Wadikus

I put some prime in and a maintenance dose of Fritzyme 7. I'm gonna give it a few days just dosing prime and no water changes to see if it happens to clear itself. Even weirder is it never gets darker.. It just stays that blue. Thanks! I 3d printed him - 3d printing is very useful as an addition to the aquarium hobby.

@Whitecloud09 Here you go - one on left is the flex 9 gallon and the one on the right is my 29 gallon. Its not quite .25PPM coloured but its picking something up, the thing is.. if i do a 25% water change and retest it will stay that darker blue. really confused. As I mentioned earlier, it is the oldest and longest running of my tanks with no real changes in stocking.

@Whitecloud09 Yessir, doing exactly as instructed. I'm not at home at the moment when i get in I will run the tests.

@NOLANANO Im really jealous there are fun fish expos for you guys.. as far as I know i'd have to travel to Toronto. Theres nothing really big locally here in Montreal for me to attend.. But i'd love to go to one .. one day. Here's a picture of my panduro's.. when I got them I actually had no idea if they were M/F or not as they were just grey juveniles. Sorry it's a screencap of a video but catching them still in a photo is near impossible! They are my favorite apisto.. save for maybe that blue flame agassizii that i've seen on Dans fish

I was watching a recap of one of Corys streams a few months back and someone asked about Apisto's and he said "dont feed blood worms and keep them HOT". He said he always struggled until he started keeping them around 83ish.. which admittedly is much hotter than I keep my tanks.. So it could've been that or the bloodworms or both in my case. Panduro are actually breeding right now in my community and the girl has turned into an asshole around her hut. Hoping this time i've got it right, one of the reasons I picked Panduro is Jason from Primetime aquatics said that he found Panduro to be a little more hardy vs other Apisto he had kept, especially in his harder water of the Chicago area. I have pretty hard water here in Montreal so I thought it might be a good idea. I'm a focus on keeping the water stable type of person vs trying to fix my water.

So i had this same experience with my Apistos as well, I'm not sure what you're keeping but I could not keep Cacatuoides to save my life. Exact same thing as you, healthy and excited until one day i'd find by the filter one hiding out and then slow dead. I eventually swore off Apisto as a result and stuck to my community which was thriving. Eventually I got a pair of Panduro and they've been ROCK solid. We have a pretty similar tank, just swap Neons for Diamonds and Panda for Venezuelans and the stocking is identical. I eventually stumbled upon info from a few places that bloodworms can cause bloat and death for Apistos as they can't always digest the casings or something? I had no idea I think this may of been the reason they died as I was feeding frozen bloodworms. Unfortunately as a Canadian fish keeper, fish getting sick is pretty much a death sentence as we do not have access to any medication so I'm stuck with salt and "herbal" remedies. I am still trying to find a way where I can get some snuck over the border to me.. I just want to be able to give my fish the best chance to survive but the government clearly doesn't want that. oh and to answer your question, my biggest weakness is the fact that I can't just sit back and let my homies live their best life. I always am worried I need to do something for them or the tank.

I've had the same experience with my Rummy's which are also notoriously finnicky.. ~3 years with the same 10 in the 29 gallon and I do have liquid rock!

I use seachem flourite blacksand, it's inert so it needs root tabs. I've heard people saying that rooting plants have a hard time taking hold in it but that has not been my experience at all my plants are nuts in the stuff, I even have microsword growing well. I did the grid pattern with root tabs from NiloCG since in Canada it was difficult before Aprils aquarium started carrying coop stuff. Personally I like the way the stuff looks and as long as I put some tabs in every 3-4 months to keep it seeded it's been great and my cory cats love it. I'll add just make sure its the "sand" variant of the product not the regular flourite. They also make a Onyx Sand which has some buffering capacity if that's what you're looking for. I kind of wish I knew about the Onyx sand before starting my shelly tank as aragonite has been a nightmare of white powder everywhere.. everything is covered.

