Alison

I love finding new fish stores to go to and looking around. It was just chance that I found what has turned into my favorite one. You never know what you are going to find when you walk into a new place!

How cool! I've done a little night watching but I don't have much right now. Just one tank with two different kinds of fish in it currently and both are pretty active during the day. Love the photos.

Wow that is a crazy deal thank you for sharing!

I personally have had some bad experiences with corys. It has nothing to do with the health and quality but they seem to be very sensitive to stressers. Once they get established in a tank they are little troopers though. I tried to get a school of 6 and lost all but one within a couple of days. Water was great. I even took samples to lfs to get double checked. The second time I tried to add I got a group of six and three died in a couple of days. The remaining three from the second attempt and the one from my first seem to be doing really well. Mine didn't come with any concerning health problems but I did see some that didn't have barbels. It honestly hasn't seemed to have any sort of negative effect on them. I have watched carefully to see if I could spot any signs of infection or stress and I haven't noticed anything. They are all derping around the tank and eating just fine. I am not an expert in fish diseases and ailments by any means, partly because I've been very luck to not have to deal with anything.... yet. I truly hope that someone else responds to this as well with some experience treating corys because the one with the red mouth and swollen gills definitely has something going on.

No they will not grow under water. They would work well attached to hardscape if its sticking out of the waters surface or in a paludarium type set up.

Huh if they can do that i haven't heard of it before but I am hardly an expert. I know they flower and produce seeds but I don't recall reading or hearing about other types of reproduction. Does the seed looking thing appear to be attached to the plant?

Its ok to make mistakes. We all do now and then. I know it doesn't make it feel any better but you are definitly not alone. I left my heater unplugged for almost a week after doing a water change and I did lose a couple fish to it. Just gradually raise the water temperature slowly until it's back where it needs to be. I know how tempting it is to correct it immediately but that just adds to the shock. Keep us updated on how it goes!

I would start dosing with a lower than the recommended dose. I started with about a quarter strength for my tank. That seemed to be a good amount while my plants were getting established. Once they started putting on growth I slowly increased the dose until now I'm about at full strength even with my harder water.

Its probably not getting enough light. The color of the leaves is caused by the production of anthocyanin. The plant produces more of this pigment in response to high light levels. I use the production of this pigment to measure how much light I'm giving my orchids. When I see just a bit of red/purple I know they are getting about as much light as they can tolerate without burning.

I have hard water as well. I started my tank with about a quarter dose of easy green once a week. After a month ish I switched to dosing with flourish advance to stimulate rooting. Now I'm dosing with a full dose of easy green once a week because my plants have started growing that quickly. I hope that helps a bit!

That is absolute beautiful. I can't offer any thoughts on what triggered the blooming but I am a bit jealous. ❤️

Welcome back to the hobby. I too just got back into it after years away. I'm now wishing I had started it back up ages ago. All I have is a small tank wtih some killifish and corys in it, but I'm loving every minute of it. They are both super fun species to have.

I am not an expert by any means but this is what I would do. I personally prefer acrylic to glass so I'd custom order an acrylic tank for starters. I can understand how most people wouldn't be interested in taking on that large of an expense so soon. I honestly don't know much about glass tank brands. If I was going to go that route, I would just wait until the dollar per gallon sale and get a tank that way. Figure out your hardscape if you want any and make sure you get exactly what you want. It's easier to get hard scape set in a tank before you start putting plants in. Make sure you are 100% happy with the look and the results before going forward. The answer to how many plants you should buy is as many as you can afford. I did a general lay out of the general look I wanted and bought plants from there. I drew a picture of my tank and hard scape and equipment and then blocked out areas where I wanted taller things, shorter things, medium things and so on. I ended up playing with the placement a bit and the final look didn't turn out exactly like the diagram but it gave me a good place to start. Buce plants is another good website. I have ordered from there a bit and have been very happy with what I received. I cycled my tank slowly with plants in and after five or six weeks started to slowly stock it. This strategy works really well and I didn't have any spikes in my parameters. I would probably do one or two of the medium sponge filters with an airs tone depending on how heavily I planned on stocking the tank. as for the Ph I wouldn't worry about it. Mine is actually slightly higher than yours and my fish are all fine. Unless you are planning on getting into super sensitive fish or fish that need very specific water conditions for breeding I wouldn't worry about it. I've read a lot of people say to not chase ph because you will drive yourself mad trying to stabilize it and instead just work with what you have. This advice has worked really well for me and has alleviated a lot of unnecessary stress.

Hi! That sounds like a great project! I'm a little jealous. You already sound like you have some great tanks and fish. I have some clown killies and corys right now but I'd love to have a pair of apistos someday. It might be really cool to start a thread in one of the other forum topics about your fish room journey and include some pictures. That way some of the people who have already constructed a fish room can take a look at what you are doing and offer suggestions. Welcome and I cant wait to see pictures myself!

I have a school of pygmy corys and my substrate is my eco complete. They are all fat, happy water derps and doing just fine. I ordered another larger air pump so I can my sponge filter/air stone and drop another just air stone in so they have farther to ride the bubbles.

You won't be disappointed! both are really great places.

I remember going there when I was in college. Now I'm back in the gr area and my main lfs is water colors aquarium gallery and I also make the trek out to blue fish as well. I prefer water colors for livestock since they quarentine everything they bring in, blue fish is awesome for hardscape materials.

Woot! Welcome from the gr area!

poo. Sourcing things has been really hard this year. I've had to do a lot of planning and a lot of make do. I'm slowly starting to plan for a rainbowfish tank. I'm making lists of things that I'd need and then to see if I can reasonable source most of it. It was a good/bad year to get back into the hobby. Good because I have lots of time to plan things and research. Not so good because getting things I want has been difficult.

Do you have a lfs that will/can add special orders to their wholesale orders? I know my lfs will do that if you want something different or out of the ordinary that they might not normally sell or carry. If that is the case, they may have access to more suppliers than just Joe hobbyist would. I haven't had to take advantage of that personally yet, but I do know people in my city that have had them order stuff. Sometimes it will take a bit to get in depending on when they place their next supply order but it's worth looking into.

I'm excited to check these out as well. I think they are a great idea. They are not only functional but very attractive.

😞 super bummer in general but especially when it's something you have wanted for awhile and were really looking forward to.

How long have you had the plant? Is it just melting back and acclimating? When I started my planted tank and I tossed some java fern in, it looked really good for a week or so then I started getting that blotching as well. Most of the older leaves ended up dying back but I have a lot of fresh new growth popping up.

Oh wow those are really neat looking. I'll have to find a way to incorporate them into my next tank. I like that they are attractive, easy to plant outside of the water and drop in, and it gives you the option of having some taller looking green in a shorter tank.

Is there any chance they could have some kind of internal parasite? Did you treat them for anything? I see that you did put them into your quarantine tank but it's not clear if you added any kind of treatment.