VariegatedReticulated

Just wanted to add, though I have no experience with this personally-- There are kits you can get to insulate the garage door. I don't think I saw anyone talk about that. Taylor from Simply Betta (YouTube channel) had a video recently where she put up the garage door kit. She built her fishroom into her garage as a separate room -- but I don't know how many winters she's kept fish in there. I think it's only one, maybe two winters at most. Might be worth looking into if people notice a difference with those kits.

Have you considered small snails like ramshorn or bladder/pond snails? I only ask because I always have trumpet, bladder, and ramshorn snails in my smaller planted tanks. What about additional decor to increase surface area for beneficial bacteria to hang out on? I have a betta in a similar 5.5 gal setup: plants, sand, sponge filter and I truly think the snails help balance the tank, though I also keep floating plants-- but you do have to pull snails periodically since they breed. Good luck!

Corydoras on "sharp" substrate with lava rocks for decoration. They've been on Ecocomplete substrate for a while now, including this summer, when they went into the tub pond with a bunch of lava rocks (and really, all the good decor from my few tanks.) They came out last week with their barbells as long as they've ever been. I finally listened to the club talk on breeding corydoras this weekend and will be changing them up soon for breeding. I will baby them on sand with less sharp rocks, but I'd be fine keeping them with sharp substrate if I didn't have the supplies.

OH, I didn't think of using pillow stuffing to clean algae. Genius! I always have too much of it.

Three tools I use that aren't fish tools but make my hobby much better. 1. The thin, white spatula: This came with my immersion blender and I love to use it to scrape the sides of my micro and banana worm cultures when I don't feel like sticking my finger in there. 2. Substrate scoopers: These are pet supplies but they're not for marketed for fish. The small blue one is sold for hermit crabs. The other two, I believe both found at Petsmart, are in the reptile area. GREAT for scooping duckweed from the surface. Also great for scooping gravel-sized substrate and rinsing it. The two larger ones are great for getting into corners...if you're tearing down a tank and you can tilt it-- throw in some water, stir it up and you can scoop out the last gravel more easily from the corner(s). When I put my snail feeder-catcher down or some repashy and I want to pull a bunch of snails, these scoopers are handy to grab the ones nearby. 3. Red paint scraper from the hardware store: When new, great for scraping algae (the edge can dull over time depending on how you use it,) if you've let it go for a while and have a sheet of it on your tank wall. (This kept happening to the one tank whose side faced a SE - facing window until I painted.) I've also used this to pull java and other mosses with hair algae to provide a surface to separate (with a bamboo skewer) what I could. Also used this to pull duckweed from the top but it's not as good as the substrate scoopers. I'm sure there are others, so I'll add to this when I come across more. Do you have any non-fish tools that are amazing for aquarium work you can share?

In addition to Pogostemon, you could do guppy grass. Last year, I kept my group of 7 paleatus cory's in a 10 gal tank for a few months with some shrimp when they weren't in the tub or the 29 gal tank, and I let it grow pretty thick and they LOVED it. I wasn't trying to spawn last year but they went for it. I just float it in a clump in my 29 gal tank, where they are again this year, but it can be planted. It's nice because if you want to breed, you could try clumping some together on the bottom and you might be able to pull that instead of using a mop (just a guess.)

I couldn't put my finger on why my new batch of CPDs (added to my breeding colony about 1-2 months ago) from my LFS felt ...off. Then I remembered the markings of the dwarf emerald rasboras. In doing a bit of googling, I found one picture that has the same markings of my fish and it discusses possible hybridization between celestial pearl danios and dwarf emerald rasboras. I suspect think these are hybrids, though I don't have evidence of that, other than my instincts and that my original colony I'm comparing the new ones to is from a hobby breeder and I believe his line is pretty strong. Differences in these individuals: - A little larger - Yellow markings/spots are more oblong instead of "freckled" - The marking on the tail was what I noticed Anyone have any thoughts; seen hybrids, seen true CPDs end up with the tail making? Just curious. I'm going to pull these individuals from my breeder colony 😕