Irene

My pleasure! Praying for fast healing for your betta.

Here is the blog article on salt if you need it: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-salt-for-sick-fish

I'm not an African cichlid person, but tagging @Zenzo to see if he can help you out.

Albino corydoras were my first fish to breed and raise up into fry. 👍 The eggs escaped the adults' notice because they were laid on a leaf that broke off and floated to the top of the water.

Oh that makes sense! Thanks for sharing; I have a lot of other things in my house where the labels have rubbed off. My teaspoons are the worst; never again will I buy measuring spoons with print-on labels because they always wash off over time.

The directions on the bottle say 1 pump per 10 gallons of water, so I usually try to do a half pump or less for a tank that size.

Hmm, that happened to one of my livebearers as well. First, I treated it by moving the fish to a quarantine tub without any plants and adding 1 tablespoon of aquarium salt per gallon of water (see Level 3 treatment from this article). Later on, I found out that many fancy livebearers are raised in mineral-rich, high pH, brackish water and the fungus infection started because I have soft water with low GH or low mineral content (see the "Shimmies, Shimmying..." section in this article on livebearer disease). Once I added Seachem Equilibrium to my livebearer tank (to raise my GH to greater than 8 degrees or 140 ppm), then the fungus permanently went away and never came back. You may also want to raise your pH gradually by adding crushed coral (see the last section in this pH article). Hope that helps!

I usually just measure my nitrate to see how much to add and shoot for 40-50 ppm nitrate (as long as I have plenty of plants and not a huge bioload from animals).

Everything is your personal preference of course, but I like honey gouramis for their peaceful nature. Pom pom crabs seem to hide a lot, according to what Cory said in a live stream. I also like mystery snails a little more than nerite snails because of the personality and they are pretty good cleaners IMO.

Congrats on getting through your first year! You can add perseverance to that list too. 👏

I'm so jealous of your "Christmas tree"! What a huge and gorgeous crypt... what's your secret?

How beautiful! How many tanks do you have?

Hmm, when I got my first Fluval 3.0 for a 20-gallon high tank, I had a similar situation: a) plants were growing like crazy at first, b) very little nitrate despite dosing tons of Easy Green, and then c) green hair algae and black beard algae covered everything and plants started dying from lack of light. I eventually cut down the light to 30% intensity for about 6-7 hours to stop the algae growth, and then I noticed any new leaves that sprouted didn't automatically get covered by algae. Also, I didn't have to dose as much Easy Green and nitrate levels were staying higher at 20-40 ppm. Back when my lighting was too strong, I did use Easy Carbon to treat the whole tank but the water got super cloudy and the algae grew back too quickly to make a difference. Once I lowered the lighting, I used a pipette and Easy Carbon to spot-treat a few algae-covered leaves at a time, and it helped immensely. As the plants have grown larger and started shading out the bottom plants, I gradually increased the lighting period to 8-9 hours (10 hours was too much). Also, I was still getting some black beard algae around my sponge filter (because the taller plants were getting pushed away from where the bubbles popped), so I eventually put a giant, floating water sprite above the sponge filter to shade out that corner and I believe the BBA will eventually die out from lack of light. Oh yeah, and I have the following algae eaters: hillstream loaches, amano shrimp, and platies. I had some otocinclus previously, but they didn't really eat the green hair or black beard algae and more preferred the brown diatoms. Here's another forum post that talks about different Fluval 3.0 lighting schedules. I don't do anything fancy except decrease my blue light to almost nothing. Hope this helps!

I'm currently researching nerite snail breeding methods, and I believe I came across the article you referenced (see first bullet). I also found some other useful links that people may find useful: Neritehead method: hatch eggs in full salt water DannyDanDaniels method: acclimate adults to and hatch eggs in brackish water Research from AquariumBreeder: brackish water steps and cool pictures of nerite snail egg capsule

Hmm, it's kinda hard to tell but it looks like the little detritus worms I get in my shrimp tanks. Pretty harmless and good live food for fish.

Awww, how beautiful! I love cherry shrimp.

Yup, I didn't have any trouble bringing fish in my carry-on (I believe the TSA website says you can't put them in checked bags), and the airplane has a pressurized cabin that was comfortable for both of us. In the video, I said that the fish went through the x-ray machine, but now that I think about it, I think the TSA agent probably passed it around the x-ray machine but I didn't really see since I was trying to grab my shoes, backpack, etc. from the conveyor belt. I just had my betta in my backpack the whole time, but I believe Taylor from Simply Betta actually stuffed her fish inside her coat when she was on the flight. She's definitely a better betta mom than me!

@rnn Awww, thanks! I actually found Aquatic Life Farm because another forum member mentioned them. (I think it was @Fish Folk, but I could be wrong.) So, probably asking the forum would be a good place to get recommendations!

@rnn When fish start dying very quickly, I've often found that it is not caused by illness but rather an issue with water parameters (such as ammonia, chlorine, or pH). After my new pygmy corys starting dropping like flies within a few days of purchasing them, I called my local fish store to see how their corys were doing. They said the pygmys had been with them for several weeks and were all healthy. Then I asked what their water parameters were, and it turns out they didn't tell me they had added pH buffers in that tank to drastically drop the pH down to 6.4. (The dwarf gourami I purchased from them at the same time was doing fine because they didn't alter the pH in the gourami tank.) The lesson I learned is to always ask the store a) how long they've had the fish I'm interested in, b) what are they eating, and c) what are their water parameters. Store employees are humans and sometimes don't always remember to tell us everything we need to know, so it's my job to make sure I get all the necessary info before I give them my credit card. 🙂 The happy ending to the story is that I found some captive-bred/tank-raised pygmy corys online from a breeder in Maryland, double-checked that his corys would do well in my water, and now they're starting to breed in my 7.8-8.0 pH water!

Nowadays we don't really do any holiday-based sales; just want to make prices as low as possible all the time. 🙂

Is that brown diatom algae? I usually get it in brand new planted tanks where the light is too much and my plants haven't really started growing yet. Algae eaters like nerite snails and otocinclus catfish love the stuff.

Lol, your wish is my command, @CT_. Thank you so much for the well wishes, everyone! My kids will be thrilled to hear that you found them so entertaining. 😂 CC: @Flumpweesel @DannyBWell @Rich B @GameCzar @Expectorating_Aubergine @CalmedByFish @DebSills

I think my largest female is about 2" as well, but my males range from 1.25-1.5". And so far, they have always bred true for me. The babies start off anywhere from pale peach to orange, but the juveniles all end up coloring up into bold red-orange. I seriously love them so much. I know I should try other livebearers, but I think I'll just have to set up another tank for that because dwarf red platies are so beautiful and fun to watch. 😍

Yeah, I think they're Southern platies (Xiphophorus maculatus), at least according to some of the online fish retailers I've seen online.

I googled it, and the top website results are reporting that YouTube's audience is about 56% male and 44% female. On my channel, my audience is about 75% male and 25% female. According to some of the other FishTubers that I've talked to, their male viewership is even higher. Anecdotally, I think men and women both enjoy the art and nature aspects of the hobby, but maybe the science and technical parts of the hobby are what attract even more males. As a little girl, I preferred mammals and birds as pets because they are cute, fuzzy, and can be handled. As an adult woman, I shifted over to liking nano fish because (a) they're tiny and beautiful living creatures, (b) I love having a slice of nature in my home, and (c) I don't need to touch them because I've got cute kids and a fuzzy husband to hug.