anewbie

To be honest fluval co2 kits are an expensive proposition - long term you are much better off buying a c2oart (or simliar) regulator and a 5 or 10lb canister of co2 from your local welding shop. While different regions have different pricing - in my neck of the wood (not the cheapest) it is $100 for a 10lb cansiter and $22 dollars to refill - has to be refilled around every 5 months.

snails don't build bubble nest. they will lay the egg clutches on the lid of your tank (usually); though sometime they will climb out to find a better place to lay eggs 😉 - The eggs can't be kept wet but they do need to be kept moist.... and if per chance you miss a clutch at the back of your tank you might discover a 100 little yellow snails crawling around....

I'm not 100% sure - i was looking at these pictures: https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=107 - The black blob at the tail seems a tiny bit different than your - what i can't tell is if it is individual difference or species difference. However, they have some good close up 'iding' pictures on planetcatfish which are not readily visible in your picture but you could check of the other id markers line up. The problem is that some of the species of otto are quite similar. --- Btw on planetcatfish.com if you type in otocinclus it will show you 24+ species of otto 😉

In my 120 i have numerous large swords (different varieties) and i've not noticed the pleco damaging any of them. I think i have a total of 6 swords in the tank but the 3 large ones (leaves over 18 inches) are melon, regular and ruffle - i also have smaller melon and flame swords - anyway i think it is fine. In my 29 i have a small regular sword and the 3 bn in that tank leave it alone (i say regular because I can't recall the name off the top of my head but it has the plain soft green leaves where as the ruffle is quite hard and rigid). - I suppose if the pleco is starving it might eat anything including your hand.

I think 280 is going to be a bit on the hard side. My tank tds is around 140 and i've only had marginal success with cockatoo eggs hatching. If you could mix it 2:1 with ro water to get the tds down to 90 or so that would help.

A bit depends on the dimension of the tank. Also honey gourami tend to be social and tend to do better in groups of 4 to 6 if your tank will support it. Unlike some gourami like dwarf honey are very mellow fishes.

cleaned up the 29 a bit - this is the 29 i replaced the substrate - at this point i think it is settling in:

Angels won't make it through the pipe but not sure they care - they are mostly happy in their little area. No large red flags. Angels generally prefer it a little warmer than the rams but they overlap a lot and the rams are pretty tolerable of temp changes. Only negatives are potential for leaks in the pipe and in ability to isolate an issue in one tank as both tanks will not share the same eco-system.

My neon do fine in my 5 gallon tank - they really don't swim much - then again my cardinals in the 120 don't swim much either. I also have ember in my 5 gallon tank - they swim a bit more than the neon - they love to eat 😉 This is the tank. Believe it or not i removed about 60% of the floaters this weekend but alas it is still a forest of roots (some of those roots are over 2 feet long):

Sponge filters are cheap and efficient. However for a large fish room you could also consider a large central filter and pipe all the tanks through it - the negative is disease can inflict all tanks at once and adding the plumbing. - In my smaller tanks I use hamburg matten filter which are basically a large sponge - i have them in my 29s and 40 - they clog about once every 8 or 9 months and i have to take them out and squeeze them but they seem quite effective (i use fairly thick dense sponge from swisstropical) - of course all these filters can be run off a single air pump so they are relatively efficient with regards to energy and cost. The effectiveness of trapping fine particles depend on the media use as sponges can be quite fine but of course the finer they are the quicker they clog so there is that trade off. In my 120 i use an fx6 and really need to add more current to that tank - maybe i'll setup a power head (pia because of the thick frame) or wve maker. In all my tanks have a extra sponge filters (fishes love them for the microfilm that forms on them as well as the kuhli love hiding under them - so there is that consideration. - As for kirsten comment on making a mess - well i don't quite get that one - either with canister filters or sponges - just use a pail. - HOB - i dislike them. I had one on a 40 breeder for a while (aquaclear) the current was too abrupt and centralized and quite frankly the volume of media was too small for the space it took up but a lot of people swear by them. There seems to be 3 popular well regarded models - aquarclear, tidal and one of the newer marineland - which has a rather unique design.

