laritheloud

Can I have a picture of your red honey gourami? Chances are they are a red 'thicklipped' gourami (Trichogaster Labiosa) and not a true Trichogaster Chuna. My thicklips enjoy hanging out near the top and skimming the surface of biofilm. They think it's tasty, and it's pretty normal for them to do this sometimes; true honey gouramis don't do this as much. Long poops could mean constipation or overfeeding, and I'd just make sure you include a more veg-heavy feed mixed in your rotation with their diets.

Cherry barbs or rice fish would both be great, as well as guppies or endlers (though their population will explode very quickly). I'm going to disagree about the blue-eyed rainbows because they are incredibly active fish and will beat each other up if the space is too small. I have a school of 10 Pseudomugil Signifers in my 55 gallon, and you can probably get away with a 20 to 30 gallon tank with a smaller school, but not a 10. Sparkling or honey gouramis might be a nice project. A pair of peacock gudgeons would work well, too!

I like anywhere from 2 to 4. In theory I wanted a moderately planted tank with negative space for my 55 gallon, but I couldn't resist planting it up. Whenever I get my fancy goldfish dream tank I will exercise moderation and just pick a few hardy plants that might withstand goldfish.

This is pretty great to hear, actually. Now that I have some sort of natural-process water softener (for now) I've had to add minerals to the water to get some GH readings. With wondershells I've been getting about a 5 or 6 GH reading and I'm calling it good. I'll be testing the tap's GH before every water change so I know what's going in the tank. Expecting it to change to harder water again seasonally... Good luck finding an optimal ratio!

Ok, all my tanks were down to 3-4 GH. Tap is reading at 0-1 GH. Got my wonder shells so I put a small amount in my tanks. I added one 2/5 ounce shell to the 55 gallon, 1 extra small shell to my 29 gallon, and 1/2 extra small shell in the 10 gallon tanks. I'll take readings throughout the week and see what happens. I wanted to start conservative!

They're humble, but I love the sparkle and the flowing finnage (for the males, females have short fins) of my diamond tetras. I started out with a love/hate relationship with them because I had thought they were quite violent, but they only nip each other, and only when they're in a breeding mood. I've since learned their behavior is pretty typical tetra behavior, and I've come to truly enjoy how they swim together, sparkle, and look gorgeous in my planted tank.

I personally choose not to dose Maracyn during quarantine and stick with anti-parasitic meds only.

FWIW, Paracleanse and API General Cure have never knocked out my cycle, and treating the tank with paracleanse only shouldn't cause you issues. Maracyn, though, has definitely given me a cycle setback in the past, and it took two to three weeks of frequent water changes to stop seeing minor ammonia readings (like 0.25 to 0.5 ppm). Be prepared and know that you'll likely see a bit of a hit to the cycle during and a little while after treatment.

AW i love them so much! Platys are so adorable, and the system looks amazing!

Gourami Party!!! I cannot describe how thrilled I am with how these thicklips are getting along together. They're wonderful, underrated fish, and they're much more orange and shimmery in person than they are in photographs. Lady Marmalade has calmed down so much in the 55 gallon with Madame Maple, Miss Amber and Lord Orange! She used to get constipated a lot and have a hard time with pooping, but I haven't seen any issues at all now. I think living in the 29 gallon with a group of honeys and no one else of her species was stressing her out. She's so much more relaxed where she is. (EDIT: I want to add that thicklipped gouramis are so personable that they are easy to hand-feed. If i just stick my hands into the surface of the water, they'll come up and try to peck at me. I love them so much.) My honeys are also incredibly relaxed, and my male honey has colored fully up, come out of hiding and began constructing an epic bubble nest! 🥰 I can't wait to see where that goes! Now for the next inhabitants of my quarantine tank. They'll be going into the 55 gallon in a month, when they grow a bit: https://streamable.com/pjwpiq https://streamable.com/3r9u30 These are my four brand new tiny juvenile Synodontis Lucipinnis! They're absolutely adorable, super active, and just glide and wiggle across the tank. They'll get to be about 3 to 4 inches large when full grown. I love them! I'm so fortunate my LFS got them in a little while ago and the batch looked so healthy!

