nabokovfan87

They both are, it looks like. Let me try to find the link with the detailed feature sketches. The biggest indicator is the way the band isn't a solid bar. The albino also has the silver line above the parallel line (that would be black). So on the albino you're deciphering between Garra Taeniata and the CAE. Final indicator is the mouth shape. CAEs have the different type of mouth. I hope that helps.

A planted tank, with hardscape, with wood, with some shrimp specific food on hand for their shell care. Make sure they get that food once a week. Keep an eye on their molts and activity and the tank. Feed the tank just like normal if it's a community tank, but target feed them 3-4 hours after lights out. They will be most active during those lights out hours. I would suggest a stable tank, over one that is specifically designed with specific things. My amanos don't have fancy gravel, they have a piece of wood they like, they have anubias, and they have never had a single issue (until recently due to an equipment failure). This is 5+ years of having them and that is my method for care for them. Shrimp are very active, and if you pay attention to their behavior, you'll know when something isn't right or when they need food. If you have a shrimp only tank, I'd feed them daily like normal, after lights out, I'd drop in some repashy or some wafers 2-3 times a week. That's plenty. If the shrimp don't attack the food, you're overfeeding.

Which plants? What light? I would always recommend moving the fish, hardscape, and plants prior to doing a big swap like that. When I did mine, I had one bucket for each (tubs work too) and I just filled them all with tank water. Make sure you cover the fish, set it aside so it doesn't have the tendency to jump out. If they are going to be there for a little bit I usually add an airstone. Drain the tank until it's about 1" above the sand, then slowly scoop it out with a cup. This is likely going to be mostly water and so I had to scoop it, drain water, then dump the sand to a container. Get it to a certain point and then you have to likely rinse the sand into a corner to get the last little bit out. Before you do anything, make sure whatever substrate you are adding isn't going to leech ammonia. Just rinse the new substrate as best you can, add it, setup the tank.

Which one are you using now? You can setup something like what Zenzo and Cory have demonstrated for their maintenance business days where they had a hose and a pump on the end to actually vaccuum the tank. Second to that, I'd recommend a 55G trashcan on wheels and the largest size of the python manual siphon. I would think the L and XL are pretty similar. I just got the L and it works insanely well to drain a tank and siphon pretty decently. https://www.amazon.com/Python-PRO-CLEAN-EXTRA-Gallons/dp/B0002APRYW/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2L5IZ2FDCIMET&keywords=python+siphon+xxl&qid=1657933932&sprefix=python+siphon+xxl%2Caps%2C306&sr=8-5 Another avenue might be pond maint. siphons.

Do you have just the 1 oto in the tank or a few of them?

They have some "other shaped" containers used for dog food / dry storage that might be applicable. It's the similar style (almost identical) lid that you'd find on a 5G bucket that you can then screw on and has a rubber seal. There's a snap on lid, then that has threads for the screw on lid. My assumption is that while the screw on lid might hold some pressure, the press fit quality would determine the viability. Definitely an interesting rabbit hole to go down. https://www.amazon.com/Vittles-Outback-Airtight-Storage-Container/dp/B002Q7SZ2A

I'll reference this thread and this post specifically. We were discusses some meds to use, specifically neoplex for this.

Whenever plants arrive, I toss them into a 5G bucket, add an airstone, and then come back later when time allows to actually check them and do whatever prep need be for the tank.

I can totally design some "cool stuff". Why do I feel like this goes down a rabbit hole of fixing issues and we all end up with 3d printers! Nice work! It's a mildly quiet day here for me.... After watching the pups and being on bark patrol while the construction is happening, I think I might end up moving a tank. I've tried to replace the lid twice and for whatever reason companies can't see to figure out how to measure the tanks that they design lids for. (or use the correct thickness glass so it doesn't warp). I added a HoB to the tank this past week and because it's located under some stairs I am having balls of pet hair falling through the steps and into the HoB. I can't imagine this being good in any way, so very likely the tank gets to move, again. I am on worm watch in the big tank, not noticing any the past few days. I am monitoring nitrites as a result now as well and things seem to be going ok, knock on wood. The new meds hit the fish on sunday, the plants are seemingly doing awesome, and I am just waiting for the algae to decide it's doomed and leave the tank alone for good!

I am a huge fan of the centerpiece cory tank. I found one that's a 60G lowboy. Instead of it being slightly too short for equipment on the 50G it's 12" tall and should be a lot easier to setup. Just a heads up for your future awesomeness!

It is a thing of magic to me, for sure. I totally understand that.

