Biotope Biologist

mortar and pestle if you are feeling fancy. Otherwise crushing it in your fingers is just fine. Flaked food can be chewed and spat up by guppies and tetra so getting it to be uniform isn't a huge issue. Rule of thumb is feeding as much food as the fish will eat in 2-3 minutes. If within your means I prefer feeding fish 3 times a day so that they don't overeat during individual feedings and thus less waste

Any disturbance will start with shock but in my experience Anubias species prefer emmersion over immersion. I suppose it depends on the medium you will be transplanting to, but I wouldn't expect much issue.

When I worked in a fishstore way back when I would disturb the filter to shake out particulates of the floss and bag up the water once it ran into the tank for people to help seed the tank. So yes that is true. Also be aware that I would only do this if the store was not busy, otherwise I would just say be patient and use fish food. It is the easiest way.

I wouldn't be concerned. This suggests to me that you are just about ready. Feeding the bacteria in your filter will speed up this process. Flaked food crumbled up and tossing into the tank, or buying macro invertebrates from your local fish store. You can also ask your local fish store for a bag of water from their established aquarium to help seed your filter are all things that you can do

10 gallons is fine for these fish. Your biggest concern is going to be to break up lines of sight and providing adequate amounts of large shells to choose from. They are small but they are still a cichlid so following basic cichlid rules is ideal. This includes: breaking line of sight as stated above plenty of "territories" in the tank Be ready to divide fish if aggression is an issue Care in choosing tank mates Other than that pH and gH as you are likely aware needs to be high, since they are african cichlids

What exactly are you doing to cycle the tank? Are you planning on running a mechanical filter or just the sponge filter? I see that you are also having trouble with cloudy water so I would say that you are still in the middle of cycling. But based on what you are doing I can give you advice on how to get your tank cycled quickly and ready for fish

Nope no disease here. Your fish just gained pigmentation. Could be because of your food. Fish respond especially to carotene, krill, spirulina, and spinach. Could also just be the fish maturing. 'Gold' and 'Albino/Leucistic' are not synonymous

hardware stores have some see through 1/4" I assume either PVC or Vinyl tubing that is clear. This is the same material as normal gravel vacs. Then you can buy a PVC reducer coupling to make a mini gravel vac. Although there are nano specific gravel vacs on the market if you don't want to fuss with that.

Oh good well I am glad you got that resolved then! I would imagine like I was saying earlier you likely had a partial die off in your canister filter that is now recovering. I would in that case go ahead and do a 30% water change every other day. Of course observe your fish closely for any signs of stress, but too many water changes and your beneficial bacteria won't be able to have time to get situated and reduce your levels. Also if you have a friend with an established tank or pond you can grab some of their water to help vitalize your population in the canister filter.

These are all just recommendations of course. If you feel confident in your abilities, go for it. I just wanted you to consider all possibilities before purchase 🙂

In that case I would consider your tank capped. Common plecos are slow growers but they hit 15" in aquariums and 2' + in the wild. They produce considerable bioload and I would worry about your discus that are very sensitive to nitrate, and ammonia spikes.

Of course they recommend buying charcoal. Charcoal won't do anything in this situation. Unfortunately you are going to have to go old school until you get consistent power. Your temperature solution is great I have nothing to say about that. But, the biggest thing is without water movement your nitrate levels will sit high. Here are 2 solutions that you should try. Take your canister filter intake out of the aquarium. If you have a sink nearby clean it thoroughly. Close the valve in the bowl and fill the sink bowl as much as you can. Dechlorinate that water. Put your intake in the sink and establish suction to siphon that water into your canister filter. Leave the canister filter out tube in the tank. You may need to elevate your canister filter to establish outflow into your tank. Grab another tube or your gravel vacuum and establish suction from your aquarium. Put that tube on the bottom of the tank and have that tube exit into a waste bucket or your bathtub if you are close to a bathroom. You will cycle your tank water doing this every couple days and you will want to exchange about half of the tank's capacity. It is old school and this is how we ran our wet labs with minimal electricity at university. Running water through your canister filter will make sure to not shock your beneficial bacteria to death and essentially you would have to restart your already established tank. The other solution is essentially the same just using 10-20 gallon buckets of water, it's just annoying because you have to establish a gravity feed for the water. and constantly refilling and lugging buckets is annoying. Also, bonus tip. Buy 2-3 battery powered air pumps. Hook 2 up in the 72g and 1 in the 20g. We used to use these to transport salmon fry in university that need 80% oxygen saturation in their water at all times (finicky little things).

