mbwells

Hello everyone! I want to note quickly that I'm *not* trying to sell fish on this forum. Just asking about general avenues I could pursue should I wish to sell the fish at a reasonable price so I could populate the tank with other inhabitants. Barring that, I'd like some general advice on how to swap out an unsatisfactory substrate for something better for my water. I have a 40 gallon breeder with 42 white cloud fish, a number of Malaysian trumpet snails, and 4 Amano shrimp. I have 14 Tanichthys albonubes (mostly gold white clouds, but a few wild type), 14 Tanichthys micagemmae (Vietnamese white clouds), and 14 Tanichthys kuehnei (yellow or lemon white clouds). The fish are maintained in a heavily planted tank at a pH of 6.4 to 6.6 using a UNS Controsoil substrate. I've been dissatisfied with the Controsoil substrate. My water comes out of the tap naturally soft and slightly acidic, so frankly it's not the best setup for where I live. I was thinking about changing out the substrate for gravel with some crushed coral. I have a 20 gallon aquarium with some orange hatchet danios, and I like the setup much better. However, I've been feeling lately that it's likely a waste for me to keep the tank as it's set up. The T. micagemmae and T. kuehnei fish in particular aren't that common, and really would be best maintained in separate species tanks by a hobbyist who is capable of maintaining these populations indefinitely, and my apartment just doesn't have room for that. I was thinking about instead getting a decent size school of pearl danios (Danio albolineatus). I feel terrible contemplating giving up the fish, but I was wondering if any fish keepers here could let me know if there's any options for me selling fish locally at a price that could cover at least the cost of a school of danios. A swap would be even better. I don't know how often fish keepers move fish around. Of course, I may ultimately just keep the fish and change the substrate out, because I frankly feel guilty even contemplating giving the fish up. I don't know if the fish recognize their owners or if they are distressed when they get moved somewhere. Is it possible to change the substrate to gravel and crushed coral with the fish I already have? I have concerns with having the pH rising gradually with the crushed coral might not be good for them. Any general advice on any of these avenues would be greatly appreciated!

Really appreciate your help as always @Colu!! I hope that this is just a one-off sort of thing, and not an indication that my water chemistry won't suit this fish species long term. I had thought their care requirements were the same as other white cloud species.

Dear friends, I could really use some advice on a concerning development in my 40 gallon breeder aquarium. I have a yellow white cloud (Tanichthys kuehnei) in my tank with a bulge on his head and slightly protruding eyes (can't see in this photograph). I change my water every 2 weeks (just did one last evening in fact) and my water chemistry is as follows: pH: 6.4 Hardness: 75 ppm Alkalinity: 0 (I use Controsoil, which buffers the water to 6.4 using an organic acid buffer. So, the alkalinity reading *should* be 0.) Ammonia: 0, as you'd expect at such a low pH Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 20 - 50 ppm The temperature ranges between 72 and 74 F (I don't use a heater) Fish: 14 Tanichthys albonubes, 16 Tanichthys micagemmae, and 16 Tanichthys kuehnei I'm concerned by the appearance of this disease because it indicates that I am either not performing routine maintenance (which is not so), or, more alarmingly, that the water parameters I'm keeping the fish in aren't appropriate for the species. I'm also keeping them with Tanichthys albonubes and Tanichthys micagemmae, and these water conditions seem to be doing quite well for them. The other Tanichthys kuehnei fish also seem fine, though, I have to say. They're growing and spawning. I don't know what the bulge on the fish's head is. It *could* be an injury I suppose, but I know that in injuries typically only 1 eye is affected. As a precaution, I'm already treating with Maracyn, since the eyes are slightly bulged. The fish's activity and appetite seems normal, so hopefully I caught it early enough to treat. @WhitecloudDynasty any advice on how this could have happened, and if I should treat further beyond Maracyn?

