laritheloud

Good luck! I hope your little limia can beat this!

So cute! Thank you for sharing. Now that I have my first young bristlenose I'm completely in love with their antics and get the hype. Hope you have good luck with these babies!

I know a source to get these, and got my endlers from the same source! DM me if you want it!

I'd say it's reading an incredibly small nonzero amount. I'd keep an eye on it and test again in 12 to 24 hours.

I think a synodontis nigriventris (true upside-down cat) is small enough for a 29 gallon (and you'll need a few of them), but most synodontis species grow rather large for a 29 gallon. I keep 4 synodontis lucipinnis in my 55 gallon tank, and they are still juveniles and incredibly slow-growing. They will reach a size of about 4 to 5 inches each but I can't fathom when they'll make it there. I do hesitate to recommend them to you, though, because they are very active fish and will definitely outgrow the 29 gallon when they reach that 4 to 5 inch mark. I do love them, though, and if you ever have the space for some synodontis, they're amazing. Maybe you can look into the small woodcats? Ninja woodcats are ADORABLE and so are purple oil catfish. Here's some info on them: https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/help-and-advice/freshwater/catfish/ninja-woodcat

Thank you, thank you, thank you @Beardedbillygoat1975! I think I'm likely to go this route. I'm going to try and get a true mesonauta festivus, I'll have to ask if my LFS knows which they carry. I'm in love with your two! I still have time until my barbs clear quarantine (at least a month) so I can think about it, but I have a good feeling about festivums.

Thank you. 😞 It was a traumatic end for her and a very bad day. We didn't raise her up, but she had lived in our garden for months, with a coop ready to take her when she was ready to let us take her. I wish we could have caught her but she was too skittish and slippery and preferred to accept treats from us about two feet away... We miss her. Cleaned up her garden area today.

I'm EXTREMELY attracted to the festivum. How is your experience keeping only one? Do you know which mesonauta subspecies you have? I think they look so gorgeous. I might go with the same combo as you! Thank you so much for chiming in with two fish that are at the top of my list!!

I adore leopard bushfish @Fonske, but I'm not sure if it's wise along with the gouramis in the tank. I've got time... I don't want to rush it and I'm sure I'll enjoy the tank quite a lot with the barbs and pleco going in next. Maybe I'll decide to leave it there for awhile until something really speaks to me.

I really love my gouramis, but since I have my thicklips in my tank already, I want them to live their lives without the added stress of another gourami species in the tank with them. They're my babies. Mixing gourami species isn't usually a good idea, and I'd favor their comfort over a new gourami's for sure. When I'm ready for another gourami after these cuties, I have a list of bigger species I want to try! I'm also a little hesitant to move into killifish for a similar reason that I'm struggling with my pseudomugils. I'm afraid they won't thrive in my tank, and I understand they're somewhat finicky eaters and prefer live/frozen foods. I do keep a good rotation of frozen foods on hand, but I don't really have anything live to feed. In the late spring and summer I can hatch out brine shrimp more easily in my warm screened-in porch. Gobies have always delighted me, though. I think they tend to prefer high flow, which I've stymied in this tank for the gouramis. I'll look into them more!

I loooooove Bolivians and I'm not as nervous to try them as I am with German Blues. Also on my list of bucket list species. 🙂 As a side-note, my pseudomugil signifers are.... okay. I had another death today, abrupt whirling around the tank weakly with no visible sign of illness. They were all fine and eating yesterday as far as I could tell. I'm starting to think that maybe mine were on the older side when I bought them (in addition to the weak ones), as I've seen no real growth out of them. I've had these pseudomugils for 6 months, and if they were already close to a year old when I bought them it's totally possible they're topping out. I have zero other explanation for why they and they alone keep dropping off. I'm trying not to worry about it, as the other fish in the tank are fine and whatever is left of them will get moved out when the 20 is no longer needed for quarantining new fish. Suffice to say I no longer recommend these fish without knowing your source and the age of the fish.

These guys are actually on my list as a compliment species if not the star. I LOVE the look of them, so pretty and would look great as a group. They're at my LFS and I can source them elsewhere quite easily!

