AJL

I switched out some of my tank decor for a nice pile of smooth river rocks and that's made a huge difference in my loach's shyness. It now spends most of its time hanging out on the rocks and explores the tank more when the lights go out. I still haven't noticed it doing much eating, I've been putting a cube of Repashy on the rocks at the same time as I drop in some bottom feeder wafers in another part of the tank. Hopefully this distracts the shrimp a bit.

Hi, I added a hillstream loach to my tank about a week ago and am mildly concerned that I haven't really seen it go after the food I've put in the tank (Hikari algae wafers and Repashy gel). However, my several dozen red cherry shrimp, amanos, and various snails have been having a feast. Do I need to be concerned about the RCS outcompeting the loach for food? Thanks, AJ

Thanks everyone for the advice and species suggestions. Yes, this is a new tank only about 3 months old, so anything I do is going to be a slow process. That said, since it started cycling the parameters have been very stable.

Hi Everyone, I have a well planted 20 gallon tall tank and was wondering how many more fish I could add without throwing off my water parameters. I currently do a 25% weekly water change and ideally wouldn't deviate from this with the new fish. Here's my current fish/invertebrate list: - 1 very chill male betta - 6 harlequin rasboras - 6 red cherry shrimp - 4 amano shrimp - 1 gold inca snail - 4 nerite snails - a few bladder snails that hitched a ride that I keep in check I was thinking of adding 3 or 4 more harlequin rasboras or doing a small school (6ish) of another species (Neon tetras, chili rasboras, etc.). Do you all think that would increase the bioload too much? I know the rough 1 inch/gallon rule, but I figured that the invertebrates aren't impacting the bioload the same as fish do. I attached a picture of the current setup.