anewbie

I use plants as my background; no silly thingy on the glass: Or if you don't like that style then how about this style: Or even this one ? Or .....

I've been introducing these kids to my tank:

It isn't - both furan-2 and api general care have been unavailable for months; there are two rumours for cause. First the FDA cracked down on one seller of 'untested' fish drugs (not sure if that had an impact on other companies); second some drug ingredients are in short supply due to covid-19 and vaccine production. I do not know if either rumour are actually relevant but i do know obtaining the drugs are difficult. It isn't just api; other brands have the same issue.

I could really use some zebra loaches; anyone want to pick up 6 for me and drop them in the mail ? Lovely fish... also pangio meyersi would be nice - maybe 12 of those.

For light substrate I use caribsea crystal river or torpedo beach For dark substrate i use estes stony river black.

Yea. I ended up cutting both of them out - i think one still has a bit of netting on the nose but he jumped away and now he is 'lost' so hopefully the remaining threads will eventually give way. I actually managed to get 4 of them trapped in that net but got 2 out (I had a shipment of 16 - never had them get trapped in nets before but i think in the future i will just poor them into a specimen container and use my hand because this was a real ordeal for them. Didn't help that the angels kept looking them over.

Nope just sachem prime.

I purchased a group of oto and in the process of transferring them to the tank several managed to get their nose stuck in the netting. I've given them an hour to work their way free and tried gently moving the net and tugging the fishes but they are still stuck. Any suggestions as to how to free them ?

Eco complete is available at my local lfs and i have it in my 120 but hate the stuff as it is too coarse. I'm currently using (and am happy with): crystal river (caribsea) torpedo beach (caribsea); i prefer crystal river as it is a bit finer estes stoney river (black); i like this stuff - fairly fine but porous. - I had severe issues with moonlight (caribsea) and will not use it again - frequently get anaerobic pockets that cause some serious issues - These are two of my tanks (top crystal river) bottom torpedo beach:

I'm partial to corner matten with a couple of sponge filters in the rear. Id not do a UGF if this is going to be a 20 year planted tank - too much can go wrong down there...

A touch of reality is the quality of the store largely depends on the quality of the personal at the store. It is very difficult to hire and maintain quality personal at a remote store....

I wouldn't use an autofeeder with frys. They need extremely clean water and over feeding is going to end in disaster. I'd put them in a pail and take them with me 😉

I have one of those 8 hours batteries that you can get on amazon - used it when i drove my fishes cross country in the back seat. It has a bit more power than a couple of D batteries. It isn't strong enough to run something like the fx6 but it can run small heaters and airpumps just fine. I think part of the problem is there just wasn't an indication of the problem. The tank is next to my desk but last night everyone was pretty happy eating the only one a bit off on hindsight was the sae. - Now that lights are off all the loaches are playing in the fx6 jetstream - kind of fun to watch (basically the yoyos clowns and zebra are all happy to join a large group).

As i said the tank has two sponge filters and it wasn't a power outage - both were working.

The tank already has 2 sponge filters.... However the flow from them is not near the level of an fx6. Not sure what size tank you have but i find it hard to imagine your battery powered air pumps would provide much flow in a tank this large. I do have a large backup battery i could use if i had to but obviously these are not providing that level of flow. Not sure the sponge on the intake really wasn't very dirty. I need to further examine it before i use it again - i have two that i swap between since i clean them twice a week. This one was pretty darn clean but it had that squish effect which happens when water isn't passing through it. I also went ahead and clean the filter itself. The tank has around 100 fishes so the damage could have been a lot worse - everything was fine last night when i fed them - at least in their behavior - the sae was just a tiny bit off so i'm guessing the reduce flow started sometime before i fed them and then really kicked in over night. On the positive side the angels stopped bickering over-night though they recovered well enough after th water change...

Well i had a disaster. My fx6 intake got plugged and 4 fishes died in my 120- i presume it was an oxygen issue since nitrite and ammonia were 0. Lost 1 cardinal; 1 yoyo loach; my 2 year old 7 inch sae and an oto. Another oto was 'stun' but seemed to have quickly recovered - did a 50% water change and fix the filter. clown loaches were in extreme distress at the top of the tank as were the angels. Now the loaches and cory are going crazy and glass surfing (unusual for middle of the day) - guess they liked the water changes. - I normally do a 28% water change twice a week; and clean the prefilter on the fx6 twice a week. it wasn't that dirty when i cleaned it today but water wasn't flowing through it - not 100% sure why. The clown loaches are really really happy now but kind of feel sad that i killed my sae. Oh well guess that is why i'm anewbie.

I have no less than 10 different species of echinodorus ranging in size from 1 inch to over 24 inches.

You have several options. I find that after 4 or 5 times of laying the eggs the parents can easily get the eggs to wriggler stage if i leave the room lights on (so they can see at night). If you don't want to wait to see if the parents can get the frys along; you can move the object with the eggs into a sep tank (as you suggested) and then put use an air stone to aerate the eggs (to keep fungus from growing). Some people also use a few drops of m. blue. It will take the eggs 3 to 5 days to hatch to get wrigglers and then another few days before the frys are free swimming. Once they are free swimming it will take another 18 or 24 hours for them to consume their egg sack at which time you can feed them bbs (you want the bbs to be a few hours to a day old for optimal nutrient and size). You will need to feed the frys 3 to 5 times a day with bbs for a couple of weeks and then you can ween them onto golden pearl; first bite (hikari, omega-one, ... your favorite brand) or crushed flakes. - It is critical to keep the fry water crystal clear (use an eye dropper or turkery blaster to remove dead frys and uneaten food and do a daily 20% water change). Once the frys are 4 or 5 days old you should not have any more deaths (I usually have 6 to 10 deaths out of 50 or 80 frys the first couple of days).

If you are only gone for a week just skip the water changes; not worth an experience person killing all the fishes via an oops.

Sword plants are root feeders so they need root tabs as they will not draw a lot of nutrients out of the water column. Also swords actually like a lot of light so once they get started and grow a bit taller they will do better. I'd start with putting in a few root tabs around their roots (and then having a lot of patients - as in several months not several days).

I've done this with several tanks. I have a set of 5 gallon pails used only with my aquariums and this is my step: wash new substrate with tap water in a 5 gallon pail split a plastic garbage bag down the middle and set it on the floor around the tank (to get drips) siphon some water from the tank into a 5 gallon pail put all the plants and fishes in the pail (with a sponge filter if you have one in your tank if not an air stone - or in your case neither is required. put all decorations into a second pail (with a bit of tank water if you want optional) partially cover the top with a magazine to discourage jumpers shovel the substrate out with a doggy scoop into a plastic garbage bag (use a pail if you intend to keep the substrate) put in cleaned new substrate put in decoration fill tank with new water remove cholorine make sure tank is near desired temp put in plants in tank put fish in tank (optionally with some old tank water) clean up mess have lunch (it is very important you start early enough to finish before lunch)

I'm familiar with cichlid.org; one of the problems with apisto (and dwarf cichlid in general) is there are very few good english books and a lot of new species have been found the past 20 years.

Gee that book has been out of print for years. There is a series of newer books but they are in german; but rumour is they might do a limited print in english.

I would post this question over on the forms at apistogramma; there are 100's of different apistogramma with very subtle differences between the less common species and there are some experts over there. Also a lot of these fishes can control there colours based on mood. Generally they turn dark when stressed.

Hard to make a generic statement like that since there are 100's of tetra species and not quite as many but still plenty of different rasbora. I suppose many of the common tetra can be a bit nippy and at least the few rasbora i've played with have been less nippy; still they seem happy enough to chase each other.