YeePuffer

How much work are you willing to do? Pea Puffers are my favorite nano fish by far given how much personality they have. But they’re somewhat demanding to keep, as I had to feed mine frozen brine shrimp and live snails (which I had a dedicated 1.5 gallon tank for.) My 5 gallon had a good amount of algae because of all the leftovers. Not even two auto oto cats fish could keep up with it.

I’ve had good luck fishing for bass & bluegill with crank baits & rooster tails. My favorite road & reel I’ve ever owned was one of the ugly stick ultralight ones that only weighed a pound combined.

I don’t know how strict they will be but my university had a one gallon tank limit for fish (so you could probably sneak by with a 2.5). The other places I’ve started at made an exception for fish tanks, although if it’s not a really longer term location I would strongly suggest sticking to nano aquariums since water changes and moving will be much easier.

I’m not sure of your location (I’m guessing South Carolina?) but Petco near me took some neon Tetras. If it’s specifically lifebearers the stores are refusing you could call up and act ignorant and say you’re getting rid of some sort of small tropical fish from your kid. Or if you just show up they’ll be much more likely to take them. Edit: also if they’re fry you could just let them grow a bit while you’re gone before surrendering them. Some stores might reject them where they’re so young.

Can confirm this worked for me. I was worried about adding too much fertilizer in my 10 Gallon aquarium before and my Java Fern was going black. Ever since I did one pump a week AND now that I have a higher stocking level, it has been growing and propagating.

I’ve never kept a species of fish/plant/invertebrate where the slightly higher accurate readings of the test tubes would have made a difference compared to the test strips. I would say 95% of fish keepers are perfectly fine with using strips and the master test kit would just be an unnecessary cost. That being said, I can see it being more useful if you’re keeping something that is very sensitive to water parameters.

I go ahead and medicate any new fish in a quarantine tank with a similar “quarantine trio” of medications. That way there’s less time for any disease from the store to accumulate and possibly do irreversible damage to the fish’s health. Another plus is I can quarantine them for less time, and feel much more confident in putting them in my main tank. Edit: just saw the part about you ordering snails too. From what I’ve read (including from Aquarium Coops own blog), snails don’t really pose much of a risk for bringing in diseases, and I can also confirm I’ve never had a problem adding them in immediately.

Kept a Pea Puffer for about a year. Unless you have a good source of pest snails in another aquarium I wouldn’t do it. I kept a single pea puffer and I had a small 2 Gallon snail tank just to keep her fed. They can be picky eaters too outside of live food, mine would not touch blood worms but loved brine shrimp. I haven’t kept them in a group before, but from what I’ve read three is the recommended amount in a ten gallon & you might have to deal with aggression issues too. Personally I’d recommend one Pea Puffer in a five gallon starting out. They are very cool though and I strongly recommend them, just be prepared to put in the extra work.

What types of fish? Unless you have an aggressive species or those that require a temp difference you should be ok. I’ve always quarantined mine in the same tank because they’re all usually on the same filtration system at the pet store, plus I can use less medication.

I’ve always have been just going by feel and haven’t had an issue. Also refilling the tank with slightly cooler water can trigger spawning in a lot of species.

Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft Still new to reading as a hobby so I'm starting by going through some of the classics. Pretty sure At The Mountains of Madness is still going to be my favorite Lovecraft story by the time I'm finished with it though since Cthulhu is spending time with drawing out backstories on characters I just don't care about.