They will eat the eggs if they are not fertilize. It can take 5 or 6 tries for them to get it right. Make sure they are actually fertilizing the eggs - as sometime a pair of female will go through the motion but the eggs will naturally never fertilize. If the eggs hatch you will end up with wrigglers (non free swimming angels) and then several days later they will begin to swim. In a community tank like yours they will have no chance so if you actually want to raise the frys you will need to remove them in the egg or wriggler stage to a sep tank or container. When they go free swimming about 24 hours later the egg sack will be depleted and you will need to feed them. bbs is a good diet 4 or 5 times a day (the bbs is only nutrtious for about 48 hours after hatching). After a week or 10 days you can probably ween them to powder food like hiraki first bite or ground up flakes. - It is critical the water be pristine for frys (this means removing all uneaten food and frys that die - i use a turkey blaster) as the smallest amount of ammonia will kill them.

I would not put in any sort of dirt lower layer - there are various reasons for this comment the biggest being is eventaully it will exhaust. There are a few plants that really do require such (root tabs just don't seem like a proper replacement) but i think the better solution is to just avoid those plants. If this were a plant tank and not a fish tank than a lot of people recommend pure organic soil. - I recently put torpedo beach in my 29 for much of the same reasons you described (I had moonlight in that tank which is extremely fine and it was causing various issues after 2 years). The overall verdict is still out on torpedo beach (been about a month) but so far it seems to be meeting my objective. Regular green plants grow just fine - in this specific tank the only non green plant i've have put is a new Crypt Sprialis 'Red' but the verdict is too early on that plant (btw lovely plant) and dwarf lilly which grows in anything. - Couple of quick comments: if they have it in stock petsmart has about the lowest price - $26 shipped for 50lb bag - also if you ever want to use a black substrate estes stoney river has very good properties (large enough that it is porous but fine enough fishes can burrow - i wish i could find a whitish substrate that behaved like this stuff (I've been using it 20 months in my guppy tank). Waste seems to mostly settle on it and is easy to vacuum but there hasn't been any anarobic activity or packing. The moonlight i have was totally foul after 18 months and was producing massive amount of sulfur gas (which is why i replaced it). In addition it was a pia to clean as waste tended to settle into it and mix - last but least it compacted. - I generally use root tabs for plants that are root feeders (vals, swords, crypts). - btw this is my 29 with torpedo beach:

Give them a couple of days to adjust. I would not do an immediate water change if you have a regular water change schedule. I'd give them some peace and quiet. Most loaches have a bit of an odd behavior to them including weather loaches (which are extremely sensitive to change in pressure hence their name).

I believe he meant between 0 and 0.5. 5 would be deadly and i doubt it would make it to the next morning. Still 0.5 is not great as loaches are pretty sensitive and as @colu said you should use prime to detoxify. For future purchases most loaches really require a well established tank. If your tank is new and not established try something like swordtails or guppies for at least 5 weeks. if your tank is established and your nitrite and ammonia are both above 0 then well there is something wrong....

here is an updated picture of my guppy tank. I had to treat it with furan-2 2 or 3 months ago - i had purchased a tiny female betta from petco and it carried in some disease that killed all my female betta; and a couple of kuhli. I suspect a guppy or two died as did my female bn - but nothing seems to harm the swordtails. I mean i've had two tank wipe out in 4 years and nothing harms them. Also in case you are wondering furan-2 will do a number on your plants. Despite what others might say and the instruction with the stuff states it will do a real number on your plants. The swords were find as was the apongetons and various anubias but just about everything else got zapped - of course having multiple tanks one can transplant a bit from here and a bit from there. I figure in another 2 months the PSO will regrow in the back. Also in case you are wondering i only wanted 2 mystery snails. Sadly one of them decided i needed 50 more. It really annoys the pleco. I swear one day he took his tail and started batting them away from the zuc so he could get in there. (in case you are wondering when i get out of this condo i will setup a qt tank and never again....)

Ok here is the plant in the guppy tank which is rather similar to yours. There is an odd thing about this plant - it is 18 months old and believe or not a sister plant of the one photo above with 2 feet leaves. However this one the leaves are only around 3 to 8 inches. It is much darker purple and as you can see the shape is closer to your leave without that wide thing transition. Why it is only a few inches tall when the other one is 2 feet - well.... must the guppies. At least the colours are a lot nicer 😉

Oh here are a few: elizabeth apistogramma (does best in black water) Laetacara curviceps Laetacara dorsigera nannacara anomala (not as colourful but lots of personality) some of the apistogramma agassizi have really nice colouring apistogramma erythrura Apistogramma sp. "Abacaxis P taeniatus (these are similar to kribs) Pelvicachromis subocellatus (a more colourful krib that is a little more peaceful) apistogramma nijjensi - You have to be a little careful because some of these fishes are harem beaders (m with multiple females) and some are strick m:f bonding. Some can be on the more aggressive side of things and some of the aspito require blackwater to live or breed (low ph very soft).

