Scapexghost

*poor a couple ml of the solution into the tube, cap it, and then shake vigorously.

Mix white vinegar and distilled water. The exact ratio isn't too important but you should use much more water than vinegar. Rinse with this solution and let dry completely.

I have similar parameters and breed them no problem. You should have similar luck

1) Organic potting doesn't produce that much ammonia, it doesn't contain urea like regular miracle gro and it contains mostly water insoluable nitrogen. Anything that releases less ammonia probably contains less nutrients. So, you can just use less miracle gro. And since your capping with sand very little will be able to leach out anyway. As for the gravel, its a little redundant. The stratum will grow tons of bacteria, its even one of the selling points. As for the mulm, not much will reach the gravel if it is capped with sand. 2) nothing wrong with this idea. 3) nothing wrong with this either. Personally, I would consider either a thin layer of soil topped with a thick layer of gravel of sand, or do what you did in your first tank. I think whatever you do, it will work out.

Think about it like blindly thowing a baseball at a wall. The baseball can technically pass throw any hole as big or bigger than the baseball, but its pretty unlikely. It's a probability game. Personally, i'd sleep better with a little piece of tape covering it.

Its rightside up

Its definetely possible. Most fish stores do this. If you want to get really crazy. Get some pvc pipes and a vacuum cleaner and the fish will be able to swim from tank to tank. One thing i thought would be interesting would be putting a heavily planted tank and a cichlid tank on the same system. Cichlid tank usually struggle with too many nitrates while planted tanks struggle with to few, so putting them on the same system will balance the both up, at least in theory. You'd probably need two or 3 planted tanks for each cichlid tank in practice.

There's no need for PAR meter in the aquarium hobby. PAR is determined by the kelvin rating and LUX of the light. Since the kelvin is already known, just get a cheapo LUX meter and plug it into an online calculator. If you can't get a waterproof LUX meter, measure the PAR out of water and divide it by 2^(h/4) with h being the height of the aquarium.

Cheap tvs do usually have less LEDs in them. Some TVs will have 112 LEDs and others will have 12. I wish they advertized how many they had.

Samsung makes the best tvs but no one makes good tvs anymore. It's not just "they don't make 'em like they used to," the practice of using LED lights to light up a tv screen is inherently flawed. The best thing to do when you buy the tv is to go into the settings and turn down the backlight. The lower it is, the longer the tv will last. Have you adjusted the backlight? Maybe some of the LED lights have gone out making it darker.

If your tank is 78° and you do a 25% water change with 84° water the temp will rise to 79.5°. Nothing to worry about.

I think about it this way: Imagine two people, lets call them Tim and Dave. Tim was born with a severely twisted spine, making him half the height of a normal person and almost completely round. He was born with mishapen feet, affecting his abilty to walk. Tim also has a large growth on his forehead that is slowly growing over his eyes, which will someday make him completely blind. Now Dave is like any other person, but his skin is neon yellow and it glows under floresent light. Which person has a higher quality of living? Now Tim and Dave aren't actually people, Tim is a fancy goldfish and Dave is the glo dollar. The glo dollar may be a crime against nature but it doesn't seem to mind. It will live its life just as any silver dollar would, blissfully ignorant of what a freak it is. Are glofish unethical? Only you could decide that. We can debate if keeping fish in captivity at all is ethical. To me though, its far less unethical than a lot of things in the hobby. I'm not saying fancy goldfish are unethical, but if they aren't then neither are glofish. Does it make a difference if the goldfish was selectively bread and the glofish was genetically modified? Well, I doubt the fish cares. Perhaps yoy don't think fancy goldfish are ethical either, but what about all the other fish whose appearances have been artificially modified? Is injecting a protien inti a fish worse than a thousand generations of inbreeding?

I have off-the-charts hard water and have had no trouble keeping them.

I would consider an african butterfly fish and a few of the smaller synodontis catfish. Im thinking a west-african themed tank since you already have the kirbs and the congo tetra.

Depends on the fish; depends on whether or not you have plants. Ammonia, nitrite and chlorine should all be zero but everything else varies.

If you want to get real technical you can research kelvin ratings and PAR, but the basics are: Plants can only photosynthesize 10-14 hours a day. Therefore, any longer of a photoperiod will only contribute to algae growth. Plants utilize different colors at different effecacy. The utilize red light well, blue light poorly, and green light almost not at all. However, algae utilizes all colors of light. Therefor, blue light promotes algae growth. The colors of the light will bring out the same colors of a fish or plant. Red light compliments red fish, blue lights bring out blue fish, etc. A fish that looks meh under one light may look great under another. Your personal prefrence will also affect the color light you prefer. Having light change gradually rather then suddenly may stress out fish less and promote a healthy circadian rhythm.

Fish grow throughout their lives and catfish live a long time, so its safe to assume he won't be growing too fast.

How did you come to the conclusion that it is not the smaller species? I'm not doubting you, but I certainly can't tell so i think we should get someone who knows more about catfish than I do to give confirmation. Google lens thinks its a nigriventris. These fish can pretty easily hybridize, and if this is a hybrid, who knows how big it'll get. Honestly, this fish will have better odds if you keep it than if you return it. Its not your responsibility, but you shouldn't feel guilty about keeping it and taking your chance on it either being a smaller species or you coming into a larger tank. If it doesn't fie in the store the next unsuspecting costumer probably will kill it. Maybe you get a year of enjoyment out of it and you rehome it to a cichlid keeper. I don't think these are like red-ear sliders in that they are impossible to rehome.

The biggest downside of discus is their difficulty, but the should be easy compared to a reef tank. A nice planted discus tank is hard to beat.

It will probably be fine if your water is hard enough. They've already been in fresh water for over a year so there isn't a huge risk if you continue to keep them in brackish. If you see their health begin to deterierate you may have to add salt or rehome them, but it is worth a try if you really want them. Often, brackish fish will be more fragile in freshwater, but if you are willing to keep extra good care of them that could make up for it.

I would do pseudomugils. They come in a bunch of colors and they do well in a wide variety of water parameters. Most danios and rasboras would work too. The nerite should be fine. Its fairly difficult to pull a nerite of off something by hand so i doubt flow would effect them.

2 sponge filters is probably good.

Make sure your mixing the vinegar with distilled water. If that still doesnt work, try scraping it w/ a razor blade

Decreasing photo period will make the plants taller, but it'll also make the plants more lanky. Your plants are looking so good rn i don't necessarily recommend messing with the lighting level. If i were you a would add some stem plants like scarlet temple to the background. Most stem plants will grow infinitly tall if given the opportunity. Plants besides stem plants often have a maximum height. Your java fern, for example is a special type of java fern, known as "Windelov" Java Fern. It won't get as big as the normal java fern. I don't think changing the nutrient level will effect plant height. However If you do decide to decrease lighting levels, decrease the nutrients as well to prevent an algae bloom.

What kind of light are you using? In general, higher light=shorter plants. Plants will only grow has high as they need to. Once the plants reach a height that they receive an adequate ammount of light, theyll begin to grow outward rather than upward.