I appreciate you so, so much ❤️ Thanks for being a friend. The tank is turning into a real jungle, and it's how I like it. Sometimes the rabbit snail likes to munch on the taiwan lily but it grows so fast that it recovers allright. My aponogeton unfortunately rotted out and I had to remove it -- not sure why as I didn't bury the bulb.

I'm looking for a cichlid to 'finish' my tank... for now. And I'm really darn indecisive and feeling a little discouraged due to unrelated real-life problems (the stray chicken we attempted to adopt was lost very tragically after 4 months with us and we are upset), so I'd love to hear what you would do with my tank. My stocking, once my quarantine fish move into the tank, is as follows: 4 Thicklipped Gouramis 10 Black Ruby Barbs 1 Juvenile Red Bristlenose Pleco 4 Juvenile (about 2 inches each as of today, the biggest appears to be 3 inches long and not very broad) Synodontis Lucipinnis Rabbit Snails and Nerite Snails The prototypical answer for my 55 gallon tank would be GET ANGELFISH. I never seriously considered angelfish because I tend to be attracted to heckin' chonky fish and fish that are a little different from the norm... but I'd love to hear about why you love Angelfish if you think they'd be a great fit. I want a fish that is highly interactive (like my gourami loves) and won't beat up my community fish. I have lots of plants, too, and I know that limits my options. Right now I'm considering the following: Festivums Blue Acaras (Wild-Type or Electric Blue) Keyhole Cichlids Bandit Cichlids (Guianacara sp) Rainbow Cichlids I considered a single Blood Parrot but I know they tear up plants and I'm a little worried they won't play nice or get too large. I'd like at least one fish around the 5 inch range. I'm open to getting smaller dwarf cichlids, but I'd prefer them to be a compliment to a showstopper. I'm just having a super hard time narrowing my choices because I feel... a lot of trepidation about wanting to absolutely love the fish I pick and ensure I can give them a happy life in return. Whatever I choose will be with me for life, and I know some of these fish can live very long lives. It's a lot of pressure!

Color doesn't matter with honey gouramis! As long as they are trichogaster chuna (which they both are), they can breed. This looks like courting to me. Congratulations, I hope he's a better bubble nester than my males!

https://streamable.com/j8czh3 In my quarantine! They arrived today in the mail and they've already colored up tremendously since arrival! They're going to be amazing as they grow.

Yeah, don't do what's on the package. In my 29 gallon I use 2 of the smallest size shells for my 0-1 dGH water. In my 10 gallons I use only one at a time and wait one water change after dissolution to add another. It's worked well for me and kept my GH around 5 to 8 (higher for my shrimp tank!) in all my tanks.

That's a boy, @Maggie! Congratulations, I hope he does well for you. He's beautiful!

La Laguna nad La Mintzita are two bucket list strains for me!

I haven't kept them but I would love to someday. My understanding is that they tend to have more apparent sexual dimorphism (with plainer females) and the color takes a lot longer to develop than domestic line-bred platy. I think they are so gorgeous, though...

Oh wow, I'm so glad to hear that this helped you so much! Once you know what to look for it gets a liiiiiiittle bit easier, though I still find the wild-type coloration the most challenging to sex. You're so very welcome and enjoy your group of gouramis ❤️

100% female! She looks like my darling female honey we named Peachie! What a sweetie 🙂

Ohhhh, how I'd love to keep and breed licorice gouramis. I think I would need an RO unit before I could tackle that project, though. My water is too alkaline. They are such beautiful fish, I hope they can be bred well in captivity.

I'm a little jealous that you have a ctenopoma 😍 But thank you! I was hoping to add one or two cichlids to my tank, but if I were to add more than one, I was going to try adding them at the same time so neither has a chance to declare the whole tank their territory. I'll have to think some more and live vicariously through your videos and pictures.

I love your babies so much. I wanted to ask you about blood parrots because I'm considering one... but Igor doesn't seem like she appreciates tank mates very much, huh? 🤣 She's so cute though!!!