Bobbie

As far as I know, an ‘established’ tank or plant is something that’s had loads of time for beneficial bacteria to grow on it and it can handle being changed or moved. Established plants have loads of healthy roots and are growing well. A ‘mature’ tank is a tank that hasn’t had any changes made to it for months - no new fish, plants, decor, equipment, substrate, etc. When you cycle a new tank you’re growing the beneficial bacteria because new tanks are unbalanced and need the bacteria to stop the chemicals (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) from changing suddenly - a cycled tank is an established one.

I’ve heard that it’s possible to breed apistogrammas in a 10g, but they can’t stay at that tank size forever

Got home from holiday and all the fish were still alive. The new quarantine tank is cycling well, although I strongly hope I won’t have to use it for a long time. Tank filter stopped working temporarily until I was told to try cleaning the impeller, which worked (yay!). I’ve ordered a sponge filter to replace the current internal fluval filter - I’ve never used a sponge filter before but everyone seems to like them so I’m hoping to have far less filter problems once I’ve switched to it. Had my camera out for stuff today so here’s Sir Charlie, and also a random corycat. Still not sure what’s going on with his fins (they’re very red but the camera wasn’t picking it up well so I’ve added a quick photo I took with my phone) but he doesn’t seem to be losing any tissue.

After a little bit of googling to see what I was doing I took the filter out, took it apart and cleaned the impeller. It’s now working again, thankfully. Still gonna put the sponge filter in and eventually switch both my tanks to them, since they seem much less stressful. Thanks y’all : )

I’ve got a 15g with zebra danios, albino corydoras and a betta - it works great and everyone gets along well. If you’re gonna do a betta & community I’d suggest making it a heavily planted tank, add the community fish first and give them a while to settle in (the more time the better, in my opinion) and choose a betta that has already been in a community setting & seems happy. Ask the people at the shop why the betta is in a community tank and how it acts, and spend a lot of time watching it to see how it behaves with the other fish - is it flaring and sulking in a corner; is it fighting some fish but ignoring others; is it happy to share food with the other inhabitants. Always have a backup plan in case your betta doesn’t get along with the community and they need to be separated. Loads of people have good experiences keeping bettas with corydoras (I’d suggest pygmy corycats for such a small tank) since the corycats stay down low and most bettas stay up high.

It’s not a silly question at all! I... didn’t even consider checking the impeller, actually. The only time I’ve ever looked at it was when I first bought the filter. It’s late where I am, so I’ll take a wee gander in the morning and see what happens. Thank you!!

The closest aquatics shop to me is a tiny wee place that’s been open for over 15 years and seems to only have 2 employees, one of which is the owner. The shop is dark and a mess and they’ve not got a huge selection of fish, but the fish they do have are all super healthy and more coloured up than any other fish I’ve ever seen in a shop - and I think they breed some of their stock. If they could afford to tidy and brighten up the place, I doubt anyone would go anywhere else. On the other hand, there’s another small aquatics shop not far away from the first one and it looks amazing. Recently redecorated, everything is shiny and new and they’ve got some pretty cool animals that you can’t really find anywhere else in the city. Unfortunately, I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about people buying their animals only to have them all die within weeks or months.

I’d suggest doing some googling to see if other people have had good or bad experiences with the shop. As someone who regularly bought fish and medicated them in the community tank instead of a separate tank, and then had it come back to bite me a few days before I went on holiday: have a backup plan, because there’ll eventually be a fish that comes in sick. Obviously having a spare cycled tank up and running at all times is the safest method but, even if it’s a small bucket or tub, have somewhere you can put the sick fish. Depending on species size, you could even keep an empty nano tank somewhere and just fill it with the water & some plants/decor from your main tank when it’s needed. Personally, my new quarantine tank is a 6 gallon that’ll house a small group of cheap fish (I’m thinking white clouds or endlers) that will get along well with any new fish I bring in. If the new fish go in and the current fish get sick, then I’ll know they’re carrying something.

I’ve ordered the new filter, just waiting for it to come now. Also ordered a spare heater since last time my filter broke the heater broke soon after (in the middle of a week-long snowstorm during the winter) and I don’t wanna have to go through that stress again. This has happened before with an old filter I had, but I’d been expecting it to break & had the new filter cycling so I panicked earlier when the current one just wouldn’t turn on. If the new filter takes ages to come I do have the option of putting the quarantine tank filter into the 15g and sticking the old filter media into it, but it’s a tiny thing and I don’t wanna mess up the quarantine tank cycle by removing the filter. I’d been planning to swap the fluval filter for a sponge filter at some point soon anyway, but I’d been hoping to have a month or so to cycle the new filter first. Oh well, what’s done is done.