@WhitecloudDynasty you have given me so much relief. Boy I’m sure glad I waited!! The moment I saw that patch I was about to dump Maracyn in my tank in a panic. Great lesson for a first time fish keeper! By the way, I have a heavily planted aquarium, but do you know if white clouds might like particular plants, decorations, or caves or something? I love my white clouds and I’d like to make my tank white cloud heaven! Got about 45 in a 40 gallon breeder. Nothing else but a few snails.

@WhitecloudDynasty thank you so much for your reply!! I posted some pictures above in my initial post. There’s 4 of them. The problem now is that I can’t find the male that head patch, and I did a head count and I’m not missing any fish. Coincidentally, my males aren’t fighting anymore. I guess it isn’t anything I need to medicate…

I can't believe I've never made this connection. Come to think of it, within an hour after the male beats one of my leaves, I see multiple white clouds around my Cryptocoryne plants picking around my substrate.

Ok, I'm completely flummoxed right now. Does anyone know why the gold patch is fading in intensity? I'm having a hard time finding the sick (?) fish among my males after an hour has passed. I don't get it. I could spot that gold patch from several feet away from my tank, now I struggle to find it when my face is pressed against the glass. @WhitecloudDynasty, have you ever kept yellow white clouds (Tanichthys kuehnei)? I'm starting to wonder if a dominant male gets a kind of golden crest on the top of their head, since my females *just* started to get gravid. But my Tanichthys albonubes and Tanichthys micagemmae do *not* seem to get dominant male coloration.

If someone could look at this picture and tell me whether this is a bacterial infection, I'd greatly appreciate it. Ordinarily, I wouldn't hesitate to medicate, but the problem is I don't know of any bacterial infection that would give my fish a *gold* colored patch!! It certainly isn't fungal - the patch doesn't stretch out into space in any way, shape, or form. As you can see, the male is fighting vigorously, and ate vigorously this morning as well. Some pictures include other yellow white clouds to show what they normally look like. As for parameters: Temp: 70F pH: Ranges from 6.4 to 6.6 over the course of the day Ammonia: None at this low pH Nitrite: 0 ppm Nitrate: Currently, 25 ppm. Always fluctuates between 10 ppm and 40-50 ppm Gh: ~75 ppm Kh: I use controsoil, which removes the carbonate buffer, so my Kh is always 0. However, controsoil has an organic based buffer that keeps my pH right at 6.4 to 6.6 without fail. In 5 months of operating my aquarium, I've never seen a reading outside of this range. @Colu, any ideas on this?

@Biotope Biologist that is a huge relief to hear that that can be a dominance behavior among at least some fish. I’ve dealt with flashing before and on the surface this can look like flashing. It turned out that I had bought a rare danio species, Danio nigrofasciatus, that requires unusually warm temperatures, and my 74 degree tank was causing the issue. The flashing was an all day occurrence with both males and females and disturbingly the fish used plants, substrates, rocks, and the filtration to get relief. This is why I’ve been slow to medicate with this. I’m new to fish keeping, but I just couldn’t understand if this was a gill fluke or water quality issue why the behavior was so predictable and of short duration. One thing I’ve noticed is that these intense sparring matches (well, intense for white clouds 🤣🤣🤣) began when I added Tanichthys kuehnei to my tank. T. albonubes has never been territorial for me. Male T. micagemmae can be weakly territorial. However, male T. kuehnei is pretty territorial. They have favorite spots and they actively chase away all other fish. Cryptocorynes are favorite spawning places, and the other two species will actually fight the male kuehnei over those spaces. Maybe adding all 3 species together caused this aggression.

I watch almost everything Aquarium Co-Op produces @Cory. Your wonderful videos got me into the hobby and they remain a source of enjoyment and knowledge as I take care of my own 40 gallon breeder full of white clouds. Really appreciate all you guys do for the hobby!!

