NanoNano

The Mandalorian...he's about a year older now than in this pic and has had a couple random silver scales appear on his face. Never come across another Betta that looks like him.

I see references on Reddit's r/plantedtanks of people using yeast somehow as a Co2 source. Could I ask someone to explain that option as well?

A couple general thoughts: * Working in any animal care capacity can be tough and you need a degree of emotional armor and detachment. I've known two different people that were once veterinarians with their own practices and both ended up suffering mental health crisis and quitting because of their clients poor decisions and bad actions. Make sure you're up for the challenges people can present. * @Cory made a comment in one of his videos that was something along the lines of "My job is to help people enjoy this hobby the way they want to rather than the way that I think they should" (apologies if I got that wrong or totally butchered it). I wish everyone that sold anything had to hear this advice. Treat a customer with some trust and suggestive guidance and you'll have a lot more success than trying to dazzle or police them with your expertise. * Don't be afraid to ask your customers about their knowledge or experience- they can be a great source of information and learning. I offhandedly mentioned that I had bought an uncommon aquatic plant to one of the aquatic experts at a Petco and she must have asked me 10 minutes worth of questions. The next time I stopped by the store, she remembered me and talked for another 10 minutes about what else she had learned about the species and put in her own her home tank. This type of connection is what at the hobby is all about to me. * Build a network with other employees and at other LFS if you can. If you don't carry a product or don't know the answer to something, but can send me to someone trustworthy that does, you've still provided a high value to me and I'll keep coming back to you. * It pays to treat customer interaction is a potential audition for something bigger. My LFS had a younger guy that had a great demeanor, ton of enthusiasm, and just plain kind of fun to be around. He decided that he wanted to try his hand at saltwater (which he'd never done before), had books he would read when there were no customers (happened a lot with COVID), and would always chat upon customers buying saltwater fish. Ended up that one customer was the director of the aquarium at the local zoo and offered said sales guy an apprenticeship there. Super happy for him.

I think I'm not too far from @Patrick_G as the crow flies and I think we have similar water. Limiting the number of water changes that you do is good advice. Shrimp seem to be pretty efficient in their digestion, so while they look like they produce a lot of waste, a tank with a healthy biome will break said waste down quickly and completely. A couple of general comments: * Shrimp can be incredibly resilient or incredibly fragile- this seems to vary from individual to individual and day to day. A regular care routine is the best you can do, don't stress if you lose some shrimp. If they decide to breed for you, your bigger concern will be "where do I put all these #$@ little shrimp??!!". * If you've ruled out Planaria, your "gross little white things are likely either detritus worms or rhabdocoela flat worms. Not super attractive looking, but their presence means that you have an abundance of detritus and/or uneaten food in your tank. Be Zen and embrace them (maybe not literally) if you can - these critters work for Mother Nature and seeing an abundance of them are her way of trying to naturally "compost" things and bring your tank into balance. Once your detritus and uneaten food gets back in balance, you should notice a huge decrease in these critters being visible. * Like @Patrick_G, my water is acidic...often struggling to stay at 7.0 on a good day. I used to obsess over mineralization (using wondershells at every water change) and PH with my shrimp trying to get them to breed....which they never did...until I simply started giving them treated tap water without additives. Not sure if that will work for you, but sometimes less is more in the aquatic world.

Water + electricity would be number one in my book. I had a million in one fluke shot happen with shaking a wet hand and having a drop of water fly 6 or so feet and land perfectly in an open wall socket- causing it to arc out. Luckily I live in a relatively small apartment with the breaker box located right next to the front door and was able to flip the master in a matter of seconds. Poisoning would be number two- both for kids that might get access to and ingest aquarium food/fertilizer/chemicals/critters as well as for critters as kids love to put just about anything they can find into water (ask a plumber for their war stories). Small kids "feeding the fish on their own" by dumping an entire bottle/can of fish food into a tank seems to be a common scenario and that would be helpful to have "next step" instructions for.