I’ve got a Fluval U2 internal filter in my 15g tank. I just did a water change, but when I switched the filter back on it’s not starting. I can order a new filter, but it may take up to a week to arrive. The filter is nearly a year old, so will the tank be alright until the new one arrives? The tank is heavily planted and, other than the betta I added a few weeks ago, all the fish have been in there for at least a year.

My biggest surprise: I started out with only 2 anubias & a java fern in the corner of the tank because I didn’t want it to look messy, but now I’ve got a riot of 8 different types of plant doing whatever they feel like and it’s a somewhat overgrown jungle but I love it. Disappointment: Since I got my first betta a while ago I’ve been constantly fighting issues with his fins. He’s nice and personable and friendly, but the stress of medicating & not knowing if he’s getting better or worse has kinda put me off of bettas.

When I first set up the tank I was doing a small feeding every day, but now it’s a feeding every 2-4 days depending on how much I fed them the previous time & whether there’s been a water change done between the feedings. They usually don’t get fed at a certain time, just when I can get around to it, but in the last few weeks it’s usually been in the morning. I feed flake food and sinking pellets every feeding, with an algae wafer or some baby brine shrimp every 3 feedings. They also get live, frozen & freeze-dried bloodworms (only one type at a time) every 2 weeks or so. They’ll occasionally get some vegetables or fruit added in, but that only happens once every 2-3 months.

As I’m preparing to get another tank there’s a small possibility I’ll buy a used one, depending on my budget. What would be some important questions to ask to make sure I’m getting a good tank?

Those were probably the golden variation, I’ve heard they become a lovely pinkish colour as they grow up! I’ve got 2 regular danios that are quite a bit more golden than the rest, and it’s interesting to see where the golden mutation started out before it was bred for. And yeah I’ll need to start a notebook of advice too, this forum is a goldmine of information. I’m saving up for at least a 29g but what I eventually get will really depend on how much space I can clear, been really looking forward to whatever I eventually do with the new tank.

Oops didn’t notice this until now, sorry! This got a bit long and ran away from the point of your question because it seems I don’t know when to shut up. My zebra danios have never been a tight bunch and will happily stay away from each other while exploring the tank. Really the only time I see them in a group is when they’re eating an algae wafer or they’re sleeping. For the few weeks I only had 3 danios, they stuck together and never seemed to stop moving (if they got spooked I’d hear them crashing against the glass trying to get away) - they were also somewhat aggressive to each other, lost a lot of their colour, and were hiding most of the day. It really wasn’t fun to watch compared to how they had been. I’d noticed them becoming more skittish and fearful as the numbers had went down, but I didn’t expect the change to happen within days. Once I bought the extra danios and added them in, it was like a switch was flipped. At first they were all in a very tight group and were jumping quite a bit, but after a few hours they settled back down and split into pairs or trios to wander around the tank. For a week or so they harassed the snails, which hadn’t happened before, but that mostly stopped once they realised they can’t bite through shell. I’d often read that zebra danios always hang out in the middle-upper levels of the tank and don’t spent too much time down the bottom, but for the 5-ish months I kept them as a species-only tank they actually preferred to stick close to the substrate and only went near the surface if there was food floating. Once I added the corydoras they started spending more time away from the substrate but they’ll still often go and swim around wherever the corycats are chilling, especially the males - even when there’s no food. When I added the male betta to the tank they spent a day or so lurking in a corner watching him warily (although the corycats didn’t care at all) but now they’ll happily eat with him and don’t seem to mind when he joins their group at bedtime. Some other interesting things I’ve noticed is that the danios love to rip up the roots of every java fern I try to grow in the tank, it’s the first thing they do every morning when the lights go on. Also, whenever I dose the tank with API white spot cure the corydoras don’t act differently at all (even though the packaging says that catfish are sensitive to it so I only put in half the recommended dosage) but the zebra danios lose their appetite and become very lethargic until I’ve done a water change or two. I’m not sure why, and I’ve never seen anyone else mention it. Overall zebra danios are amazing and a super underrated fish, and I’d love to put a large group of them in something like a 50 gallon or larger to see how their behaviour changes.

