Nik_n

I just set up a small planted tank (no filter no heater) using garden soil as the nutrient layer. It is a small experiment. I will either add red cherry shrimp of CPD and they to breed both. I'm planning to breed then and did loads of research but I don't have any experience. From what I found out they are easy to breed.

You could keep over 20 of CPD in a 20 gallon, even more. They are tiny fish. They are egg scatters so you would need to provide a spawning surface which you could pick the eggs from or leave them with parents to hatch and grow up (this will decrease the number of surviving fry). They are relatively easy to breed otherwise Killifish are eggs scatters as well, similar requirements as the CPDS. The amount of fish that can be kept together varies depending on the species. You could keep more than a dozen rocket killifish in that size tank. I recommend doing more research about the species before deciding to breed them.

Agree with the post above. You could also breed CPD, lots of killifish and shrimp in that size tank

Remove the eggs first of all. If they are spawning on the sponge they deemed it the best spawning place. You could try adding a spawning mop or some floating plants or mosses. The fish might spawn on them instead of the filter. Do you take the eggs out or let them grow up with parents?

You might wanna check out MD's youtube channel. He set up a river tank sometime ago but if you watch the build videos I'm sure you will get some ideas.

I always used water straight from the tap. I fill the tank and add the chemicals. I just follow the instructions on the bottle, adding the recommended amount of the chemicals treatment for the whole tank. I never had any problem when it comes to my water chemistry nor any effect on the fish in the tank. I would suggest checking the quality of the water in that area and making a decision based on it. I heard that well water should still be treated. Ground water usually contains a lot of dissolved minerals and heavy metals. I don't know if its necessary to always treat it, just sharing what I heard.

I was considering going out in the forest behind my house and collecting some driftwood. I was told that as long as the wood is not rotten, drying it in the sun is enough. Have never tried it before but I'm considering it more and more now. The area I would collect from is a forest behind some farm land. I would go deeper into the forest and not the areas close to the farm land. If I find a piece or two I will probably, scrub it, let it dry in the sun, leave it in a salt bath for about a week, wash it with a garden hose and put it into a freshwater bath until it sinks. I heard that you could also do a bleach bath. Never tried it before, but I was told that the wood might absorb the bleach and leek it into the tank.

I got some assassin snails a few months ago, 3 to be precise. I have seen one of them climbing on the other. I don't know if this is breeding or not. It's not the first time I see this behaviour. I haven't seen any babies. Here is a pic from this morning

Thank you all. I got them settled in and they and they are already out and about. I will include a better picture but I would say the male is about 3" and the female a bit less then that maybe 2.5" at most. I was told the fish need to be at least 3" to breed and it may take several months until the female reaches breeding size. I was wondering if I would be able to spawn them in about 2-3 months? Also how long would the fry take to grow up? I have a cave and some driftwood, I may add more later. For now it's more than enough for the two fish. The closest I have ever come to spawning them was the male sat in the cave flapping his fins. I checked for eggs several times but I couldn't see any. Here is a better picture for yesterday after I got them out of the bag.

I agree with @Crabbyand @DSH OUTDOORS. Adding new fish from a different bloodline will ensure that there are less to no deformities and you could still breed the second generation of your fish

I would avoid breeding the siblings with each other or the parents. As previously mentioned, you will get a lot more deformities. I would suggest selling the fry as soon as they reach the sellable size and then getting more appisots which aren't related.

I just both these two fish, a male and a female bristlenose plecos. I asked for the biggest ones they got. I chose a pretty big male but they didn't have any common bp females of the se size. This is the biggest I could find. I want to attempt breeding them, but I worry that the female will be too small. Any thoughts. They had a female from the yellow variety, but they are twice as expensive and I didn't want to mix the common with the yellow. Here is a photo straight out of the bag

Hmm could be. In any way its unusual

I'm pretty sure you can add a pair of blovian rams without any problems. I don't think they would be bothered by corries, unless they decide to spawn. In any case I would get the rams first, quarantine them and introduce them into the tank. See how they interact with the panda corries and then make your decision about pygmies. This again comes down to if they spawn or not. From what I heard rams will spawn on flat surfaces near the bottom of the aquarium, so if thats your intention add a place for them to spawn, maybe they will accept it and the corries won't be bothered.