I would get no more than 4 b. rams - either all the same sex or 2 m and 2 f. While not overly aggressive some issue does arise once they bond to a mate. naturally this won't happen if they are all the same sex. Your tank can easily support two pairs. Of course in addition to bolivans and the 100 or so species of aspito there are 100s of other commonly available dwarf cichlid that would also work. Some quite deep in personality and mating ritual others just simply flashing lovely with bright colours et all. Most of them range in size from 2 inch to 4 inch but some are slightly smaller and some slightly larger. Most of them would work well with your current stocking with the primary limiting is to avoid those that prefer warmer or cooler waters (your temp range covers the most common species but some prefer warmer waters such as german blue ram.

So in the above tank the val which is on the left side actually have leaves that are over 6 feet long (most of them have been trimmed to two but i left a few in the very back); however in my 29s i ahve italia val (this comment is for growing them) and they grow a lot slower but given time they eventually get 3 or 4 feet long - it just takes several months instead of a couple of weeks. I used to think they needed root tabs to grow but that really hasn't been the case - i think a lot might depend on how soft/hard your water is as well as the maturity of your tank (though i'm not even sure about that because this val is old - i had it in a 40B before i moved so i think it is like 3 1/2 years old and when i first go it it went from 1 plant to 10 plants in a short period - maybe a month or two. Back then i didn't know what i was doing - i just stuck in the substrate and pretended it didn't exist. It does need decent light (i had a fluval 3.0 on that tank) and i think the water in boston was pretty soft but i never measure it (testing water? didn't know anything about that when i got the plant). My current water is gh 7 kh 3 ph 7.1 and i do use nilgoc complete fertilizer once a week and of course i have fishes in the tank that help fertlize it. - Also you need to be patient. I find this plant grows in spurts. For a while it stopped sending out runners than recently (a month ago?) it started sending them out like crazy - not only in the above tank but also the 29 - in fact it was intruding on some other plants so i had to throw a dozen away - it was spreading way fast - patience is always a trick with plant. They move in order of months. If you do make changes to your tank try to take it slow and in a control fashion - don't change a lot at one time.

If it is a single plant with several leaves it is almost certainly a sword plant. Crypts usually have a bunch of tiny plants together. The plant in the guppy tank the wide/narrow thing you describe is less pronounced. The one picture above teh leaves are so large giving them room to have the more classic shape (these are literally 22 inches high - i mostly posted the picture to show the vein structure) which seems a bit different for crypts. - It is a bit annoying when they send those sneaker runners under the substrate and you suddenly get a second or third or 50th plant.

Pretty sure it is some sort of melon sword - i have several different types - one of them is 22 inches high - here is a leaf from that one. I have one that is deeper red but it is in the guppy tank and the lights are out in that tank (night time and all). That plant the leaves are only around 4 inches high.

Can you zoom out a bit - on the surface it looks like a melon sword

Yea. I know one of these days I need to do it - but i swear i did it last week..... But it keeps growing back 😞

Way over stocked for a 29. Way way over stocked. I'd drop the two bn pleco and both hillstream loachs (which btw dont' belong in this tank to begin with - they require a good current and clean water and generally a cooler temp). I'd replace the electric blue acara with bolivian rams or a smaller dwarf cichlid. If you go with rams you want either 3 males or a pair. - You could consider adding 8 otto and you could consider replace the 6 sterbai with 12 pygmy cory.

So this is a mix bag. Typically ram parents aren't that great so most people remove them at the egg or wriggler stage - however if you happen to have very good parents it is always easier to let the parents raise them. You could try leaving them with the parents the first few times and if it doesn't work out then remove them (parents will breed frequently). Rams need very small live food around 24 hours after the begin to swim. THe normal stage is after being wrigglers they will start to swim but not eat until their egg sack is exhausted after which they will need to be fed 4 or 5 times a day. The difficult part is that in this state they are extremely vulnerable and need very clean water (the advantage of leaving them in the large tank is the water quality tends ot be better. The normal sequence is to feed them live food and then 20 or 30 minutes later vacuum out the uneaten food before it decays as well as any dead frys (i use a turkery blaster and magnifying glass). As to what to feed them - they might be able to eat newly hatched bbs but they are really small and smaller food like vinegar eels tend to work better. After about 2 weeks you can switch to dry powder food like hiraki first bite, golden perals, and similar. - Don't be too upset if it takes a few trys to get it right as rams frys are among the more difficult ot raise because of their extreme fragility.