Oh no!!! I was planning on just ... under-shooting their numbers and adding a small shell, ignoring the package directions. It sounds like so much to add the full dose! Maybe I should start with trying to break a small one in half? Time to fling more money into the drain 😆 I'll see if I can make do for now, but wow, what an intense shift from 300 ppm gH down to about 30! No wonder my soap's been so sudsy!

It's totally fine, @Hobbit! I try to step back when something gets to me too much. I'm much better than I was when I was diagnosed properly a few years ago. 😉 Thank you for asking!

Investigated further and discovered that of the four wells in town, two draw from the same aquifer, and the other two from two different aquifers. The two from the same aquifer are extremely low in calcium. The other two are high to moderately high in calcium. All four are equally high in alkalinity. Guess I'll just have to anticipate occasional fluctuations in GH... Wonder shells it is!

I'll try, @Hobbit! I do have clinical OCD so change and uncontrollable circumstances do a number on me. I bought a whole mess of wonder shells and I'll drop them in my tanks according to ACO guidelines. I'll keep an eye on tap parameters, too, and just discontinue the wondershells when the source well changes again. Also @Beardedbillygoat1975 I'm so sorry about your disasters. 😞 Take it easy!

I do feed calcium-enriched invert food along with veggies. Hooboy, I'm going to have anxiety about this! Should I buy salty shrimp? I assumed since my water is usually hard I didn't have to worry about this, but with that gradual GH decline in my tanks and with finally re-measuring my tap, I'm seeing I'm down all the way to 2-3 degrees and panicking!

@Beardedbillygoat1975 ahhhh, my husband just reminded me that we have four wells we draw from (strictly ground water in NJ) and one of them is high in sodium due to salt water intrusion from the Delaware Bay. I'm thinking we switched over to that well for the season and it's softened our water temporarily.

I'll see if I can get in touch with someone. Meanwhile, I'll keep testing and see how this pans out. Can't believe the difference in hardness!

I wanted to update with WOW I really love the nets from Aquarium Co-Op! I legitimately had a much easier time catching my fish with that net!

So I measure my tank parameters pretty regularly, and since spring my tap water has been consistently GH 10 / KH 10 with a high PH around 8.0 to 8.2. I've been using test strips and noticing the GH dropping on test strips pretty quickly over the past month or so, and I went and pulled out my liquid titers and discovered my water's all the way down to 3 dGH! My kH is still high (9 to 10) so the pH is still on the high side, but my mind is kind of blown that the hardness of my local water has dropped so drastically. All of my fish seem to be okay as PWC ensured a gradual acclimation, but should I be doing anything to add minerals to my water for inverts? I keep neocaridina, amano shrimp, and all kinds of snails. Does the high kH help compensate?

Not at all! And the blue eyes zip around them without a care.

Really starting to love how it’s coming along https://streamable.com/grdtwm And a video too!!!

That's what I was figuring @Colu! She's otherwise vigorous, healthy, and happy. Thanks for easing my worries. 🙂

Hey everyone! I have a thicklipped gourami that has a tiny callus like bump on her lip that I suspect is from being bumped around by her beau (who has been separated to a larger tank to give her a break as the quarantine was too small for the fish being quarantined). It’s hard to photograph because it is so small but I gave it a shot. Is this anything that merits super close observation or am I scaring myself? I noticed it peeling a bit earlier this week and there’s no fuzz. Should I keep her separated? What do you think? Added a markup since YES it is that small

https://streamable.com/y57jho these are my thicklips and pseudomugils in my tank right now, if you're interested. That upper right corner is their 'safe schooling spot' but they look pretty relaxed right now (don't mind the gross staghorn growing on the equipment, I'm going to scrub what I can out of there when I do my maintenance this evening)

Honeys I think are the winner with guppies. Sparkling gouramis do best in a species only set up, both because of their shyness and because they will dive bomb other fish when threatened.