I'm a first time fish keeper. Only been doing it for 4 months or so. I have ~45 white clouds in a 40 gallon breeder. I can say without question that any of the 3 white cloud species, the white cloud mountain minnow (Tanichthys albonubes), the Vietnamese white cloud (Tanichthys micagemmae), or the yellow white cloud (Tanichthys kuehnei) are an absolute joy to keep. The only water parameter they are picky over is temperature (I'd say upper 60s to mid 70s is ideal, and anything close to 80 downright dangerous), they spawn easily even when fed freeze dried foods and spirulina flakes, and they surprisingly intelligent and active. Gold white cloud mountain minnows are as colorful as any tropical fish, are dirt cheap, and are easy to find. But I'd say the somewhat less common Vietnamese white cloud is the most stunning, as males develop gorgeous long finnage. They also have a beautiful fluorescent neon band that is a fascinating mixture of pink and cyan. The yellow white cloud, which is actually exceedingly hard to come by (couldn't believe I was lucky enough to get some!!), isn't as impressive visually as either gold or Vietnamese white clouds and I wouldn't recommend the expense and trouble of tracking them down for a beginner. I'm thinking about getting a smaller 20 gallon aquarium as well. I'm currently trying to decide whether I'd want to get a bunch of orange hatchet danios or rocket killifish in there. If anyone has experience with either species let me know!!

Thought I'd say that all the white clouds have a health appetite. I give them a steady diet of Fluval Bug Bites, freeze dried blood worms and Daphnia from Hikari, and Xtreme spirulina flakes.

Hello friends!! Hope everyone is doing well. I have a 40 gallon breeder set up with about 15 fish each from the gold white cloud mountain minnow (Tanichthys albonubes), the Vietnamese white cloud (Tanichthys micagemmae), and the yellow white cloud (Tanichthys kuehnei). I've never seen a tank where someone had all 3 species of white clouds so I thought it would be fun to set that up. I have a question about some strange behavior I've noticed. I have to say at the outset that I have far more males than females, and I have females that are ready to spawn almost every day. As you can imagine, the sparring between males gets ... intense sometimes. This usually takes the form of the males flaring their fins at each other, or chasing, but sometimes several males will stubbornly fight around my Cryptocoryne tropica and Cryptocoryne wendtii red plants. The chasing and flaring lasts for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes and ends when one of my males will dramatically swim over to the same few leaves on each plant and thwack them vigorously with his tail. This happens several times, the male swimming around the plant erratically and hitting the leaves for about 10 to 15 seconds, and then stops. Again, it's bizarre but it's always the same few leaves on each plant as well. At first, I thought this was flashing, and gave a treatment of ParaCleanse. The treatment had no effect, and I started noticing that this behavior is *repeatable* but only during the early morning and late afternoon (when my lights either start slowly growing or waning in intensity). Other than these regular sparring sessions, I never see this behavior! And curiously, I never see this flashing like behavior in females, just whatever male happens to "win" the sparring match. Moreover, it's the same broad leafed plants (the crypts) not my sponge filter or Ziss bio bubble filter, or my stem plants rotala or wisteria. Is this a normal behavior for male white clouds? If not, is it flashing? The behavior has gone on for over a month now. The fishes external coloration and appearance is immaculate, and my water parameters are always consistent: pH: 6.4 to 6.6 (buffered with Controsoil) Temp: 72 to 74 degrees this time of year (I don't heat the aquarium) Hardness: Somewhere between 50 and 75 ppm Ammonia: always zero as you'd expect at my low pH Nitrite: always zero Nitrate: Anywhere from 10 to 40 ppm (I always change water at 40 ppm) and add Easy Green three times a week Any insight from a fellow white cloud keeper would be greatly appreciated!

@BrettD I have never kept flagfish at all. No experience with them. However, I looked over a number of forums and saw several people keeping their flagfish with crypts with no problems. The general consensus is that flagfish will voraciously consume duckweed (and possibly other floating plants) when they no longer have a good source of algae. If the tank doesn't have enough decorations so males can stake out a specific area as "their" territory, then you can also have aggression issues. Those are the only issues I've seen. Sorry I couldn't offer any first hand experiences.

@nabokovfan87, thank you for your suggestion! However, I would strongly prefer to maintain the Asian theme of my tank, so I'd be more likely to get some neocardinia shrimp or dwarf anchor cats over corydoras. I hope one day to do a large South American tank however with a large school each of tetras, corydoras, and hatchetfish!