* Strong water flow seems to work best for them. They prefer to sit in place, extend their fans, and then feed off ow whatever collects on them. * There's a lot of internet info that claims if they are scavenging off the bottom and sweeping the substrate with their fans they are underfed and/or starving...My experience is that this isn't true and a certain amount of exploring the entire tank and scavenging seems to be normal (maybe learned in captivity). * You need a certain level of "floating nutrients" in your water for these guys/gals to eat - pristine crystal clear water isn't great for them. I've seen multiple people recommend adding Bacter AE to the water and/or housing them with Amano shrimp (apparently they do well with feeding off the Amano nymphs that hatch but don't develop in freshwater). * They are surprisingly strong and can both bulldoze things around in the tank you wouldn't expect and/or "spring" several times their body length (including out of the water). They're also climbers and will follow leaves/air lines/ cords, etc. including above the waterline) A tank lid with them is pretty much a must. Edit- I should add that they can get *quite large*. I had one that got to close to 3". I've read that they can get even larger (large enough to be caught/sold as a regular food source by humans in some places).

The crypts should grow fine and be healthy. I think the only potential future problems I can think that you may run into are: * If those plants do well, they might form a pretty high and solid curtain across the front of your tank and limit your view to the things/critters behind them. * Crypts grow extensive root networks. If you want to relocate plants at a later date, you may find that their roots hopelessly intertwined with those of neighboring crypts and need to do a lot of pulling and cutting to free things. Not the end of the world, but it would likely disrupt your water clarity and scape for awhile if/when the time comes to do it.

I'll second Frogbit as it leaves enough gaps between leaves and stems for notoriously lazy Bettas to be able to access the surface to take air. Frogbit is extremely resilient- it will pretty much do nothing (but stay the same size) when nutrients are sparse but grow prolifically when nutrients are overabundant. Super easy to prune as well- you can easily grab sprigs off the surface and then pinch off both stems and hanging roots with your fingers to control growth. Pinched roots will grow back without a second thought, so don't be afraid of trimming and discarding them.

No AC at home, reached at least 104 at sea level and my interior house temperature made it to 95 yesterday...I did a big water change in all my tanks in the morning before I bugged out for work. Came home at 10:30PM with the house still at 88 degrees and tank temps ~85-86 degrees. 11 nano tanks...Only one in trouble (furthest into the interior) with a "ring" around the top 1/2" of the rim of snails/limpets/flatworms/shrimp. Lost 3 Neo shrimp in the tank, but another 25% water change and some gas exchange via extra airstone/pump seems to have pulled everybody back happy and into to their normal places this AM.

@tonyjuliano advice is sound. When you start a cycle, you've got *all sorts* of different bacteria and algae trying to colonize a tank and competing with each other for limited "food" and the best real estate (surface area). As I understand it, the "good" nitrogen cycle bacteria are one of the the slower growing bacteria in a tank- doubling the size of their colony in 10-12 hours under "perfect conditions"...but with a tank in "start up mode" conditions are going to be far from perfect- you're going to have ebb and flow as the bacteria colonizes well, dies back, and rallys strong again. Keep checking your water parameters, they will stabilize soon and you'll be on your way.

I've run into similar "mass die off situations" with ghost shrimp with water parameters that "look perfectly good". The fact that you've lost two species of shrimp and multiple individuals of a species of snail makes me wonder if there's not a bacteriological problem going on (either attacking the inverts directly or producing some sort of byproduct toxin that inverts are sensitive to). Spitballing here- I usually avoid dosing my tanks with antibiotics at all costs, but I wonder if this might be a case that calls for a pharmaceutical strike team. Anyone have thoughts on this with inverts and/or know if inverts are particularly susceptible to certain types of bacteria?

I think this is an xBox exclusive, but the sound track to Ori and the Blind Forest is pretty second to none: There was an update to World of Warships a little while ago where I swear there's a vocal sample from Oribital's "New France" that periodically pops in. A nod to probably one of the greatest music videos ever (Phil and Paul- please don't sue WoW). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOGM1V6lCgM

I'm not a tattoo guy (my body tends to respond to injury with keliod/hypertropic type scars), But I dig. Similar concept as one of favorite album covers (a single from the UK band Mogwai):

I dig him! We have a chrome silver halfmoon with a black head named "The Mandalorian" (named before the episode aired that gave Mando's read name) that lives with a colony of blue dream shrimp and red racer Nerites "Boba Fett" and "Fennec Shand" 'natch. Any other Star Wars nerd bettas out there?