Yeah, green water is caused by too much light. How long is the tank light on for? Try lowering it to 6 hours a day and see if that helps. Also, maybe cut down on feeding to every 2 days instead of daily. So long as the parameters are all good, green water (algae) isn’t actually bad for fish & usually means that the tank is healthy enough to keep things alive. If she’s thriving then I’d leave the tank as is. In the wild fish live in very murky water & have survived perfectly well that way for millennia. The airstone will simply keep the water oxygenated, don’t worry about it making the flow too strong so long as you’ve got a sponge filter.

Hi y’all, I’d been keeping track of my betta healing from finrot in my journal but now I think I need help for him. I rescued him from a tank full of male gouramis that had been beating him up, so I wasn’t too surprised when I posted a photo of him and someone pointed out the clear edges to his fins meant he was recovering from finrot. He seemed to be recovering well, his fins were getting colour back and the raggedy edges were disappearing, but yesterday I noticed quite a bit of discolouration in his fins and it’s getting worse. Unfortunately I leave for a week tomorrow morning, and I could only find someone willing to feed the fish but they’re not comfortable treating any with meds. The betta is currently in a 15g planted tank with zebra danios & albino corydoras. He’s very happy in it so I’m not sure if I want to risk stressing him out by moving him into the bare 6g quarantine tank & treating with salt for the week I’m away. Would there be more risk if I keep him in the community tank for another week, and wait to put him into the quarantine tank as soon as I get home? Should I treat the whole community tank with salt and hope for the best? The main issue with the quarantine tank is that it’s new (the old one cracked) and not cycled yet. Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you. Photo from last Friday Temperature: 26 Celsius PH: 7.3 Nitrate: 40 Nitrite: 3 KH: 40 GH: 150

Yeah, I’ve always wondered why 6 is the minimum - and I’ve also often seen folks say that you should always try to have an odd number of fish, again I don’t know why. I’ve also noticed the behaviour change, when my zebra danios slowly died off and I was left with 3 instead of 7 there was a drastic change in fish behaviour with every death. Once I’d added the new fish and the number went up to 10 the danios were so different.

I had it on my tank when it was recently set up. I found the best way to remove it was kitchen paper just barely touching the water, skimming it off with a glass or cup, and doing a water change. It took me about a week of daily skimming & paper towels, but it disappeared eventually.

Yeah I also recommend small aquatic snails, they’ll clear up algae like you won’t believe - otos & plecos mostly eat algae as juveniles and will stop eating it as they get older A good fish for eating algae is mollies, although it can be difficult to keep them in freshwater if they’re not acclimatised properly

None of my local shops sell them and neither do any of the online places I look at, but you could probably ask your preferred shop if they could order them for you? Might take a while for them to source them, especially if they’re a wild caught species, but at least they’ll know to be on the lookout. If you’re in the US then I’d suggest trying aquahuna?

Thank you @Odd Duck The person with the betta is just a teenager and was confused by all the different pieces of advice, but he’s willing to listen to an adult with years of experience and will look into buying an airstone for his fish : )

Hi so this is a bit of an odd question, but I was discussing bettas with some other fish keepers and we couldn’t decide who was right. Can a betta live a long, healthy life in water with very low oxygen levels so long as they have access to air & an undamaged labyrinth organ? Or do bettas require high oxygen levels in their water just like any other fish, and would do well with an airstone in their tank? I told someone an airstone would be beneficial to their betta, but people with more experience with bettas than me said that fish with labyrinth organs don’t need extra oxygen because they come from areas with low oxygen in the water. Edit: I should probably add that we had been discussing treatment for a bloated betta that is gasping for air when I suggested an airstone might help.

Oh, and while I remember here’s some photos showing the progress of my tank - I started it in December 2019, but only have photos from August 2020 onwards due to lost files (the tank was basically the same up until that point anyway). August 2020 - I’d recently had most of my danios die off and was shielding, so kinda lost interest in the tank for a while December 2020 - new heater & filter, because the original ones broke within a few hours of each other one night in November May/June 2021 - I spent the winter/spring buying new pebbles and plants, and had fallen back in love with fishkeeping. This was the day I added Sir Charlie to the community tank, and it was looking rather nice in my opinion. July 2021 - even more plants, have decided to try my hand at floating plants and am liking them a lot

Today was Charlie’s first time eating flake foods since he joined the community (he’d only had frozen & live foods this past week) and he seemed to enjoy them - he enjoyed the corydora food even more lol, but I was expecting that since the danios also love to eat it & the corycats don’t mind sharing. It’s weird, and maybe I just got lucky, but I’ve always heard that bettas and zebra danios don’t mix well yet mine all get along swimmingly. No update on Charlie’s fins, but here’s a quick photo from dinner time.