Jcrizzo12

29 Gal community tank, heavily planted 8 Cardinal tetra 8 Ember Tetra 1 Male and 1 Female A. Cacutoides very seasoned tank, AM and Nitrites reading 0ppm, Nitrates 5ppm Hi friends! Ive recently wanted to try my hand at breeding after running this tank for a long time as a sort of test to see if I can keep plants alive and now want to give some adorable and beautiful fish I love a try. Picked up some A. Cacutoides at my LFS and theyve been doing great in the month or so ive had them. Within the last day or so i noticed the female has relegated herself to one of the caves in the tank and is guarding it fiercely which leads me to believe we may have some eggs on our hands! I just have a few questions based on the circumstances im working with here A) Should I move the female and the cave to a 5g tank i have setup with a thin layer of sand, Java Moss, etc to try and have the highest probability of keeping fry alive in a community tank until theyre old enough to defend themselves/keep the other tetras/male away from the eggs? B) Should I monitor inside the tank as this will be the Apistos first ever spawn together and who knows if theyre going to be good parents at this point to say either or and use this first time as a learning experience in the tank they both know? C) Is there anything im missing here I should look into besides these options? ive been doing alot of research and as always getting mutliple different answers on the same question Really appreciate any extra help or advice I could get as a first time trying to be the godparent of some fish!

Absolutely! Here are a couple of photos I just grabbed of them I have a male and 2 females. The smallest female is the one currently who I believe is constipated but I do think I have been over feeding lately and have been cutting back on it a few days. I was just concerned because they do not skim the surface often so when they did it excessively right after taking bites of the pea I was just a bit taken aback

Hey folks, just looking to get an idea if anyone else has done this. today was my first time trying to feed a dwarf gourami a boiled and skinned pea sort of as a laxative because I’ve noticed one of them has longer poops that are a little bit white so trying to rule out constipstion through this. This was their fist time eating one and they ate a bit and then proceeded to spend the next few minutes at the top of the tank breathing constantly. They do that sometimes due to their labryrnth stomachs but this has been excessive, and it was only AFTER eating the pea it began doing this. I just did a large water change yesterday and parameters are great, could it perhaps be the trace salt in frozen peas?

Hey all you wonderful folks! I got myself a 29 gallon tank that's been running happily for awhile and I'm about ready to get my last residents moved in but I'm having trouble figuring out what's perfect to finish it up its a heavily planted tank, Driftwood, Black and White gravel mix PH: 7.0 KH: 4PPM GH: Off the Charts, around 22ppm Current Stocking 7x Cardinal tetras 3x Dwarf Red Gourami ( 1 male, 2 females) 6x Salt and Pepper Corydoras I live in the Chicago area so our water is hard and my local stores fish are all raised and bred in this water so I'm not too worried about compatibility parameters wise but I'm just looking for ideas on what fish would just look pleasant with my current setup. I'm leaning more towards another small school of mid to top level fish that would look great with the cardinals. Thanks so much in advance!

I do have some extra rock in there I can certainly remove while the tank isn't stocked very much right now, as for the gravel i will take a look and see if the brand I used changes chemistry or is Calcerous. Thank you for the response In the long run if I feel I really want to try and get this softer, would keeping some distilled water around to mix in with water changes perhaps be a decent enough idea?

Just wanting to get some insight here, I have freshly cycled 29 gallon heavily planted tank and recently began testing GH and KH due to some issues with newly introduced Cardinal Tetras. Kh is around 4 degrees but testing GH from the tank is around 22 degrees which I believe is very hard category. I live in the Chicagoland area and testing GH straight from the tap gives me around 13 degree hardness. This being the case, starting to think Cardinals are not a good idea based on my parameters even with every other area (AM, Nitrites, etc) being well within reasonable ranges, and no option to introduce a RO system in my current place. But nonetheless, does dosing aquarium fertilizer increase the GH of water? Just wondering why there is a difference between tap and my tank generally. Sorry if this is a noobish question lol

Thank you all for the input and kind words. I'm currently getting a QT tank setup and running and the LFS agreed they will credit me back any fish that I lost/lose up until Sunday. I will keep at it until I get it right

Hey folks, for some background, I just finished about a 6 week fishless cycle using fishless fuel on a 29 gallon tank, current parameters below ph: 6.6-6.8 , Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrites 0ppm, Nitrates ~5ppm, temp 80 degrees I have brought AM to 2ppm and confirmed it and Nitrites drops to 0 within 24 hours, its heavily planted and plants are growing and looking great. So i think to myself "Sweet lets get some bad boys in this tank". For reference I really liked Cory's video of the South American trio of fish with Hatchets on top, Cardinals in the middle, and a breeding pair of Apisto's on the bottom layer. Went o my LFS to inquire on which order I should try and add these fish, they told me they liked the idea a lot and they recommended the Cardinals first, then Hatchets, followed by Apistos last. Seemed fair to me so I picked up a school of about 10 cardinals, got them acclimated pretty well, and added to the tank. This was Monday, Now as of today I am down to 6 Cardinals. One died the day after on Tuesday which I figured could be stress/acclimation not taking to the fish well. Wednesday I see one fish off by his lonesome not wanting to school and breathing rapidly. On further inspection It looks to most certainly have Ich. At this point I begin treating the display tank with Ich Z since they are the only inhabitants, and wake up this morning to see 2 more have fallen. Keep in mind this whole time I have been testing water parameters twice a day and still all readings look completely fine. So I call the LFS again just to inquire how long these fish have been there before I picked them up to see if they or any of the other fish they shared a tank with showed any signs of illness. Its at THIS point they tell me adding Cardinals as the first fish in this process was a bad idea, and they then tell me my whole plan sounds like a bad idea, and that they recommend I should use Mollies or Platies first in this tank to get it going well, and then maybe look at my future plan later down the line, even though like I've said, my parameters all seem completely fine While it seems like decent advice, am I being thrown for a ringer here? its been really disheartening and I came pretty close to saying screw it and giving up on fishkeeping again today when i really don't want to, any advice would be greatly appreciated