xXInkedPhoenixX

He looks pretty good to me but not eating is a concern. I totally concur with trying frozen bloodworms. Have you tried putting back the old light? Bettas apparently aren't huge fans of bright lights. I'd try dimming it or something to see if he acts any differently. How do you feed him? If it's just floating foods maybe the light is preventing him from seeing it OR he won't approach because it's uncomfortable. Have you ever tried feeding him by hand or with tweezers?

@Fish Folk There's nothing else other than Nerites in that tank for now. There are only plans to add a Hillstream Loach at some point and maybe a few of my own bred Otos.....so I'm hoping when I do that in a month or 2 they don't attack other species. @laritheloud It could be but I haven't a clue. I know they're egg scatterers but though I look I'm not sure any have been laid. But again, they're Murder Fish so they probably ate those too the little stinkers. I kinda wish I'd picked another species of Rasboras. My Harlequins are so much more peaceful than my Murder Fish.

So when I got my Black Neons (14) they started picking each other off- mostly at night under the cover of darkness. In the morning I'd count them and there would be 1 less so I'd look to recover the bodies. The first body when it started seemed untouched- I didn't see any visible wounds and the fish didn't have any outward signs of illness. Naturally one might think, just a natural death. Then it continued to happen, the other 2 I found had their fins nipped off all around. THEN there was the ultimate mystery- one of the bodies was never found! From that point forward Black Neons are now known as Murder Fish. When the number got down to 10 this behavior stopped. Or so I thought. I counted tails today as I do just about every day around feeding time (I think I didn't count yesterday so I could have lost it any time between then and this morning) and now I'm down to 9. And like the last one NO BODY!? It's like they're just perfecting their art. Before you ask, could it have jumped, that's a resounding no, my tank is rimmed and has a tight fitting lid there is a small gap but not one that any fish or snail could escape. I've checked the floor surrounding. I'm their only cartaker andd the lid is only opened for feedings and cleanings. I was starting to get things together to clean today and that's when I counted, multiple times. Can they eat the body that quickly? Does anybody else have this issue with supposed peaceful community fish?? It kind of creeps me out the little buggers.

Ok kids, today we tried hoop training. Made a hoop out of airline and attached it to the side of her aquarium. Today's treat was thawed frozen bloodwoorms. Before I even started filming (sorry bout the kleenex nearby, it was just to clean up some water spots, silly me) she already swam through the hoop at least a couple of times without any incentives. I used the end of the toothbrush I clean her tank with as the guide. As you can see it didn't take much to motivate her. I'm hoping I can eventually get her to move through it 2 or more times at prompting eventually. This is my google link to it. I apologize, I am no vidographer- but you get the drift. https://photos.app.goo.gl/XSNWaciR5YA6GVQQ8

Your water testing looks great. You can probably cut back to 1x a week on that for now as well and let the Nitrates come up a little. If next time you test the Nitrates are over 20 do a small water change, and absolutely change water if the ammmonia or nitrite are over 0. Always observe your fish, if they start acting funny at all it's probably time to test the water and see if anything there is the cause.

If it's been 7 days since your last addition of fish you can quit Stability for sure- if not just continue that for the rest of 7 days to be safe. You can absolutely start only using Prime as water treatment and not have to dose daily- only when you change water. When you can afford it, get yourself another bottle of Prime. Stability will only be needed when you add fish to the aquarium. That's not absolutely necessary though- it's just a failsafe. I only use Prime when I change water and for me that's not very often- most times I'm only doing it to vacuum up old food left behind by the Otos and Snails not so much for my Harlequins or Neons as they pretty much eat all their foods. Your tank is looking a lot healthier!!

@Guppysnail, here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075ZPG3VL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_40Y0FPYHXEGT73ZGXFQ2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

The tank looks beautiful!!! I'm sure the Otos are super happy. I think it's a neat thing to have a breeding project. My question is though, do you have a plan for the offspring? Some live bearers can have quite a few babies. The reason I ask is that you had said the closest fish store is a box store and they don't generally tank fish from their consumers. As long as you are prepared for selling/giving away the fish then you should be good to go. I had my Otos breed, funnily I picked them because the internet told me it wasn't likely or near imposssible- I thought, GREAT, cause I didn't want to breed ANY fish. So when I accidently bred them I had to make a plan. Thankfully I already had a floating breeder box (I had it for my fish first aid kit, a way to keep a sick fish in the parent tank but contain it for observation)- I highly recommend one of those. THEN I ended up with another 10 gallon tank to house what would eventually be my 60+ Oto babies. I've had them since March, but the LFS won't take them until they are well past an inch- some of them are not quite there yet. Since I've never intentionally bred anything I'll have to defer to others for those recommendations. If you don't want breeders I'd highly recommend Harlequin Rasboras- while they can be bred supposedly they're near impossible to and I can at least attest to that so far (*knock on wood*). I love my Harlequins.