Hello friends, The bad news: I have been distracted from the forum again. I have no idea why, but the spotted dwarf danios I bought started falling apart in my water. I had 3 deaths back to back, and in each case, the fish would appear to be completely healthy until they started swimming like they were suffering from ammonia burn (my ammonia and nitrite levels are always 0 ppm and my nitrates between 10 and 25 ppm), and then die rapidly a few hours. Before this, I was playing a game of whack-a-mole, medicating for all manner of different infections. In the midst of all of this, I had a thriving community of 16 Vietnamese white cloud minnows (Tanichthys micagemmae). I can only guess that my water chemistry (I'm using fresh UNS Controsoil as a substrate, so my pH is always around 6.5 to 6.6 without exception) was not agreeable for them. The good news: After a bit of searching, the local fish store in an area I've just moved to helped me re-home these special little danios. It was so hard giving them away. I had fallen in love with their gorgeous appearance. Since I already had a school of Vietnamese white clouds who liked it a bit cool, I decided to get 15 gold white cloud mountain minnows (Tanichthys albonubes). This has turned out to be a terrific decision. My danios were always rather shy, and they seemed to have made the Vietnamese white clouds more subdued. The gold white clouds have added so much activity and *life* to my tank, and they're already spawning every day. The males of both species display at one another constantly. It's never a dull moment! Question about stocking: I'm keeping about 30 Tanichthys fish in my 40 gallon breeder at 74 degrees. I have an Aquarium Co-Op 40 gallon sponge filter to the left, a Seachem Tidal 55 HOB in the middle (supplemented with the Aquarium Co-Op in-take sponge filter, fine filter floss, and ceramic rings), and a Ziss bio-bubble filter to the right. My apartment only allows me one tank right now (I'm working on that!!) so I decided to keep the sponge filter in there so it would be ready to seed my next tank with beneficial bacteria. Here's my problem: I'm still a danio guy!! I'd love to find a way to add some to my tank, if there is sufficient space and filtration capacity to accommodate them in my tank. I'd love to get opinions from more experienced fish keepers. Should I leave it at 30 white cloud minnows, or could I accommodate 10-12 pearl danios (Danio albolineatus) or zebra danios? My white clouds don't spend much time in the top of the aquarium. I would be open to adding some nano fish, but I'm pretty sure my water chemistry would kill CPDs, and it definitely would kill emerald dwarf rasboras. Any thoughts would be welcome!! PS- included a picture of my tank! Apologies for the glare.

@Ken Burke thank you so much sir! Setting this tank up has been a joy!

