laritheloud

I absolutely want to try hillstream loaches sometime, but I'd feel more comfortable keeping them in slightly cooler than tropical temperatures, I think! They are SO cute! Also, different topic, but does anyone have a filter recommendation for a 55 gallon tank? I am thinking of trying my first canister filter.

I am really loving the live bearer / gourami tank idea!!! Thank you for the suggestions!

https://streamable.com/303mva I missed capturing them touching their feelers by a fraction of a second!!!

THANK YOU. This is exactly what I was worried about with rainbows. My Diamond Tetras -- at least my alpha male -- tears up the fins of the other males when he's in a major breeding mood, though he leaves anything that isn't his own species alone in the tank. It stresses me out! We have two juveniles that just joined the school and it'll bump their numbers to 8. I also reduced their feeding from twice a day (With one fast day) to once per day, and noticed an increase in him going after the other males. I'll probably go back to two small feedings per day for them and see if it makes a difference. 😬 Rainbowfish are beautiful and look awesome/active, but I don't think it's what I'm looking for. I'm leaning towards fish like cute platies and/or peaceful gouramis, along with some friendly loaches for the bottom (I have corydoras in my 29g).

I'll keep looking into them more, maybe I can find some locally bred powder blues with proven healthy stock. I'm definitely a gourami fan, but I want to be a bit careful with my stocking plan for the 55 to try and keep it as friendly as I can. 🙂 Thank you!

I have honey gouramis I'm putting into my main tank this week, they're just finishing up the quarantine period. I *THOUGHT* they were all females, but one of them appears to be a possible male after all. I love and adore them, and I'm interested in trying other peaceful gouramis. I'm only nervous about Dwarf Gourami Iridovirus for the powder blues. Are there any special precautions I can take with them? How about Pearl Gouramis?

I'm overwhelmed with the possibilities! I definitely want a goldfish tank someday, but my hopes is to wait until my (human) children are a bit more grown so I can move their toys out of the living room and clear out the space for a 120 gallon showpiece tank. SO. That leaves me wide open for what to do with a 55 gallon! My husband is interested in rainbowfish, but I'm a little nervous despite their beauty. I tend to be a bit of an anxious person and what I want are peaceful, friendly fish, where I don't have to worry about fin-nipping, violent sparring, or injuries. Even my diamond tetras are borderline too much for my nerves, though they keep their fighting within the group. 🤣 Knowing that, what are your best recommendations for really friendly and peaceful fish? I know we really want a smaller-sized pleco for this tank, and we're doing another planted tank with a sandy substrate this time, but other than that, we are wide open.

As cories do, cute little derpy guys

I've been asking around and it sounds like female honey gouramis *NEVER* turn black on the anal fin.... Whereas my gourami was black black black, only on the anal fin! But black. And I didn't manage to take a picture. Sigh.... The colors of my 'female' wild type's dorsal fin look like they might be male. The orange edge to it was throwing me off, though, despite the bright lemon yellow in the distinctive male pattern.

WHY are honey gouramis so confusing?! 🤣

Oh, no, it's not. I just found a video that looked like what they were doing. Sorry for the confusion.

I linked to the time stamp of what it looked like. Plus dark black bottom fin. EDIT: I guess I just have to wait and see if they both continue to color up. I'm all kinds of confused. I went to the store today and picked up a 55 gallon for my next tank, took a look at the honeys they had and it was impossible to sex them in the tank. I wasn't sure of ANY of their sexes, and I was looking out for top fin color/etc.

It actually did not look like this! Let me get something that does.

that's exactly what I assumed, but the black bottom fin during the aggression/dominance dance threw me off!

This is them @Fish Folk. Golden female is the younger one, older wild type female is the one with the stripe. The striped disappears sometimes. The top fin has lemon yellow and an orange rim. The bottom fin has an orange rim that’s usually a little bluish but turned black during the dance.

i'll try. i only saw them do it once, but i can take photos!

So I have two honey gouramis, both of which I thought were female. Now I'm no longer sure. OR, at least, I'm absolutely sure the younger golden-type gourami is a female, but I'm no longer certain about my older wild-type. Does anyone know if two female gouramis will do the aggression/courtship/dominance dance beside one another, or is this only a phenomenon between two males or a courting pair? Because they did that just now, and I saw the aqua-tinted strip on the wild-type female's (?) lower fin darken. Is my wild type actually a male, not showing breeding colors because my female is too young??? Or are they still two females, lol?!

I'm in the process of switching to a Tidal 55! Running it alongside my aquaclear. I added a prefilter sponge and some mesh over the protein skimmer portion, and so far I love it. So nice and quiet and I love the self-priming.

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/black-branches-growing-off-of-driftwood.403868/ This is literally all I could find about this stuff, and they didn't have any answers, either! It looks the same as yours.

My tetras love the water sprite for spawning. It's always the water sprite where I see the dominant male courting the females and chasing away his competition. Occasionally I'll see the egg showers! I've heard lighting could have a lot to do with it...... except I have seen eggs flying at dead noon. Go figure. The corydoras are usually there to slurp up a lot of the eggs, but they can't be there all the time. I'm currently dreaming of plans for another tank, so that's where I'm going with this now.

I have eco-complete in my 29 gallon, and I would not use it again. It's fine. It's sharp. It's not that easy to plant in. I'm just going to use sand next time (pool filter, caribsea crystal river, or something else). Also an inert substrate without the sharpness, and it'll be better for bottom-dwellers to have a nice sandy bottom.

This is wonderful advice, and I was absolutely planning on growing in plants before stocking the tank with fish. Unfortunately, most house plants are a problem for us, since we have three cats that like to nibble on all kinds of greenery. I'm not sure if we could get any that would work as an emersed growth filter for us that would also be cat-safe! I hope you're loving your tank so much. 2 to 3 week water changes and a stable ecosystem is the dream!

I didn't even consider the food part, lol! Yes, definitely feed your snails. Mine love zucchini, spinach, green beans, snello, repashy of all flavors. I have some Shrimp King shrimp pellets they also eat along with the shrimp.

Okay, so I had an issue where I purchased a blue snail from a petsmart, and he hardly moved for a week. It turned out he was healing from conditions in the pet store, and once I moved him to my flourishing display after a two week quarantine he started to thrive. For your case... is your tank cycled? I see you have a zero nitrate reading, and typically you see a nitrate reading if your tank is fully cycled. Your TDS is high, but I don't have a basis for comparison for that and can't advise you on whether that matters or not.