anewbie

I presume it is a cockatoo. I also have coconut shells but they never use them - mine prefer driftwood...

More than enough for 50 frys for a week. Thing is that the bbs is only good for about 48 hours unless you refridge it (as the bbs grow they consume their egg sack reducing the nutrient). Since I never refridge it i only used a fraction of a scoop which easily lasted 48 hours - but yes it is small. We feed bbs because we need something small that fry can eat - but a lot of hatcher can be used for raising adult brine shrimp for larger fishes.

I use this device which has no issue with shells: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079C6BN2B

If i might add it might take them several trys to get it right. You can try what @Fish Folksuggested and hatch the eggs outside the tank but if you can get them to spawn with the female there is some advantages to having the female raise the frys. In my case i had a spawn but after that i had an explosion of mystery snails that made it difficult for them to successfully spawn a second time. I wasn't too concern since i can't deal with frys right now but i mention this because if you have other fishes in the tank (esp larger snails or plecos) it might make it difficult for them to successfully guard the eggs. - I should mention that once you get free swimming frys then you can feed them but not before they been swimming for about 20 hours. - Hum. I didn't really answer your question - if you have a small 5 gallon tank with a mature sponge filter i would put the cave with the female in that tank after they spawn.

Hiraki first bite is small enough for them to eat the problem is it doesn't move much. The frys react instinctly to movement so bbs is best. If the parents are caring for them then you are off to a good start because frequently parents are not so good. Be aware that bbs is pretty much only good the first 48 hours from hatching so just hatch a tiny bit inject it with an eye dropper and hatch more. After about 3 to 5 weeks they should be old enough to ween onto non-live food. As a general rule they should be fed 3 to 6 times a day but only a tiny amount. over-feeding (as in too much food - not too frequent) is a real negative and problem. If you feed a tiny bit frequently the ones that are hungry will be the ones that eat first.

I dealt with this when i moved from north east to southeast - though my trip only took 2 full days. What I did is I purchased a small 25 watt heater and the largest tub thingy that would fit in my car firmly on the floor behind the back seat - it wasn't very large maybe 25 or 35 gallons - and it was inexpensive - less than $10 from target. I also purchased one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FYJVFNK/ and ran it off the cig lighter. I used it to power the heater and small air pump - i sealed the lid but put holes in the lid so the fish couldn't jump out but had fresh air (the air pump helped). - In the evening i had to siphon some water out of the container to lift it out of the car (I only had it about 1/2 full but that is still over 150lbs) - i used a pair of 5 gallon pails. I took it into the hotel room and plugged everything in. - All the fishes i had at the time made it - a few kuhli loaches; sword tails; guppies; 8 cardinal tetra; bn pleco and something else i don't remember. - Not delicate fishes but whatever. Do not feed the fishes while traveling. - I do not know anything about ADF; the angel if an adult will be the biggest problem because it needs some water depth and adequate air - sticking it in a pail without some source of air will likely be a problem resulting in a dead fish - the endlers will be hard to kill unless they are allowed to bake in the sun. - For bacteria - i just put the unopened full canister filter in the car - and it seemed to do fine with the 2 days of not running. If you have sponge filters you can run those off the air pump as long as they fit in your containers.

My guess is that the light makes them see potential predators a bit better. They can probably sense movement in the water but I'm guessing the light gives them a chance to react faster. My tank has a lot of potential predators with tetra and loaches. Fishes have fairly good vision - just hold your hand up and move it from right to left when outside the tank. - This is my tank and you can see some of the potential predators but hte loaches like to hide during the day and there are a lot of loaches in this tank:

There is little chance of the parents guarding once the frys become free swimming ( a few days after wriggler) so if you want to raise them you need to either isolate the parents or take them while wrigglers and raise them yourself. I have parents in a large community tank that can routinely get them to free swimming but can't keep up with them after that. Also it helps them a lot if you leave the light on in the room. It doesn't need to be bright just not pitch black.

I have one fish on my get rid of list for the past 18 months. Unfortunately he does not want to be gotten rid of which makes it hard to get rid of him. And yes it is a him - it is a very grump very large (even for the type of fish it is) male bristlenose pleco. The only thing good bout him is he leaves my female lemon pleco alone.