I didn't know appisots would spawn on an amazon sword leaf. They spawn in caves and the female will guard the eggs. Are you sure that they are appisot eggs? Do you have any other egg laying fish in your tank. As for the eggs falling of the leaf; I don't know anything about that but as long as they are not white it means that they are fertilised. Give it a day or so and see if the eggs are developing

I have some experience with keeping dwarf gouramis and blue gourmais. I always kept them in pair, male/female. My blue gourmais spawned and the fry is tanking forever to grow. I would suggest going with 2 gouramis, male and female, especially if you want to add more top devilling fish later on. If you want to make it a species only or just have some corries at the bottom, you could get away with 3 (male/two female). In my experience, if kept in good condition and fed well, these fish will spawn. When they spawn the male makes a bubble nest and does a little dance around the female to get her to drop the eggs, which he then carries to his bubble nest, just as bettas do. If you decide to keep a species only tank expect breeding to happen. The fry won't survive long in the main tank so you would need to set up another tank if you want to raise the fry. Do more research on that when the time is right. Just be prepared that you might get some breeding. In order to avoid any aggression make sure you have floating plants as well as some driftwood a female can hide behind.

If you want to remove guppy babies in the future, I would suggest catching the pregnant female in a separate tank. That way she can give birth to the babies you can remove her and not worry about trying to get babies from the main tank. Make sure you have enough plant cover (mostly floating plants) in there so she doesn't eat them after she gives birth.

I got 3 assassin snails to help control the pond snail population. I also have two nerites in my 50 gallon and they haven't did get eaten. I think the nerites won't get eaten, as long as there are snail is the tank, because of their unique shell shape. I read or heard it somewhere and from my experience it is true. I'm sure it has already been said but general maintenance is the best way to control any snail population. Check if you LFS might want any, you might even get some store credit for them.

How big is the tank? Angelfish can be quite territorial so the bigger the tank the better. I would suggest having a lot of plants, which can break up the line of sight, provide hiding spaces and territories. A great plant to include would be amazon swords because they provide a lot of cover and can even be used for laying eggs if the fish decide to spawn (more on that later). As mentioned previously these fish have a lot of personality. How old are the fish you are getting? With six angelfish in the same tank, there is a good chance you will get one or more pairs of angelfish. The pair will become very territorial and aggressive if they decide to breed, so just make sure the tank is big enough so other fish can stay safely in one part of the tank. If you wish to do so you may pull the pair out and put them in a breeding tank or keep them in there but be prepared to have some aggression. Angelfish can be aggressive and territorial so there is a good chance some might bully others if they enter their territories. I suggest adding some dithers, so that angelfish have something else to chase and are used to fish swimming in and out of their territories. This will lower the aggression between the angelfish. Dither fish are basically smaller schooling fish. These fish are usually bigger tetras and rasboras, danios or rainbow fish. The amount and type of ditcher you can add depends on the tank size.

Most probably. There might be some aggression between the bettas and gouramis, but they live together in the wild so I don't think it should be too big of a problem. Just make sure there are a lot of floating plants such as guppy grass or hornwort to break up the line of site. I'm assuming you will keep the fish in a 20 gallon so that should be fine.

Yes of course. Thats completely true. All I meant to say is the importance of plants and the way they affect water quality and how they tie in with the frequency of water changes.

I have a 50gallon planted tank. I usually do water changes every 2-3 weeks. This summer I was gone for 2 moths. I left the auto-feeder on and did a 60% water change before I left. When I came back, about two months later I tested the water and it showed that NO2, NO3 and ammonia were all zero. To be fair I only had 5 fish in the tank with 5 amazon swords and many other plants, so it wasn't a big problem for me. I'm sure it has already been said but I will say it again as I found it to be true: The frequency of water changes depends on three things. 1. If the tank is cycled properly 2. The amount of live plants 3. Stocking levels. But it really comes down to plants. The more plants you have the more "filters" have. Plants act as filters in the wild. That is way ecosystem and non filter tank works. Basically what I'm saying is that the amount of water changes needed varies from tank to tank. Different tanks have different inhabitants, are different ecosystems and require different amounts of care.

Ok that's what I thought. That's why I looked for a big female as well. I don't know what to do about quarantine. I only buy from the one fish store...

I would but I'm using a cycled filter and a container to grow out some fry currently and would not like to get more tubs or filter at the moment.

Two days ago I was at my LFS. I saw a grown bristle-nose pleco and I wanted to buy him straight away, together with a bigger female to try and breed them. I went to look around for a bigger female but couldn't find some the same size as him. Side question: will bigger plecos be more likely to breed then smaller ones? Anyways, I saw the male eating a dead fish. I pointed it out the a worker who took the dead fish out. I didn't want to buy the male because I don't have the space to quarantine him, so I told the employee that I will wait a few days. The question is; Would it be ok to buy the fish, in a couple of days so a week has passed and introduce him to the community tank? All the other fish in the tank looked healthy and the store has automatic water change, so I thought that I would buy him after I made sure he survived for a week. Is this a rational decision?