anewbie

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.

Yes once a fish is dead frequently the other tank mates will treat it as food. However the issue is long term the dynamics isn't great. Did this 'beneficial bacteria' you squirted into the tank come from a package or do you mean you rinsed a filter in the tank. If it came from a package there was another user who on these forums who reported that after using such a product all their fishes died in a few hours. - At this point if you have sachem prime or similar on hand I would put in a few drops to help neutralize the nitrite and ammonia (if there is any). If the nitrite levels are above 0.5ppm it could be fairly serve depending on exact level. At this point i would leave all the fishes in the tank since you have no place to put them and try to get this tank cycled. With the established sponge filter it shouldn't take more than 3 or 4 days with slight blips in ammonia and nitrite that sachem prime (or similar) can neutralize. - With regards to your QT tank - one thing you should do is measure your tap water. It is not uncommon for tap water to contain some level of nitrate or similar. There should be no ammonia in the qt tank in most situations until you actually add something that produces ammonia (like fish). Even then it won't be instant but certainly after 24 hours you might notice a little depending on number of fishes and water volume. - I personally never use 'live bacteria' and there has been some research on effectiveness. There is one specific type that is suppose to be very good and several types that are hogwash (basically does nothing) and several that can be not so healthy for the fishes. Alas while I skimmed several articles on the matter i paid little attention to the details like brands since i never use the stuff. - The tank itself looks like a decent layout it is just feels a bit small for the cory and borelli to live in peace esp if you plan on breeding the broelli.

A couple of things - in addition to perhaps a problem with the tank not being cycled (you can determine such by measuring the ammonia and nitrite) the other issue is a 10g might be fine for breeding a pair of borelli but it is not suitable for breeding and tank mates. The cory should be removed and it wouldn't hurt to remove the endler. Also if the borelli do breed you need to be prepared to remove the male.

A picture is worth a 1000's words.....

I realized you edited out your statement but unless every fish is infected i would treat the ill fishes in a pail and not the entire tank. The reason for this is in my experience is the tank is healthy only a few fishes will get ick (usually newly purchased ones) and the rest will stay ick free. The treatment is invasive and so it is best to only threat the group of sick fishes. Naturally if full tank is infected and most fishes have ick then the entire tank will need to be treated. - But as i said there are a couple of diseases that look a little similar to ick (white spots) but are not ick so make sure you are treating the right disease before you begin.

Well I just wanted to give you some ideas - as i said i still have about 12 months before execution and i've been putting some thought into the matter for the past 6 months. As we get closer I'll further refine the exact stocking.