ichX does not kill adult ich which is the white spots you see. It stops reproduction and kills the free swimming parasites. The adults will reach the end of their lifecycle and fall off eventually. Are your Acara's exhibiting stress behaviors? ie: darting, scraping, "flashing" If not I would just be patient

I have kept many betta with tank mates in smaller tanks. Seems to very on how nippy they get based on personality. Also faster fish and the betta eventually just gives up. I had a 7 gallon high planted tank I would throw depressed bettas I adopted in and re-home them when they got better. I voted chilli rasbora

You may notice them slowly start to disappear. As cute and friendly as rope fish are they are still a bichir. Kuhli loaches would be snack size unless you got them at adult size. The rope fish could easily mistake an adolescent loach as a large colorful earthworm. If you proceed with caution id imagine 5-10 would be fine. It also depends on what species of pleco you have. As that is your bioload constraint with discus. If you have a smaller species of pleco such as a bristlenose or a snowball (L201) you could potentially do more.

Test your kH and gH for me out of the tap and post pics or let me know where you are at. We can go from there.

Bumblebee gobies and desert gobies come to mind as well, they are a bit on the slower side. I am not sure if you are salting the tank for your livebearers as well as keeping it hard? There are a plethora of goby species now in the hobby, but these 2 species have been the easiest for me to find in any locale.

Make a PVC planter stand is one of my favorite cheap tricks. You can either make a floating structure or an "island" structure for the fish to hide under. You can also make a false shoreline that extends over the actual pond structure so the fish can dart under and escape to safety

congrats you are doing something right and your fish are rewarding you for it! You can give them away to friends and family. If you have a LFS (local fishstore) sometimes you can pawn them off on them.

Yeah it's your tap that is the issue here. Do you live in a mineral rich environment? I'm thinking states like Colorado, Montana, Utah, etc. Mineral rich tap will dry with a chalky white residue left behind. You are at about a ~7.4pH it seems and you ideally want to be at about a 6.0-6.5. As @Colu suggested organics will help produce acidic conditions. But remember pH is on a logarithmic scale dropping one whole point of pH is a 10x order of magnitude. What I would advise in this case is find a source of water that is lower in pH to about neutral (7.0). Rainwater, water from an established acidic tank, springwater. Do not use distilled water. Then you will want to use that for your water changes for about a week or 2. Doing small water changes of about (5-10%) every couple days will slowly reduce pH down to the desired acidic conditions. Long term you will want to stop using your tap water and find an alternate source. As for pH alters. I used to sell them for years. It's not really right for everyone's situation and in most cases is just an expensive gimick. All it does is bind free OH- or H+ either causing the pH to go up or go down. It will only harm fish if you apply it to the tank and cause huge swings in pH. It is best used on tap water before the water change. If you are dead set on using your tap water I would test the gH and kH as well. Any mineral or carbonate buffers will cause your pH reducer to be less effective and therefore more expensive in the long term. Free water chemistry lessons for all 😁

I was including the loaches in that colloquial classification of "catfish." Although not technically accurate I was using the name because all your catfish and loaches exceed a foot in mature length and have similar feeding behaviors.

Test your tap water as well with the same test. 7.6pH is high for a corydora that prefers acidic water. What other fish do you have in the tank and do they appear to be showing signs of stress? I would think a pH spike would cause other fish to be exhibiting stress behaviors. I forget do the API master kits come with a calibration solution? This is usually a solution that has exactly 7.0pH so you can make sure your test kit hasn't been fouled or contaminated

Well @DanielI am glad that I am not the only one that loves the "unlovables." I will have to go with Myriophyllum heterophyllum (2 leaf milfoil). I was always bad at growing finicky plants, so I find myself going back to the ones that are just happy to be alive.

So only having 3 cichlids will raise the aggression towards other fish. Ideally you would have 5-6. But the big thing here is you have 10 catfish that all reach 1' plus and all need their own territories and caves. The clown loaches will share caves for a time but once they get to adult size they will likely be too large to share a cave. You are already aware of size, but mainly my concern is 10 adult catfish will need lots of food and lots of filtration to manage their very messy eating habits. The smallest tank I would go, personally, for these fish is 350 gallons. Clown loaches especially in schools seem to hold their own even in more aggressive tanks. I have not personally kept clown loaches with african cichlids so I do not know if the water being more alkaline then they like will cause health issues or not. But it is something to be aware of, as I would not house african cichlids in pH below 8.0

Have you figured out which species laid the egg? Since both species are scatter layers. Either way congrats on the free fish!