Tanlefan

I got home from work and Gucci's tail is completely shredded? It was 100% fine last night, and I'm pretty sure I would have noticed something wrong this morning when I fed him. He's in a 10 gallon with a handful of ramshorn snails and a few dwarf emerald rasboras, who have never shown the slightest inclination to nip his fins. I did dose the tank with the med trio in my initial panic, but I have had bettas in the past and I've never seen this sort of fin damage done in the span of a day. What could have caused it?

Snakes! I have a total of seven (they are addictive), but here is Josephine:

I need some of the skunk corydora. Are they for sale now, or in quarantine?

I got some pygmy corydora yesterday and after bringing them home and taking a closer look I noticed one is missing an eye. I'm chalking this up to "it happens" and realize that there's no way to determine when/how/why the eye was lost. He looks happy enough, swimming around with the others and eating. I'm dosing with the quarantine trio just to be safe. But, since he does technically have a big 'ole hole in his head, is there a higher likelihood of him getting sick in the future? Should I take precautions or just keep a close watch on him?

I lived in Mississippi for years and my mother would have various containers out to catch rain water. Uncovered, stagnant, for long periods of time. Then didn't seem to understand why she was constantly being bitten by mosquitos...

I am not sure if the pygmy corydora I have now are wild caught or not. (Got them at co-op several months ago). Is there a notable difference in hardiness between wild caught and tank raised?

My fish would slurp the grindal worms down like spaghetti. Super fun to watch. I'm not sure on what the smallest range would be, but my emerald dwarf rasboras were able to handle them, and they're fairly small.

They were nice. As far as appearance/care they're like bigger versions of a micro worm. I don't think they're in the same family though.

I had a grindal worm culture that I neglected and allowed to die out. I'm planning on restarting it because all of my fish absolutely loved them.

That's a possibility. There's a lot in there, but I can imagine taking out a bit every water change would eventually get rid of all of it.

Thanks. Would a safer option be to move everyone into my community tank (assuming the betta gets along with them, he can be sassy), do the substrate change and then wait a while to make sure everything is balanced before moving them back?

Hi. I have a small tank that houses a single alien betta and a few pygmy cory as well as some plants. When I first set it up, I used Amazonia for my substrate. I learned not long after that I hate Amazonia. I covered it with sand and for the last couple months that worked for me. Now I've removed a couple overgrown plants and inadvertently unearthed a bunch of Amazonia and I'm being melodramatic and feeling as if my life is ruined. Is it generally considered okay to just go in and do a complete substrate replacement all in one go? Would that ruin the cycling? Is there a way to go about it without it being a huge shock to the fish's systems?

Probably bettas. I'm currently enamored with alien bettas in particular.

I am very new to the hobby. I started watching aquarium youtube videos at the beginning of the year and lockdown boredom inspired me to start up my own (really pathetic looking) tanks. If I ever become brave enough to ask for advice my questions will no doubt be foolish. I apologize in advance.