinct but I was trying to touch on the points that you, I think, put into words better than I did. I have been reading about mangroves as stated above and they seem to do well only in brackish and saltwater aquariums where they don't get out competed for resources by other plants. The fact that they grow in anoxic soil, while also exchanging oxygen and nitrates in the aquarium had me intrigued. Again in my studies anoxic or anaerobic bacteria alone are not sufficient in converting free nitrates into byproducts. It only seems to do well in conjunction with aerobic bacteria. The mangrove in these cases seems to be a key structure in these environments. In my case I would be using macro algaes as homes for this aerobic bacteria.

Depends on how advanced the damage is. If it is minor damage most plants will repair the damage. If it is major damage the plant will cut it's losses and cut off circulation to the leaf. Also depends on the species. I don't have lab experience with Bacopa but I would imagine since it has high regenerative ability it would likely repair the leaf.

Hey no worries for the mix up. It does get confusing when people switch between calling gH salts and calcium and magnesium. Salt in chemistry just refers to any chemical compound with a cation of a base and an anion from an acid. This confuses even first year chemistry students so don't worry about not understanding what they mean when they use salts interchangeably with say sea salt. Sea salt is sodium chloride with some trace minerals that are dissolved in seawater such as zinc and potassium. So in layman's terms. General hardness just measures calcium and magnesium which some fish especially saltwater and brackish fish need. Specific gravity is the measurement people use for brackish and saltwater. This scale ranges from 1.000 to 1.032 for water and measures how dense the water is compared to a standard, in this case freshwater with no salt. As you are likely aware saltwater is more dense than freshwater so it will weigh heavier on this density scale depending on how much dissolved salt is in the water. In this case I am referring to salt as the common sodium chloride or table salt.

Thanks for this I actually got started down a rabbit hole and now have red mangroves and anoxic live sand from two little fishies on the way. I guess I will be building a red mangrove swamp biotope in the next year now using the mangroves and anoxic soil as a filter. I almost wonder if I will need a true filtration system or if they can handle the bioload on their own as a sort of "display refugium." I plan on also instating the help of macro algaes.

Laid them on a towel outside during the summer for a day or two

I am a huge fan of low slung aquariums for a multitude of reasons. One of them includes the ease of reaching places to clean. I have a brackish mangrove biotope in the logistics stage, who knows if I will actually build it. I still have to work on damselfly/dragonfly breeding this summer. But feel free to think about one for your next setup! Here is a picture of one AZ aquatic gardens did. Very similar to the one I will be building but mine will only be about 60 gallons and include limestone and dead coral as hardscape. https://azgardens.com/product/red-mangrove-rhizophora-mangle/