laritheloud

There are female dwarf gouramis (female powder blue gouramis) but they are extremely difficult to source, and most average LFSs will not have female dwarf gouramis in stock. Powder blues are the only dwarf gourami where the female is just as colorful as the male. True females don't really have orange/red to their fins and have quite plump bellies. The more I look at your fish the more I think you have three males.

All three appear to be male, and the last one doesn't look very well. Is he in quarantine? I'd add salt and monitor closely. EDIT: I'm going to edit because it's possible the second fish is female, but I'm not getting a good look at him/her. I'm leaning towards all males. If fish 2 is the same as the last pic (s)he looks like (s)he needs some recovery.

I have all the 'pest' snails in my tanks and enjoy having them around. As your tank/plants mature you'll notice them less and less; they'll still be there, but not quite the 'snague' of them that you get during big diatom and algae blooms.

Thank you for your experience! That's a shame that they are so shy. I've heard that they're quite adorable little fish. I still have plenty of time to think about it, and I'm still not totally sure which way I'll go. I have this habit of looking/reading around the internet too much instead of going with my gut and trying things out. Sometimes Too Risk Averse is a bad thing... and my husband gently reminded me that it would be totally fine for us to get another tank (and we'll make it work) if a fish doesn't work out in the 55 gallon. AND most of our fish can live out their lives in the 20, save for any bigger fish. So it's not the end if one fish doesn't get along even if I feel like it would be. @JawjagrrlI have looked at Geophagus Red Head Tapajos and I'm trying to decide if I feel okay with a singleton when they are a gregarious species. They are utterly gorgeous fish, and I hear they are very slow-growing. I know they tear up the sand (because they're eartheaters) but I genuinely want to put the happiness and harmony of my fish above the look of my plants.

I'm leaning back into Keyhole Cichlids, Kribensis, or African Butterfly Cichlids.... Heavily researching the needs of all of these fish and potential compatibility issues has me second-guessing everything. I'm still in love with Festivums, but I hear mixed things about their compatibility with gouramis. All of these fish are regularly at my LFS, at least, along with some laetacara species and EBAs. I'll see where I end up.

I don't think there's a need to fast him after that long. Don't feed any more shelled peas. Bettas are more carnivorous than not and peas will not actually help with the bloating; I'd recommend trying baby brine shrimp or daphnia (live or frozen would both work) as they will have the laxative effect you're looking for... if your betta eats them, lol. My betta doesn't acknowledge daphnia as food! @Colu also advised me once to try 10 minute epsom salt baths (1 tablespoon pure epsom salt to 2 gallons of water for 10 minutes) to help relieve bloating, and that helped my gourami in the past. If he's acting normal though I'd just continue onward, feed modestly, and see if the bloating changes. Colu might have some more advice for you if he needs any medical treatment.

Puffers. I absolutely adore pufferfish, always have since I was a little girl. They're just too adorable! But I don't think I'm cut out for staying on top of their unique feeding needs, though, and it seems like a lot to commit to in providing a single-species environment for them. My brother and his wife keep pea puffers (and they breed ricefish) instead of me.

Of the fish I own, my bristlenose pleco, black ruby barbs, and thicklipped gouramis.

My water isn't quite soft enough for me to feel comfy giving them a try, but they are utterly gorgeous. I admire then whenever I see my LFS get them in.

I LOVE licorice gouramis! Can't wait to see how they flourish in a tank!

Thank you everyone for your empathy and understanding. Logically-- and when I remove my feelings from the equation -- my fish are doing very, very well. I had one barb death that brought my number from 10 to 9, but I think it was shipping stress, as there was no sign of problems on her and none of the other fish are expressing issues at all. They're vigorous eaters and love their veggies along with my sweet pleco my son named Lava. 🙂 My husband likes to joke with me that I'm flipping out too much over small stuff on the fish (like a scuffed scale that I have to double check is ONLY a scuffed scale and nothing more about 10 times in a day) and that when we look at their overall activity, they are fine. It's absolutely true, and not in a funny hahaha way. I do a headcount every day twice a day and check for anyone missing or floating, and it's rarely happened -- except with my pseudomugils who are thriving as well as they can with their genetics. When I just sit back and watch the fish potter around the tank, it's so nice and I find them to be utterly sweet and delightful. I do get anxious over adding any fish to my tanks or moving fish from one tank to another. I'm worried I'm shaking up the equilibrium and get a little consumed by it, even when it's just an easy little moving-from-quarantine-to-display. What I should remind myself is that it's small stuff, the quarantine is big enough to house almost any single species of fish I own for the long term, and in the worst case I can move everything around and reestablish peace. @xXInkedPhoenixXI admit I moved fast. I went from one tank to five pretty rapidly. I'm stopping here, one because I don't have room for more with young kids and their stuff all over the house, and two because I think this is about where I want to stay with tank maintenance for now. I also reallllly don't want to go through the tank cycling circus again. My last tank took over 8 weeks to cycle, and thought it did a number on making me feel impatient, I'm glad I waited because wow is that tank rock solid now. 9 Barbs and a juvenile bristlenose in quarantine and not a dent in the parameters; even nitrates are below 10 after 5 days. Insane. I'm thrilled with that. EDIT to add: And I 100% agree with folks that say 'step away from the internet.' That's exactly why I mostly quit Facebook. It was very bad for my health!

Thank you. I might just end up getting rid of this in shame, anyway.

I'm reading The Song of Achilles on and off by Madeline Miller. I loved her take on Circe, and this book appears to be just as good. Sadly, I don't really spare much time for reading, so it ends up going very, very slowly. If only I had more hours in the day!