Hello friends, Really sorry I dropped out of contact for awhile. The last I had written, I had just gotten a school of 15 spotted dwarf danios and was dealing with a bacterial outbreak. The case was mild and a round of Maracyn (bought from Aquarium Co-Op!) cleared everything up. Since then, I've been busy getting into the rhythm of a new job, but, more importantly, filling out my fish tank!! Since my last post, I've built out my 40 gallon breeder to include 25 Danio nigrofasciatus (spotted dwarf danios) and 16 Vietnamese cardinal minnows (Tanichthys micagemmae). The Vietnamese minnows were a *great* addition!!! Spotted dwarf danios are somewhat timid fish that tend to hover at the bottom third of the tank, particularly under full light. Curiously, they also scavenge voraciously off the bottom. I wanted to add a group of fish that would not be too boisterous for them and would be easy to care for and occupy regions of the tank that the spotted dwarf danios wouldn't. I found a video where a German fishkeeper particularly recommended T. micagemmae as a great partner for these danios, and wow, was he ever right!! T. micagemmae are more outgoing than D. nigrofasciatus, are definitely more robust, and they have efficiently drawn my beautiful danios out towards the upper levels of the tank. Just to give some examples: in my experience spotted dwarf danios do best in water that has less than 20ppm nitrates. Weekly water changes are a must. My Vietnamese minnows aren't fazed by 40 ppm nitrates, while my spotted danios look noticeably irritated and have less activity. T. micagemmae took to my tank instantly and even feed vigorously when I first put them in. My first batch of spotted dwarf danios, in contrast, took over 2 weeks to fully come out from hiding and it took nearly 5 days before they would eat. Definitely much less stress introducing these guys to the tank. If I had it to do over again, I would have *started* with the minnows, then added these shy little danios. Curiously, these fish all tend to school together. Before I added these Vietnamese minnows, my danios were spawning every day. Adding 16 minnows stopped that, but only for about a week or so. They're now back to spawning vigorously every day. Something else I would do differently? I've noticed during water changes that both the danios and minnows *love* a good current. I think they'd be a ton of fun in a hillstream set up. I shot a video of my tank in 4K. I'm really proud of everything I've been able to build. I want all of you to know that if it wasn't for all of your help, this could never have happened. @Cory and @Zenzo I can't thank you both enough for your YouTube videos. You've both introduced me to the best hobby that's ever happened to me. I get so much peace and joy watching my tank for 15 to 30 minutes a day. Grateful to Aquarium Co-Op for helping my first experience as a fish keeper a successful one. Here's a video of my tank in 4K!! Hope you all enjoy it. Suggestions for how to make my tank better are always appreciated. I have other videos on my channel as well. https://youtu.be/Bv3rAVn3WyI @Colu I realized some time ago I never gave you an update after I was pulling my hair out over a bacterial infection in my new tank. Thank you so much for your patience in helping me, and here's an update as to how things have gone since I got the infection cleaned out!

Hey friends, I've never seen white cloud mountain minnows in the wild before. I found this video from southern China where you can actually see these beautiful cyprinids in their native habitat. Here's a link, because I thought some of you would really enjoy it!

@Colu this picture is the best I can do. These fish just won't sit still for even a moment, especially when a phone camera is pointed at them. Does this provide clarity as to how I should proceed? You should see the rightmost fish clearly has patches that are much lighter in color than the other 3 or 4 fish in the frame. Frustratingly, I just can't get further details for you in a photograph. As I understand, this is a very delicate situation. If I don't provide the appropriate medication, these fish will certainly die. Should I just throw in every medication you've mentioned, or should I go through trying them methodically? I'm just not sure what time frame I even have to take action. So far, I've just put in the one treatment with Ich-X and Maracyn. The fish store I bought these fish from told me this was likely a bacterial infection, based on a video I was able to shoot. I really appreciate your help. It's incredible you've compiled these great treatment resources!! I just wish I could provide a better picture to help the diagnosis.

@Colu that is great information. I'm currently treating with Maracyn and Ich-X, so I'll finish the treatment with that before I attempt another medication (the KanaPlex). It's hard for me to get a better picture, as these danios seldom stop moving. What I can say is that the gray patches look more like areas where the scales are wearing thin, rather than having something grow on top of the fish. But that appearance could be deceptive. The eyes and mouth also seem fine. What I'm trying to determine is whether or not I should add Maracyn and Ich-X every day, as Aquarium Co-Op recommends for a serious infection, or if I should just treat once and wait a week, as they recommend for a mild infection. I know that the medication can take a toll on the fish as well.

Thank you for the suggestion @HH Morant! I checked my parameters before I did the water change. Ammonia and nitrite were both 0 ppm and nitrate was somewhere around 25 ppm.

