jwcarlson

They don't look unhealthy. I wouldn't suggest beef heart as your setup will most likely just end up killing them because of the substrate and it is very messy. When I was growing mine out it was 4-8 cubes of beef heart per day and 85% water change every night. Can't tell much from the side. The one of yours looks thinner than mine do, but I haven't fed them beefheart in a year probably. I'd just feed more of what they already like if I were you. Or maybe more frequently if you can. Have you wormed them? Here's a frontal shot of a few of mine. I think mine are healthy weight. This was also awhile ago, but they don't seem any thinner to me now, other than the red melon which his some sort of chronic issue that he'll eventually die from. It's been in a QT tank for a month. Not sure what's going on there.

It's probably mold. It might affect the moldy seeds, but the ones that have germinated *should* be OK. It could also be the initial root on a seedling which can be very fuzzy, but it is tough to tell from the pics. Fuzzy root:

If it's planted, the shrimp should be fine. If it's not it might be more difficult for them to feed properly as they kind of graze constantly. A bit different than fish. But there's biofilm and micro algae in your tank either way if it's mature enough. How many CPDs... 5-10, probably. I have 10 adults in a 10 gallon and that seems about right.

I've never had white clouds, so take this for what it's worth. I'd imagine they will spawn for you as I think they spawn readily? So you might end up with some fry in there. Maybe I'm wrong about that. CPDs are a pretty good fish for a small tank and they are compatible with WCMM temperature range, I believe. I keep my CPDs at 75, but I think they can go quite a bit cooler than that. My suggestion for small tanks is always SHRIMP, though. I'd suggest shrimp above anything else.

Beef heart for growing, I don't think there's a better option when you couple it with daily water huge water changes. Mine are grown now and I feed them freeze dried Australian black worms primarily. They're expensive, but for one tank of discus it's not too bad. Mine never liked tubifex, brine shrimp, and most pellets. They do like Cobalt flakes and I feed that occasionally as well as Hikari frozen blood worms. They do pick at pellets sometimes, but never consistently and never at an amount that feels like they're getting enough food.

I've fish-in cycled almost everything with daily water changes and stability. It's so much easier than the mostly silly fishless cycles that still seem to need to cycle at least somewhat after fish are added. Takes out all the guess work and you don't need to worry about testing water all the time. Do a check after a week and see where you're at. If it's promising, wait a day and recheck... if bad - change water. If good - wait another day and check again. One of the most perplexing moves in the hobby is the move away from doing any/all water changes. I understand not wasting water, but for a temporary period of time doing changes frequently isn't a big deal.

Forgot to mention that. The point is to make water changes as easy as possible so that you actually do them. It takes me less actual active time to change water in my 75 and 125s than it does in any of my other tanks. I've got it "down to a science". I don't know how people deal with bucket brigading their water changes or doing things like microwaving water. I mean no offence by this, of course. But all of that would drive me nuts and I would quit keeping fish. The next step for me would be an on-demand heater and some sort of degassing tower so that I could do automatic water changes. But we're starting to get pretty serious about moving out of the city, which has always been our goal. Whenever that happens I'm probably done keeping fish more/less permanently just because of other priorities. 🙂 This system is working for now as it's grown over the last years.

I've had mine over two years (started with 2.5"ers, so they were young). And they have never spawned. But they did show some interest a couple of months ago. Maybe when I finally get them to the bigger tank they'll try. But the eggs won't ever hatch in my water.

Barrel with aeration and heater is what I do, but my water needs to be aged because it shifts 1.2-1.3 pH higher after it is aged. But I'm doing big water changes typically and have about 450 gallons of water between all of my tanks. I have two 63 gallon barrels with heat controllers and can customize the temps and mixes from there (some tanks cut with RO). You also need a pump to get water back out effectively, unless you like standing around watching water siphon into a bucket. I almost never use a bucket during water changes unless I'm cleaning an overflow box, or a sump, or a smaller tank (10 gallon) as it's faster with a bucket. The above advice is probably only valid if you're going to scale up at some point in the future. Otherwise you can get a 32 gallon garbage can from Home Depot or some other smaller storage.

Looks great, @spokanejared, do they ever raise any fry in the community tank? How long have you had them?

I had one forktail (that was shipped with my CPDs) and lived with them until I got a couple more. I just moved him out of the CPD tank a week or so ago. Granted this is just one furcatta, but it didn't seem to make them more or less outgoing. I had a total and complete jungle for them for a long time. I can always locate them, but I doubt that CPDs are ever really a centerpiece type fish that's always out and active. They seem relatively low activity fish.

I have three forktails (+ some fry because they're spawning) in with my CPD grow outs and they are ALWAYS out. Are yours hiding?

Mine look basically like that always (the males at least). When they're really ready to breed they actually develop a bright orange stripe down their forehead (hard to see in your pic) and will show that off for the female. I think the females are also pretty colorful, but not as much as the males. You can kind of see the stripe better here: Here's one of my fairly colored up females. I have ~60 partly grown fry in a 29 and they are pretty out and about. The adult group of 10 in a 10 gallon are never out. Every batch of fry that I've raised has been more visible than their parents. I don't know why that is. They're still easily spooked, but they recovery quickly and come back out.

I've never had an issue in my discus tank with pothos and I have stems and sometimes leaves in the tank. I don't think this is a legitimate concern.

If you checked with another thermometer and it's normal temperature, it's highly unlikely that the heater is causing an issue. You should test your water.

In my experience it's hard for me to keep nitrates in tanks with pothos.

Ebay is the best place to buy InkBird controllers. I think they have two stores on there InkBird and InkBird USA or something like that.

Don't trust a heater thermostat, that's my advice. They stink. I use external InkBird controllers on all of my tanks.

Something on the skin is usually a bad sign. It sounds like it might be dwarf gourami iridovirus. Very very common and unfortunately fatal to the best of my knowledge. It took out the most recent (and last) dwarf gourami I owned. It can happen quick too.

Beneficial bacteria doesn't just wink out of existence if there's a temporary lack of food. It will be OK. In the first picture the two outside plants look like java fern. You'll want to make sure the rhizomes aren't buried otherwise they're likely to have issues and possibly die. Otherwise everything's looking good!

I replaced all of my air in the fish room with a ~$30-40 linear air piston pump from Amazon. I needed something in between 20 separate air pumps and the one that ACO sells, as I think it would just be too big. Like @Odd Duck says, they're pretty quiet. It's drastically quieter than the other setup that I had with separate pumps. I'm running my copy of Dean's fry system and about 10 sponge filters. And a handful of various air drops for other things.

This is purely anecdotal, but I have seen fish get stressed and have losses when water changing (frequent changes) with water softener water. But after switching to straight tap no softener no issues. I can't tell you why, but it felt like that was a factor in some stress.

The ammonia could certainly be an issue. Isn't 1 ppm above the drinking water standard? I'm not super well versed on these things, however.

There was some minor outrage when a house cat and eventually at least part of a whitetail deer fawn made its way into the nest on camera. That's nature, folks!

Anubias and java fern do OK for me. Regarding bacteria and high pH, technically yes, it is at a higher risk. Which is my point. That said, I do not believe the risk is massive for most fish species. But for particularly sensitive ones like discus, it can be more difficult. If you think of the "sweet spot" for keeping a particular fish... the sweet spot for many of the fish in the hobby gets quite a bit smaller with hard water. But there's still a sweet spot. You might have to change a little more water or clean filters more regularly than people with soft/acidic water. But it's really just about proper maintenance in the long run. Avoiding it is not worth the additional cost and hassle of an RO unit IMO (and I have an RO unit for some fish I'm trying to breed).