colo3000

How long ago did you introduce it to the tank? It could be melting back if you've recently put it in the tank.

Looks like your GIF may not have attached. Edit: Nevermind, looks like you successfully posted the GIF in another thread.

Pea Puffers are naturally aggressive. You're not going to be able to change the aggressive nature of the fish. Putting them in a tank as small as a 12 gallon with that many other fish just amplifies that issue. Your tank as you describe it already sounds overstocked, with or without an aggressive fish in the tank. I would say your "solution" is going to have to be getting a much larger tank so that the pea puffer can have its own territory or removing the pea puffer or all of the other fish from the tank. If you don't have any plants or other objects in the tank to break sightlines, you're going to have even worse aggression as well. This is the reason why many experienced keepers of pea puffers recommend a pea puffer only tank. I would recommend you read this article: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/pea-puffer#:~:text=Given how territorial pea puffers,water for each additional puffer. I would also recommend you do more research on the type of fish you're stocking and the amount of fish you're stocking going forward to avoid issues like this in the future. I'd also like to clarify that this is a public forum where most members of this forum, including me, are hobbyists who are not affiliated with Aquarium Coop.

An airstone isn't going to agitate the water near enough to disrupt a betta. Your water will be plenty calm, especially since the area affected by one is pretty minimal. If you're pumping tons of air out of an airstone it could be annoying to your betta, but if you use one of the small air pumps like the USB air pumps that Aquarium Coop sells, it shouldn't be an issue.

Looks like they're being referred to as "Back Strips". I just searched "Aquarium Lid Plastic Strip" and got a lot of results.

It's really up to personal preference. Some gravel vac for aesthetic reasons to keep the clean look. Some gravel vac to reduce the amount of waste decomposing in the tank. I personally no longer gravel vac, as my plants and beneficial bacteria handle the waste just fine and I'm not bothered by anything sitting on the substrate. My shrimp also enjoy sorting through that stuff, so just another reason for me to leave it in.

One thing to consider is if your heater fails (which has happened to many fish keepers including myself), it will most likely fail on. In that case a higher wattage heater would heat your water faster, shortening the amount of time you'd have to discover the issue before it was too late. On a side note, I use an Inkbird temperature controller to virtually avoid the risk of a failed heater.

My personal opinion is if he's still eating and still able to go where he wants to go, I see no issue with keeping him alive. I would personally only euthanize my fish if it had an ailment that was causing it visible distress or if it wasn't able to eat and was slowly starving to death. Of course it all comes down to what the owner believes is best. I'm sure my opinion differs from some of the other caring fish owners on this forum. If you do decide to euthanize, as you may know, clove oil would be your best method, as it would put the fish to sleep without causing your fish any distress. Whatever you choose, you can rest easy knowing you've truly cared for him.

I don’t want to say it was 100% just a random death, because disease could possibly be at play. But the same thing happened with a platy I owned that seemed very healthy and was even regularly reproducing, and then one night it was very lethargic at the bottom of the tank and just died. None of my other tank inhabitants were affected. I’ve seen other people mention singular random deaths with various other fish including gouramis. I’m not sure if it’s a genetic defect thing or what, but it seems to be something that happens.

I'm not much of a fan of Petco but they do sell this floating breeder box that has an insert with small slits that allows fry to swim downward into a compartment that is unreachable by the hungry mom: https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/imagitarium-isolation-and-breeder-fish-tank also not sure why they refer to it as a "fish tank" as it's just a small floating acrylic container.

Did you start the tank with new filter media and substrate? Did you use any beneficial bacteria additives to jumpstart the cycle? An ammonia test would be needed to know your tank is cycled for sure. 0 nitrite and the presence of nitrates is a good sign that it is cycled, as long as there's also 0 ammonia. Getting a tank fully cycled in 2 weeks is pretty fast though, especially if you didn't use any old media or beneficial bacteria.

It could be a younger bristlenose pleco. They can have dark bodies with white spots like this. I don't know for sure though.

Plants can also melt back due to a change in water conditions, so your water conditions may be different enough from Petsmart’s to trigger melting. Only thing you can really do is wait for the plant to acclimate and grow back.

What type of plant is it and where did you get it? Many companies grow their aquarium plants out of water, so when the consumer puts them in their tank, all that emersed foliage "melts" and the plant has to grow the submerged foliage.

This Aquarium Coop blog post about vinegar eels provides a method to get some of the eels into water which you can then feed to your aquarium. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/vinegar-eels Introducing vinegar to your tanks would likely affect the pH, especially if the water volume is small.

Sounds like a small ammonia spike, which shrimp are especially sensitive to. The smell you describe also aligns with an ammonia spike. As for the cause of a spike I'm not really sure. Amazonia II does contain nutrients and therefore will leach some amount of ammonia, and if the substrate is disturbed you may experience more leaching. Weird that the tank has been going for months without this issue though if you haven't changed anything.

Your best option would probably be an LFS. You might want to search your nearby fish stores and give them a call. Some give store credit, but I'd expect most to take them off your hands for free.

This article seems like what you're looking for in terms of different types of algae and their causes: https://www.tankarium.com/types-of-aquarium-algae/

Nitrites are usually consumed more by beneficial bacteria than plants. If you do have media from another tank, you could introduce some low stocking and just keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrates and water change accordingly. If I’m understanding you correctly in that your water has nitrates straight out of the tap, that does make it more difficult to determine where you are in the cycle.

You would usually expect to see nitrates, let alone nitrites by now. Do you have plants in your tank? Are you using filter media from another tank? How are you testing? People usually recommend at least 2ppm of ammonia to cycle a tank, so I would probably recommend that you at some more fish food or shrimp.

I'd err on the side of caution and keep the bottom of the tank bare until she is up to that 6" in size. Wouldn't want her to eat some and have digestive tract issues. Once you want to add the sand, you can use your hand or a cup to gently lower the sand into the tank and place the sand at the bottom so it doesn't go everywhere. Rinsing the sand is also helpful depending on how dusty it is to prevent your water from becoming cloudy, which you may already know if you use it in your other tanks. Of course just make sure your hand and/or the cup are clean and free of soap residue. Congrats on the axolotl!

What are you using to test your water, and are you sure you're following the instructions properly for testing? Also, did you properly cycle the tank prior to introducing fish?

How high are your nitrates? How deep is your substrate and how deep are you inserting the root tabs? What kind of substrate do you have? If your substrate is coarse and/or shallow, the root tabs will be more exposed to the water column and leach more fertilizer (nitrates) into the water column.

Just did a little looking around and thought it may be an Ammannia Gracilis. Taken from the Aquarium Coop Store: You may want to look up a care guide for this plant if that is indeed the right identification.

The first step would be to get an ID of the actual plant, I'm unfamiliar with it. How long ago did you get this plant? If you got it recently it may have been grown emersed and is now melting since it's in the water. A lot of plants with red coloration need iron content, so you may consider Aquarium Coop's Easy Iron. Often plants with red coloration also need high lighting conditions and possibly CO2.