You crossed up tank. I had 11 and now i'm down to 8 because i had to adjust the dynamics to prevent deaths. My dynamics are very different - I started with 4 but one was chased out of the tank and that left 3 (2 f and 1 m). The 2 f sort of worked because what happened is f1 chased out m1 and decided she wanted m2. f2 objected but m1 (the platinum in the above picture) was a lot stronger than f2. f1 and m2 bred and i raised the fry and put 10 in the tank. One died from the dizzies and then when they matured i had to remove 3 (not at the same time). Two very large gold males decided m2 had to go (their dad) and ganged up on him - they went to shop. Anyway I now have 3 distinct pairs and they keep apart most of the time - the front pair (f1 and m2) and the gold pairs (two off springs) will mix and generally get along but there is a pair of blacks (f2 and an off spring male) that do not get along at all with f1 and m2 and they mostly have to stay in the back part of the tank and have to sneak up front during feeding time. The other 2 are floaters off springs - they are mostly tolerated but now and then they will pick on m2. - m1 as an extremely nice platinum male but when f1 decided to reject him - she was basically going to kill him so i put him in a 29 for a while - and tried to re-add him a couple of times over 4 months but she would instantly go after him so reluctantly i had to give him to the pet shop (a 29 is too small for a large adult male). f1 m1 f2 m2 were raised from dime size - i actually had 4 platinum and 4 blacks that i put in a pair of 29s and when pairs formed i put the 2 pairs in the 120 hence f1 decided to steal m2.

This is my 120 and while it might work i sincerely doubt it. The point in showing you this picture is that this is a densely planted tank and when the boss female decides you are no longer welcomed it really means you are no longer welcomed. Now having said that as I noted above it might work but it depends more on the sexes and individual fish personalities and you might have to cycle through a few fishes to eventually get 4 that will tolerate each other.

No way i would put them in anything smaller than a 4 foot tank. Mind you buying a small one or 3 and growing them out for a while in a 29 will work but after a year they will require a larger tank. Not only are they large (around 6 inch) they can be extremely active and require a bit of room. I have one in my 120 and when i upgrade to a 450 i'll get 3 more. - If you want something similar but correctly sized for a 29 - get 3 otto or a 8 or 9 if you like.

The sponge filters will do fine bio filtering and are not that hard to clean. The biggest difference between the sponge filter and aquaclear will be surface movement (current). Certainly in an establish tank you should add the sponge filters a month before removing the auqaclear (to establish biofiltering). I know that for my 40B i was not a fan of the aquaclear because the current was excessive but a lot depends on your stocking, What I didn't see in your question is motivation for the change. Also i do not see what type of fishes you have - some fishes really like a strong current and will thrive in that current.

A lot depends on the sex. The pair will be less hostile after breeding but they will still likely reject the other two - but not nec chase them away. However if the other two are males they might gang up on the male of your pair to steal the female. If the other two are m/f they will likely pair and you will have two pairs. In all honestly i suggest you just keep the pair and donate the other two. I have 8 angels in my 120 but it was a complicated path that led me to the 8 (5 are off springs of a pair) and i've had to remove 3 (yea i Had 11) due to the dynamics. The current dynamics are semi-stable but there is still more fighting than i would like. I have 3 distinct pairs (with one pair perm. banished to the back of the tank) and 2 males that sometime try to steal a female but they have mostly settled down. I'm hopeful these dynamics will be stable until i move next year and can put them in a 450 but if not i might have to remove the 1 or both unpaired males.

I coded for years and years in mostly in C++ and a bit of java, python but in the old days it was macro10. Mostly socket code but a bit of this and that as needed. Hum lets see if i remember a few lines: #include <map> #include <string> void printall(stl:map<int std::string> age) { for(std::map<int,std::string>::it=age.begin(); it != age.end(); it++) { ... } } (of course these days folks forget how to use a basic for loop and just use foreach) - Macro 10 -- hum that's a tough one i don't think i remember macro10 or for that matter bliss10 off the top of my head ... been too many years.

Did the normal water change on my 40B but today i did a massive pruning. Don't have a before picture but here is the after picture:

As others said your nitrite is 3ppm and that is extremely unhealthy. You should also test ammonia which you did not provide. You can maybe save the fish by adding a few drops of sachem prime (or similar) every other day until the tank is cycled else it is likely they will die. - Also angels would prefer the temp being a few degrees warmer esp while young so I would raise the temp to 78 (which is also fine for the swordtails).

