anewbie

You said it is not going well but it looks pretty decent to may novice eye.

Breeder box is small; did you feed them food they would eat (live bbs is best bet); did you remove all uneaten food so that no ammonia would build up from decaying food - anyway i'm not sure how large this breeder box is and what you did but i can say that frys are very delicate and sensitive to water quality et all. When it comes to breeding borelli coconut huts sometime works but sometime the female prefer other areas. Anyway she should breed again and you will have another try. Good luck.

Just because she is yellow doesn't mean she has frys; if you want to breed borelli i'd recommend a 20 long with just the borelli and maybe a few dithers like pencil fishes or ember tetra. Frozen baby daphnia might be small enough as various small dry food; the issue is the first couple of weeks the frys will respond better to moving food hence live food tends to work better.

coconut shell has no value here; small piece of driftwood or cholla; floating plants (hornworth, pearlweed, frogbit, ...). For the first week or so the best option for the frys are live baby brine shrimp - the movement helps trigger 'eat me' reflex. After that fine food but use that turkey-blaster to suck out uneaten food. Putting them with the mom is fine but she is probably scared out of her wits so she has told the frys to hide.

i never mentioned cichild (though most fishes in lake mawai are such); i only mentioned areas where fishes that like hardwater frequently originate.

I'd leave it messy; fishes love messy plants. The messier the better. Of course you might want the plants to fit your visual needs rather than your fishes so i suppose there is that aspect but... still something to think about.

I'd get your gh/kh tested - vaguely it sounds like you might have harder water and if so i'd drop your current stocking plans and go for either central american fishes or lake malwai fishes. Also keep in mind you have a narrow tall box so it favors short tall fishes as oppose to long fishes. Nearly every fish you have mentioned so far favor softwater. Why make a square peg fit in a round hole ?

Yes; to my limited knowledge they are very simliar in behavior. The general philosophy you can keep so many together that they can't really establish a large area and the aggression gets spread; but if just a couple of pairs (or three) i would expect sooner or later the weaker ones to get kicked out (i.e, killed) but who knows maybe they will find harmony. Having said that there are better species for this sort of thing. i have 5 krobia (2 pairs and an odd one out) in a 120 and they pretty much get along. Borelli is a species that some folks put in a colony (though i would not keep just a couple of group as that is more likely to leave a weak fish open to attack. a. winkelfleck might work in a large group (again just a couple of males is more likely to result in the weak ones being eliminated). I had a pair of nijjensi for a couple of years but i kept them alone. They are nice fishes (mine were true f1); Anyway an attempt is made to keep them lots of leaves are really helpful as the fishes will swim under them - just make sure they are large and not laid flat against the bottom - you want drift wood or stones to make them hang at angles - and as they decay add new ones. I do have a group of 8 a. bitatina in a 4ftx4ft cube. My configuration is 3 males and 5 females (nijjensi are pair forming while bitatina are harem breeders). Anyway can't hurt to try it just don't be upset if after a year you only have 1 pair left; and it works great ! -- I was re-reading op original post and there are a number of other issues i see: first pleco don't mix with apisto either - same reason a cory. tetra will eat frys - if you don't care about frys why get male and female? There was mentioned ot putting crushed coral in the filter - yet wanting blackwater. crush coral is the opposite it makes the water harder while blackwater is all about soft acidic water. You might want to add peat to the filter (use filter bags); but definitely not coral. -- If you want biotope most pleco like strong currents while most apisto are found in area with reduce current. Anyway not sure of your objective. Oh and to answer your question - yea you can just laod the tank up with leaves et all. Initially the water are will be very dark like this: but over time after a large number or water changes it will lighten up.

I wouldn't do it; panduro are one of the more aggressive species can can claim 4+ feet of territory. Doesn't mean they will but why play with fire. I have a pair of a. lineta and several blue rams in my discus aquarium (6 feet long 2 feet wide); and while a. lineta are relatively passive i can tell you they never object to taking a cheap shot at the rams. There are more passive species than panduro which might work so if you really want more than 2 panduro (or any other dwarf cichild) i'd look for a more passive species. Having said that you can get a nice pair of panduro and then throw in some larger cichild that hangs closer to the top of the aquarium. -- Btw you also should not mix cory with panduro. Panduro like to establish territory and tell others to stay out - this territory will be near the bottom - cory do not understand territory so everytime they enter the panduro area the panduro might take a shot at them - and on occasion might even poke an eye out here and there. - As it goes with individual fishes you can never tell how it will work out but you should not be surprise if things go badly. Btw if you do go with more than one pair make sure you add lots of leaf littler for them to hide under and feed them in multiple locations so they aren't forced to visit each other territory.

Careful when you say big pleco; some get over 2 feet long.... now that's a nice size pleco....

updated picture of b. cupido with one m. egregius upper left:

Peat will not help you with your high kh. The kh has to be around 0 for peat to useful. Also if you were to use ro water and peat the peat should be put in filter bags so it doesn't clog things up. Also a lot of water companies put in additiives to raise ph to protect copper pipes; those additives will dissipate over night so when testing tap water you should put some in a cup and let it sit for a day or so before testing for ph.