@Guppysnail yea I thought the joke would be kind of cute, fish bowl for a fish tank to feed the fish from. It's of course only a sauce bowl for sushi, part of a set I found on Amazon. 😄

@TheCzarista @Guppysnail ....indeed. Nature found a way yet AGAIN in my tank 😂

I took this picture for @ARMYVET but it applies here as well. My oldest female Escape (should have an accent over the e at the end but I can't seem to get my bluetooth keyboard to cooperate, whatever). She's huge! And I love her. And here is my only baby that managed to hatch as well. Both say Hi! I feed my snails in a literal fishbowl (bowl is shaped like a fish). My Harlequins aren't interested in the bowl, BUT it's also where my Otos eat from. Today, we always have a Hikari Algae wafer (the Mystery snails don't seem to care for them much but the Otos LOVE them. A piece of calcium chew, and an Xtreme Cat Scraper. The menu changes daily. It's an easy way to see what is being eaten and an easy way to keep the area clean and remove old food. Not that some doesn't escape the bowl from time to time. They also today have a cucumber slice on a veggie clip. My other tank has 7 Nerites and I put food in another bowl of the same type. The Black Neons are donkey's rears, always trying to eat the food and when not successful kick up crumbs everywhere. 😐

Not sure you CAN eradicate them, I've tried, lol. To the point of restarting the whole tank! Now I give up! I'll go with what everyone else here pretty much says and live in peace with them.

I'll have to con her into sending me a pic or take one when I go over there. They are so much more fun than her super shy GloTetras. They move in a giant white herd in her tank. I never thought they got that big. Catfish of all kinds are probably my favorite kind of fish- I like scavenger animals. I just have a huge herd of Otocinclus.

I have about 14-17 Otos in my 20g (I don't have an exact inventory because there are loose young ones from breeding that I let stay). They are happy- though I don't see them most of the time mine tend to be seen more at night swimming/dancing around.

Hi there, I don't have any Corys but I do love them, especially the albino version. My friend has the biggest albinos I've ever seen in person in a home aquarium they are not any less than 3.5" long but their height and girth are also super impressive, They're at least 2 or 2.5" high and approximately 1.5" in diameter? they're impressive and beautiful. (hers are in a 40 gallon breeder)

That is so neat! I don't have a tank big enough for them (electric blue is a favorite color) but I love to see pics/videos of them. So fun to see the babies swim around like they are. 🙂

Oh my gosh they're SO cute!!! How long before they start to get coloring?

@Stealth Aquatics I don't know much about the seller side but I wonder if Etsy would be better?

I hate to say it but that's been a pretty common scam on eBay. Dishonest people making claims. Hopefully since they communicated all those things to you eBay will reverse the payment. Even seen where people do "returns" but it's just a copy of the original item bought. Their return claiming the item sent was a "fake" where in reality what they sent back was the fake and they keep the real thing.

Ahh gotcha. I've seen threads here about unreliable strip tests. That's always a possiblity, but you've already tested your tap and tank water so maybe that's not the problem. I keep small tanks too and haven't exprienced this yet. It will be interesting to see what you two come up with!

What does the liquid test say?

So today I fed Spark freeze dried Tubifex worms. As usual she comes right to the top front of the tank and dances around when I approach. I broke up a bunch of small pieces and fed her myself with my finger. Sometimes just dunking and leaving it, sometimes dunking and keeping my finger there until she got close then leaving it. 1 time I kept my finger in long enough that I felt her take the worms off the tip of my finger (didn't want to put her off of it so only tried it once so far). I work nights and an extra shift today so I didn't have much more time than that. Hopefully this week on my day off I'll have time to make a hoop of airline and start that process.

@Catfish_Lover_Jane probably not associated with any Deans on this site but I could be wrong if that's what you might be implying. I remember commercials for it from many years ago. I looked it up it might have been introduced as long ago as 2008.

Here's my question. If you got an iguana would you put a gecko in the same tank with it? I feel like if Axolotis are more commonly than not (personally all the video I've seen on them they are solo) kept alone why try? I mean unless you want to risk maiming another animal (I'm being graphic but if it happened it would be graphic). People use feeder fish all the time or give live mice to reptiles- but that's a route some of us choose not to go- however it sounds like you'd prefer they stay alive, hence "tank mates". I think Axolotis are so interesting by themselves tankmates are unecessary. Unless you have somewhere you can quickly move an animal that's not doing well in that tank. As @AnimalNerd98 said it's even a risk to put another Axolotis in the tank with them- that is already a no go to me. I think Axolotis tanks can be some of the coolest tanks in the hobby if you create a beautiful environment for the animal a single animal is all the tank will really need. But this is only my opinion.

Who is calliing you a monster? I think most of us would like to get to the point where water changes are not needed.