Do any of the plants reach the surface? I had a tank with cherries in it and the day a frond of the Amazon sword broke the surface they used it to as a bridge to the tank lid where they then did an upside down "Spiderman crawl" across the moist lid surface to a cut out and attempted a mass jail break. Little did they know that the warden here had been watching them from the couch the entire time. Convicts recaptured before they breached the wall

In late, but a couple of additional thoughts: * Some people immediately equate "bacteria" with only bad smelly necrotic unhealthy things. You might want to have an alternative term like "organisms" or "biome" or something that you can substitute at the ready if someone makes the "just sucked on a lemon face" after hearing the word "bacteria". * "Media" is kind of a charged word for different reasons these days and might cause some people's attention to wander off on you- you might want to frame your pitch backwards by talking about floss, bio rings, charcoal etc. and then explaining that they can all be referred to as "media" which is kind of an odd term. * Bacteria can't do it all on their own (apologies to Diana Walstad). Beginner aquarium owners need to do some level of removing waste and water changes and potentially plant trimming on a regular basis. * While there's a bottled product to solve just about any aquarium problem, you need to be thoughtful about when and how long to use them. Just like with people medicines, combining the wrong products together (medicines, fertilizers, and water treatments) can result in serious complications (toxicity, depleted oxygen levels, bacteria crashes, etc.) and consequences (broken biome, sick fish...worse). Best course of action is always to come back to you for advice before putting any new products or new combinations of products into a tank.

You had me until here :). I've gotten water from this tank splashed in my mouth accidentally when doing a water change...so many flavors...none good.

Thanks- I'd agree with this for 95%+ of male Bettas, but this particular guy has some atypical physical and behavior characteristics and seems to have refined his diet down to things that he doesn't have to chase too hard like ostracods, rhabdo worms, and Fluval Bug Bites. One of my family members does a "shrimp count" every night and the population has been steadily increasing for 4 or 5 months even accounting for shrimp that have been moved to other tanks and deaths.

One quick suggestion- When purchasing isopropyl alcohol, always double check for any other additives. Products sold as rubbing alcohol almost always have skin softening additives like Lanolin added to them as well (which can leave a lacquer type coating on surfaces after the alcohol evaporates).

Thanks- currently doing exactly this with the addition of a "State Trooper flashlight" to try to cast tiny shadows to highlight the little buggers. Would like to avoid getting them in the bucket in the first place if possible.

* I think the UFO snails are leopard ramshorns * All of my older trumpet snails have similar (or far worse) "whitening" at the rear of their shells. I think it's just part of becoming "wise and old snails" and is due to the day in and day out abrasion against the substrate, decor, glass, etc. rather than water parameters or any diet or mineral deficiency.

Thanks- Unfortunately this is a small tank where my misfit critters that wouldn't breed elsewhere or struggled in other tanks have collected and started their own literal and figurative "Big Bang Theory". In addition to the shrimp, it also houses a Betta that poops *prolifically* as well as a breeding colony of some quasi rare snails, so things get out of balance if water changes aren't performed every 7-10 days.

Does anyone have suggestions/tricks on how to perform water changes in a tank full of teeny tiny baby Neo shrimp without siphoning up or scooping out the teeny tiny baby Neo shrimp? I just very carefully hand bailed a 5 gallon tank, carefully examining each scoop for shrimp, to discover that I missed 7 of them when I went to "dump the bucket" (I caught them pre dumping, so no shrimp were harmed).

I've seen multiple posts on other sites with caretakers reporting that their Glofish Bettas have vision problems or total blindness. Supposition is that the pigmentation manipulation seems to extends into the eye structures of certain Bettas as well.

Probably also good to call out that if you ever do get in an overstocked situation- you want to be deliberate and thoughtful about how you "back out of it" lest you further upset your biome. I recently did a "midnight tank check" and found 14 visible adult trumpet snails, the same amount of adult Neo shrimp, and probably 2x as many juveniles of both in a 3 gallon Betta tank. I removed half of the adult snails and shrimp (assuming that there were even more adults I wasn't seeing) and the tank cleanliness level went from pristinely clear to "freshman dorm room" in about 48 hours. Lesson learned.