Well friends, This is pretty embarrassing, not to mention has me worried about my danios. This past Tuesday, I got 16 spotted dwarf danios. This was my first aquarium, and I had cycled with plants for several weeks before I added them. Today, I noticed some grey spots on several of the danios, and it had me concerned. The fish were all swimming as usual, had the same appetite, but still, I thought this could be the start of an infection. I did a general cleaning of the aquarium, and found to my horror that one of the 16 had gotten trapped in the back of my 40 gallon sponge filter and died. It had clearly been dead for some time. I guess that the fish must have been trapped because the sponge filter was flush against the wall, and these danios insisted on trying to swim around it during their usual antics. I'm certainly not blaming Aquarium Co-Op in any way - these are tiny fish, and what is one to do when a fish seemingly has a death wish? But any ways, I got busy. I did a large water change (~25%) and I dosed with Ich-X and Maracyn. I'm posting this thread because I'm looking for advice on how to proceed with the treatment. Aquarium Co-Op recommends this combination, and for a mild case to simply treat once and wait a week. For more severe cases, they recommend treating every day for 5 days. I'd like some expert opinions on whether I should treat as though this is severe, or treat as though it is mild. I'm including a picture where you can see the grey patch clearly on a fish next to my BioBubble filter. I hope that it's sufficient. If not, I have a 3 second video this picture was taken from that I could maybe send over a private message. All in all, I feel terrible to lose a fish and see this outbreak, but I do feel good that I was able to spot a problem and diagnose it reasonably quickly. I've also moved my sponge filter much farther away from the tank walls. I'll be sure to inspect it several times a day as well. I really appreciate everyone's help, and I'm grateful to Aquarium Co-Op for providing this resource and making it possible for me to try and save my fish.

Friends, it’s been a busy week. I ordered 16 spotted danios online and they came in this past Tuesday. Let me just say that these really are a beautiful iridescent fish, and also quite fast. My phone camera hardly does them justice. For some reason, this fish is quite rare in the aquarium hobby in the US, but is fairly common in the Asian and European hobby. I think this fish deserves far more recognition. It offers unique advantages that can make it the perfect inhabitant of some tanks. The first benefit is that this fish is great practice for anyone contemplating keeping shy nano fish. The spotted danios came in to my aquarium extremely shy initially, but within a few hours I was able to observe them swimming around the tank. I’m still working on getting them comfortable with my presence right in front of the tank, but for the most part I’m able to enjoy watching them. So, they’re easier to train to come out than several reclusive nano species. Spotted danios also come in at 3 - 4 cm fully grown and feed at the top. So they’re also much easier to feed than many nano fish. That being said, I did struggle to feed them at first. It took me a spell, but I finally realized that these guys thrive in low light settings, and won’t come to the surface to feed unless it’s quite dark. Definitely a fish to feed early in the morning and late in the evening. But if you have a low light aquarium set up you’ll find they’re only slightly less outgoing than typical danios and swim all over the tank. Another benefit to these fish is that unlike most danios, these are fundamentally tropical fish that can handle cooler temperatures. They take to the mid 70s really well, and can thrive into the low 80s. So if you’re keeping a tank with some nano rasboras, for example, and you’re looking for a peaceful, active schooling fish then this is a fantastic candidate for those setups. Finally, these danios may not look that impressive on first inspection, but they have an iridescence that I’ve seen in no other danio species. The specific colors you see depend a lot upon the lighting you have. If your tank is close to the window and you have a Fluval 3.0 plant light you can enjoy watching these guys all day and it feels like you’re seeing a different fish. A few quick notes- I think this could be a solid first choice for fishkeepers, as it tolerates a wide array of water conditions. That being said, it’s not bulletproof. I’ve had several struggles figuring this fish out and I’ve learned a ton from them. But I could easily see a more casual fish keeper would just wind up feeling frustrated with the challenges of figuring out their preferred lighting conditions and that they only like to eat in the dark. They do love the Xtreme Nano pellets Aquarium Co Op sells, by the way. They are definitely work, and I suspect they’re not as bulletproof as zebra danios or pearl danios (Danio albolineatus). But I suspect a fish keeper with more experience than myself would find them pretty easy, and, as I say, they can really shine in tanks where other danios wouldn’t really fit in well.

@Isaac M thank you!! For some reason, I bought some fry and nano food when I ordered my basic tank supplies and plants 🤣 Glad to hear I can put it to good use! The sinking wafers sounds like a terrific idea. I will learn how to hatch baby brine food one day. It’s too good a source of nutrition for me to pass up!! Just in case my catfish doesn’t go for dry food, could you recommend something frozen I should keep on hand?