This forum isn't my therapist. Thought I'd get that out there up-front before I unload. But how do you cope if your aquariums are a constant source of anxiety? How can you teach someone like me to relax, stop micro-analyzing every bump and scuff on a fish for hours, and breathe? There's always something for me: how a fish is acting, whether a fish is pooping 'right,' whether a fish is completely free of scrapes or marks, whether it just 'looks happy.' Whether fish are totally compatible or if I'm taking on way too much risk. Now my husband is worried that I took on too much and grew too fast in this hobby, and I'm trying to self-examine whether he's right or if there's another approach I should try to calm myself down and have a healthier approach to my tanks. I got some cat-safe houseplants that I hope will stay alive for me, and I hope just watering them once a week will be a nice predictable task that I don't have to worry much about. Thanks for listening.

Same experience with Fed-Ex, and we're in the same area. Fed-Ex has been nothing short of terrible every time they're used. Maybe it's a "your mileage may vary" situation, but USPS and UPS are far and away amazing and actually care about delivering your package on time or quicker, while FedEx delays, delays, delays again, takes mysterious routes, holds 1 part of a 2 part shipment for baffling reasons despite the two being shipped out from the same location at the same exact time... It's nuts. I wouldn't trust anything live or time-sensitive with FedEx.

This is an amazing discussion and I'm learning so much just by reading along. Thank you for starting this topic, and thank you @BlueLineAquaticsSC and @Torrey for your incredibly nuanced and thoughtful input.

Gosh!!! My 29 gallon is pretty well-stocked so I don't think I'd feel right adding Rams to that setup, but man if it isn't tempting. My "issue" with that tank (if you could call it an issue) is that my Diamond Tetras looooooove to breed in there. I started with 6 and I now have 12 plus another surviving fry flitting around. I've had 'em a year. Self-sustaining tetra colony, I guess!

I have always loved Bolivian Rams @BlueLineAquaticsSC and originally considered them for my 29 gallon before I went with honey gouramis. I'm glad I didn't go with the Bolivians for that tank, though; I have gravel in that tank and would prefer to put them in a tank with sand.

Definitely going the right way! Add some more buffer for sure to bring that PH over 7 and monitor, because you'll be seeing a lot of PH swings soon.

@Torrey and @Mmiller2001 both gave excellent advice. Change that water, and change a lot of it often. Keep adding Stability/your bacteria of choice, keep testing, and try to have patience. There is no strict timeline for completing a cycle for a tank. My 29 gallon cycled in 10 days, my two 10 gallon tanks cycled in 5 weeks, my 55 gallon cycled in three weeks, and my 20 gallon cycled after 8 to 10 weeks. It's highly variable, and though plants can help, they don't always speed the cycle as I added plants to all of my tanks. If you are adding fertilizer to your tank, that might be the source of the nitrates (or from the stratum) -- I'm not convinced this tank was ever cycled since nitrites haven't been seen and your ammonia is quite high. The low PH is helpful for keeping your fish safe, so I'm glad that's on your side right now. Hang in there! This can be done safely, but it takes a lot of vigilance, a lot of water changes, and a lot of testing!

Agree, Wondershells raise GH but not KH. Was the tank cycled before adding fish and snails? If it was not cycled, you can expect PH swings through the cycling process, and that makes it all the more important to add crushed coral to your filter.

Honeys are small, peaceful, and tend to have better health overall (from a solid store). A dwarf gourami would probably be okay temperament-wise in your tank if you really want to try one, but get only one. They are definitely bigger than honey gouramis and get around three inches! My honey gouramis are all very slow growers and have stayed quite small, just around 2 inches long (maybe slightly less for my small ladies). Since you have a 29 gallon, you can also try a thicklipped gourami. They don't have the flashier looks of dwarf gouramis or honey gouramis, but they have a very peaceful, outgoing personality that won't hurt your other fish at all. They'll probably eat from your hands if you try it.

Yikes, I hope the fish make it. 😞 I heard some... dubious things about the seller that posted that video. I have my fingers crossed for you, they are beautiful fish.

Barbs come to mind: Gold barbs, Rhombo/Snakeskin barbs. They can get chunky and reach 3 inches or so. There's also some cooler-water-hardy rainbowfish you might be able to try. Celebes can tolerate water anywhere in the 70s and they reach 3 inches or so. I'd look into other smaller rainbow varieties if you can!

Don't water change if you're doing a fishless cycle. That said, your PH is low and you might struggle with growing a bacteria colony at acidic water levels; bacteria is slower to reproduce at low PH. You could add baking soda to bump up the PH and give you some mineral buffer for the bacteria colony to grow without fish (once you go to add fish, adding baking soda is not necessary). There's two approaches you can try from here: 1) You can keep adding an ammonia source, dose your tank to 2 to 4 ppm ammonia, and wait for a cycle to get started/complete (you would see ammonia drop and nitrite spike, then nitrite will drop and nitrates will spike; continue to add ammonia to 2 to 4 ppm when you see it drop). This is probably going to be a bit hard on your plants, and the tank will look uglier before it looks better. I find when I do a fishless cycle with plants, there is a large diatom and algae bloom, but it tends to 'right itself' after some maturation and the algae is gone after a few more months. This has the potential to take a long time, and we can't guarantee a timeline for how long it will take your tank to cycle. BUT at the end of this method, you'll be able to add a larger number of fish without fear of straining the biofilter's limits. 2) You can focus on growing your plants for about a month then add very small amounts of fish at a time. You can fertilize your plants weekly, do your weekly water changes, and just get into the habit of caring for your tank. You're not guaranteed to have a fully functioning cycle at the end of this, but the tank would be 'mature' enough to handle at least a small amount of bioload at a time. Hope this helps.