Happy Mondays everyone I'll preface this by saying I have 3 pretty well seasoned tanks. I am pretty diligent on water testing and changes etc, definitely not a lazy fish keeper. As part of my Monday morning routine maintenance, I tested for nitrite with the API kit and its sort of a dark-er blue instead of sky blue which according to the chart is ~.25PPM in the 29 gallon which the oldest of my tanks and the one with the most stable stocking. The coop strips show nothing at all which would make sense since they are 1ppm. I did a 25% water change and ran the test again and it still show that darker blue and not the sky-blue, there is no real hint of purple. But when I check my 9 gallon flex it comes back sky blue. So I changed another 25% in the 29 gallon and got the same thing again. I checked my 20 gallon multifasciatus tank and it came back somewhere in between the 2. So I changed the water in that one and it's result stayed the same. All other readings, ammonia at 0 PPM, Nitrate ~20 ppm, PH stable across all 3 tanks, hardness as well. Has anyone ever had the nitrite test from API return 3 different but consistent results despite water changes? I feed reasonably and on a set schedule. None of the fish seem stressed and all activity level is normal, am I being too paranoid? Thanks!

Thanks for the reply and everyone else too, I thought Congos because I was worried that maybe the angels would bully something smaller? I already have Diamonds (which are giants and rowdy as hell) in my 29G, along with Rummys too so there's 2 tetras that are already accounted for. I was also worried about getting something too "quick" for the angels as I heard they can get out competed for food etc and my rummys and diamonds are absolutely savage. I could do lemons or something, i'd love the new red cherry tetra i see popping up but no one around has them in Canada. Yes my current Bristlenose obliterated my sword so I am well aware lol, I love him though.

Hi Guys, I currently have 3 tanks (a 29, 20L and flex 9). I am looking at getting a 55 gallon and I'm pretty set on getting some angels for it. However, I'm getting so much conflicting info online about how many angels I can stock / if even any at all?? Co-Op has a blog stating 6 angels + smaller fish, other places I've read says a 55 is barely big enough for even 2 angels. I would consider myself a pretty seasoned fish keeper and all 3 of my tanks are very stable and I've even got some Panduro breeding in a my 29g community. I guess my question is I really have no idea how many fish I can put in a 55g... I've used AQadvisor but I'm weary with it, all of my current tanks are roughly 120-150% stock according to their site but I've never had an issue. It will be over filtered with a canister and a HOB. The HOB is coming with and I have a Fluval 307 already. I was personally thinking something along these lines.. 4-6 Angels 10-12 Tetras , maybe Congos? 10 cory's , maybe Sterbai? 1 Bristlenose would this work? Could I also put another type of Tetra as well? Worried the tank will seem empty with that stocking. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated Thanks in advance!

I also am not very impressed with the regular test strips either. The PH colours might as well all be the same colour, I don’t feel confident in its ability to do high range PH as my API high range reports 8.0-8.2 but my coop strip might as well be 7.6 every single time. reporting only 1ppm nitrite is also not my favorite as I would like to know if I’ve got .25 or .5 ppm so I can get ahead of the problem. ive basically resorted to them being a nitrate test since the api nitrate test is the most annoying one to do. i don’t really know if the hardness is accurate as i don’t have the kit from API or Fluval for hardness. i was really excited when i got my strips because im in Canada and its been a pain to get stuff from the coop but ill be honest I’ve left quite disappointed. The fert and root tabs are good though.. I love Cory and coop and really like that he brings products to market he thinks are better than the alternative but sometimes it does feel abit like drinking the kool aid. Which is fine, like you said consumer choice.

Thank you so much for the detailed breakdown!

Suggestions for tetra would be Red Phantom, very similar to Serpae but smaller and much less fin nippy. Serpae are assholes. Red Cherry Tetra, beaufitul but pricey, I like them because they are rare Diamond tetras are silver but have a really nice iridescence when they get bigger. Down low: Bristlenose, Albinos are my personal favorite of the commonly availible colours. I also like the calico. Plenty of room for cory's and the apistos to cohabitate, I personally have 7 Orange venezuelans and 2 x Panduro and theres room for all. As for plants i'm not really an expert and mostly low tech, I like Crypts/Val and some Anubias. Maybe if you find the top part of your tank isnt getting used, this happened in my 29 tall you can get some floating plants. I had an a Amazon sword too but the Bristlenose ate it.

Also, what stack of media do you use?