I do not use discord; too many competing services; enough is enough 😉

Updated picture of my discus aquarium - approx 1 month has passed since it and the previous picture when i put on a black background. The biggest difference is the a. ciripus has grown about 7 inches higher and have gotten a deeper red/purple colouring:

L397 - sadly my group of 4 died during the move; have just one left - likely a male. Actually i don't think that is a L397 it has too much black - well there are 30 or 40 similar options 🙂

Let us know how it turns out. It is true that those guppies that hit the bottom will be more likely to be targeted. Also be aware that our domestic guppies are larger than those typically found in the wild. Still it might work out exactly as you wish - one never knows for sure ...

A true blue acara might be interesting; hard to say if they will hunt the guppies which are surface fishes. Angles probably will; but if you get two angels there are all sort of dynamics depending on if they are m/f m/m f/f - also fundamentally guppies are a hardwater fish and sa fishes (angels, acara, ...) are soft water fishes. There are some other issues - if you are thinking of keeping together acara, angelfishes, sevrum, blue grouamis well it is too much. Be aware that severum eat plants so if you have a lot of plants and get a severum say bye to the plants. kribs are west african and should not be mixed with sa fishes (esp the acara); fishes indicate territory and aggression before actual conflict and sa and west african fishes never learned each other language so they get very confused when trying to talk to each other creating more vicious attacks. A 55 is shape wise is kind of a lousy tank - it is tall and narrow and what you really want is a lot of floor space so things can spread out. I think a blue acara and 2 angles might work depending on the angel behavior (which depend on both their eventual sex and individual fish behavior) but beyond that it will get crowded fast. The acara is a lower level fish and the angels will be in the upper middle with the guppies at the top. If you get the red tail shark drop the acara. It isn't a great fit but if you get rid the acara and angelfishes you could probably try a severum - it would work better if the tank was less tall and wider a 50, 65 or 75 but you have a 55. In the worse case when the severum is full grown you could trade it for something else. Also be aware the the actual size of the fish will depend on the sex. I guess what i'm saying is no i don't recommend a severum in a 55 but as long as you are prepared to trade it in if it gets too large there is no harm in trying one and see how it goes. If you have live plants don't consider the severum.

Flower ! Yes you can grow Bucephalandra without throwing them in a bucket of water.

That is not surprising - my a. lineta snaps at the pencil fishes; what make pencil fishes a good option is they don't eat frys - though i think n. beckfordi (sp) might eat frys. If the tank is sufficiently tall and the dither stays near the top then they are less likely to get attacked as the territory tends to be in the lower region.

Now i'm going to have to wait till my festivum poop to get it back.

No for many reasons: Not temp compatible with the gourami, swordtail and platy. Tank is too small (top to bottom). Discus is not water compatible with the platy and swordtail (soft vs hard) Discus require very very clean water and the current tank inhabitants suggest that will not be the case Discus should be kept in a group and the tank isn't even large enough for one --- I guess that is enough reasons.

The one thing she said that might have some truth to it is that pygmy are a very shy fish and if by themselves they might feel insecure; there are a lot of factors here and it is not a given but having a schooling dither fish like kubotai rasbora might make them feel a bit more comfortable. I have some pygmy in a 180 and it is a crap shoot if i see them as they frequently hide in the very back. Of course my orange laser do the same thing and i have around 15 of them.... they do come out when i toss food in - sometime but for months i thought all my pygmy died until one day i saw 20 in some plants looking for scrapes of food. Of course if your tank has no place to hide they probably won't be hiding too much.

Your luminious green looks a bit different than mine; it seems to have more pa-hang look which is another crypt that is somewhere between nurri rosen and luminious green.

All dwarf cichild has the potential to be territorial but some are more likely to be passive than others. Borelli are one of the more passive species but i would only keep a male in a display aquarium. Also there are never any guarantees as each fish is unique. As to 'eating out of your hand' some species are less shy than others; but most of the bold species i have owned have also be a bit more on the aggressive side. Panduro can be very territorial. The primary difference between dwarf cichild and many cichild (like angels) is the area of the tank they occupy; dwarf cichild tend to hang near the bottom while larger cichild tend to hang near the top; of course there are exceptions. My winkelfleck is everywhere but i'm not sure i would keep him in a community aquarium and it is one of those species that does better with soft acidic water. I will note that my male agassizii is moody and frequently snappy if another fish enters his space. So there are a couple of data points. I have a special love for blue rams but they do better in warmer temps around 82-84. Also if your tank is structured right the other fishes won't enter the dwarf cichild territory. I mentioned panduro being aggressive but most pencil fishes; tetra, rasbora, ... stay middle to top. Of course you wouldn't want to keep cory with such as fish due to constant stress of the male (or female) chasing them out of their territory but people do it anyway. An particuarly aggressive panduro might well remove the eyes of the cory to put it bluntly. My kribs used to eat the tails off of cory. Yea i learned my lesson there.... so we all start with less knowledge than what we gain over time.

To be honest they need to see some fishes out in the open to make sure it is safe; i use kubotai rasbora for this - my green neon (similar to cardinal) would hide 24x7 for a month and i finally got a group of 8 kubotai to keep them company and they stopped hiding. Now they all are out swimming every day. Probably having the honey gourami in the other aquarium help them. Btw real plants are often preferred by fishes.