New* essentially, yeah. The tank itself, substrate, hardscape, would have enough bacteria to cycle things up fairly quickly. If the sponge has been in there for ~2 weeks I would expect things to be able to "hold their own". That being said, if you ever have any issue like that in future it might be worth adding ceramic media / sponge, letting it sit in the HoB with the cartridge just to try to keep that bacteria locally right by the new media you're trying to cycle. It might make sense to verify chloramines didn't decide to show up in the tap water also. Just a sidenote.

Yep. Everyone is doing fine still. Keeping an eye on things, testing daily. Nitrites were a shade above 0 (about 25% the shade of what the last test was)

Saw this. Pretty similar! Very interesting.

Takashi Amano dreams of rocks with that character. Still amazes me every time I see it.

Welcome to the Forums! I was listening to a members only talk by a betta breeder and their advice was that bettas tend to do "better" when it comes to some diseases if there is a little bit of salt in their water. I can't speak to this, but I wanted to pass along their information and recommend dosing salt in your tank as well, at least level 1, if you haven't. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-salt-for-sick-fish https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/faqs/how-to-treat-fin-rot My recommendation would be that if ammonia is very high, do your water change and then go ahead and re-dose meds. You can focus on clean water as treatment 1 for the betta and then dose the meds as a recovery step to treat the disease once the tank is cycled. Second to that, yes, I would recommend dosing bacteria in a bottle. Dosing bacteria and anti-bacterial meds might be counter intuitive but it's difficult to say if the bacteria will be impacted in this scenario. I typically do a large dose on day 1, then dose 6+ days as need be until parameters stabilize. Correct. I think they give a range of 24-48 hours to "be safe" on their side. The advice that seachem gives is to only dose 1 time per 24 hours as a maximum. There's an FAQ on their website if you have any concerns. It's a good reference for some situations!

Very interesting! What substrate was in play here? @Simon Buys That's awesome! If you haven't see it, you'll learn a lot from videos by Rachel O'Leary as well. There's so many good channels.

^^ Agreed! I am sure some people have amazing ideas. Write them out! I'm excited to see what people want to have one day 🙂

It really depends. If it's got a lot of knobs or it's something like spiderwood they might not fit. Something with bigger flat sides like mopani, malaysian driftwood they do alright with! This video has a bit of their behavior on the substrate, rocks, and wood. There are the type I had. A variety of borneo loach.

You have a few slower and few faster growing plants, so I think you're good! If you wish to, you might have luck spreading out the Dwarf Sag and microsword a bit. Entirely up to you.

But they have sharks! 😂

If you haven't, please do yourself a favor and go check out Rachel O'Leary and her hillstream videos. A wealth of information on that fish in particular. Absolutely. Hillstream loaches, Borneo loaches will literally attach themselves to a surface and they move around in a very specific way. They have very unique body features which require certain things. If you had a normal tank with a decent HoB, two airstones, it's probably plenty of oxygenation for them. Second step for that is just having the right temp and environment. Goldfish on the other hand also have very specific body features. They require a certain type of tank as well. As long as the tank is "big enough" and you can give the goldfish a place to rest and escape a higher flow part of the tank, that might be one way to handle the setup. Switch out or add some soilent green and you're probably golden. They like flat surfaces to graze on and sort of act like little cows so to speak. They "clean the field" so having slate, ceramics, rocks, or something with a surface for them to eat on is what they like. Glass is good, but rougher surfaces might give them a bit more of a place to graze on. You can target feed them with frozen foods. They will hover over it, lift up their heads, and then suck in the food. Really cool to see. With repashy also you can take any of the items and paint on surfaces for them. I've seen others use sticks and things to make it easier to drop in and prepare foods. They definitely can be and I try to keep mine very similarly to otos. Otos get wood and plants, the loaches like places to explore and graze on that are stone or ceramic. Agreed. Having water movement is good. Having the right temp and oxygenation is what makes them do well. If you've ever had otos you always pay attention to their stomachs and their gills for signs of stress. For these fish it's crazy because you can see their heart and that's what I would always focus on. Definitely an amazing, beautiful fish.

If you can, find some 100% blocking window tint. It works much better to cover tanks. When I painted mine the HoB would always remove paint or something would happen. The "finish" on the film, especially when seeing it every day is very clean and holds up well. For reference, I used acrylic paint. Maybe other stuff works better.

@Bentley Pascoe is! Maybe he will see this 🙂 You've probably already seen it but: And because I really want to support her right now with all she's going through, I'll add this video for knowledge!

You can run a setup like this if you're driving.