I don't remember them staying at the surface. For my ziss box i used the built in thing but covered the flow vent with filter floss. I did not use a second air-stone. You could try a solid box like marina box or specimen box but of course then it is more critical to remove uneaten food and similar. With those i use an established caf 10 sponge. I think i started with a marina box and then moved to the in tank ziss breeder when they were larger. The advantage of the marina box (I used a small one for the frys) is that it is easier to clean and do control feeding. The advantage of the ziss box is some of the uneaten food will flow through the mesh. - I can't stress how delicate the fry are esp the first week and it is critical to keep the water spotless.

A couple of things with raising frys. First they are extremely sensitive to dirty water and a primary source of 'dirt' is decaying fry or food so it is critical to remove uneaten food or dead frys from the ziss breeder (which i have). The easiest way to do this is with a magnifying glass and turkey blaster or eye dropper - just suck them up. - Second new born ram frys are very small - they won't eat until the yolk is exhausted (12 to 48 hours after they start swimming) and then for at least the first week they need live food (live because it moves - you can try powder like hiraki first bite or golden pearl but moving food works best). new born (as in a couple of hours) bbs might work but a lot of people use even smaller food like vinegar eel. If you can get them past the first week then things get easier. Also they will eat some biofilm if something like a small piece of driftwood (very established) or sponge filter - and if you can get the parents to raise them that is a huge bonus (rams are not the best parents and frequently take many trys to get it right) The benefit of the parents raising them is they will help the fry find food et all.

Honey gouarmi prefer groups so if you add one you should add at least 3 and 5 works better. Can't comment on mixing honey and shrimp. For cory in a 29 i would recommend a group of pymgy - 10ish - they can make a nice sight as they are one of the few cory that like to school (as oppose to shoal). If you don't like pymgy then stick to the smaller ones like panada or salt and pepper. Avoid the larger ones like sterbai and aeneus. There are over 150 different types of cory so mentioning you like cory is a bit er open ended. Aspito will work well with ember but they will try to hunt shrimp in general. Still they can be a nice educational fish (borelli is what works well in a community 29). - I'm loath to recommend other fishes not already mentioned simply that there are so many different fishes that can be recommended - the possible stocking are unbounded - just try to stay with smaller fishes - that are not too active. Remember a lot of time the fishes you buy at a pet shop are not adult so they might look small and cute in the store but after 6 months or a year become monsters in your tank so if you are unsure ask. - Oh and avoid dwarf gourami - these are popular fishes as many stores carry them and can be quite colourful but they can sometime between rather violent in the tank.

I'd pull the fish and treat it in a sep pail and not treat the entire tnak unless other fishes are showing illness. I'm not sure if it is ick but the fin rot is quite serious. You could try something like melafix or a salt bath but I think i would put in a pail with a bit of salt (can't remember what is safe with live bearers but they are fairly tolerant) and if you have a bacteria treatment on hand a bit of that.

Should be ok - unless they are larger than expected. Just test the ammonia daily to make sure it stays 0.

I have sterbai on both sand and eco complete. I used to think eco complete was just fine but now that i have seen both sets up close i can tell that eco complete does wear down the barbel (and i presume most larger gravels). The barbels are still there but it is a 'relative thing' the ones on sand have longer more distinguish barbels. Both sets have been in their respective tanks for over 20 months. --- In terms of cory i really like pygmaeus over hastatus and habrosus because of their schooling behavior. It is always neat for them to decide to move out as a group and swim to mid level and well go where no cory has gone before. - I only have 3 types of cory orange laser, sterbai and pygmy.

Probably neither cost effective nor safe - but if you do get one be sure to test it for at least a week before you leave as they can jam or do a food dump - neither of which is going to make you happier than doing nothing.

I would not put anything like a 'vacation feeder' in the tank given the length of your trip. If you use sponge filters that would be a bonus as it collects biofilm that the fishes will munch on - so that can be helpful. If you have a friend that wants to drop in a few bits of food (you could pre-measure it so they don't over feed) once or twice while you are gone that might be helpful.