Baphijmm

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There's kind of a lot that my LFS doesn't carry, but that's more related to the location; they're not exactly burgeoning with customers, and a big part of that is simply that Alamogordo generally doesn't have the resources for a "luxury" like fish-keeping. (There's also a general cultural thing, but I won't dig too deep into that.) But, they do carry a decent selection of medications, and a lot of the basics. They also have a surprising selection of lights. As for fish, the store's basically split half-and-half between fresh and saltwater; the previous owner was a huge fan of saltwater, and the current owner clearly is too. (He's also a fan of turtles! Got a little pond set up indoors for them.) They carry some of the harder-to-find species too, like whiptail catfish and a decent selection of rainbows. But, I like this idea! I'll see what I can come up with next time I'm in there. (Or any store, for that matter.)

Corys are definitely up there. Easy to keep, super-cute, lots of personality if you can get them to come out of their shell. I'm gonna be the odd one out and say neon tetras are up there, too; also relatively easy, quite pretty, and you can get a lot for very little and have a great-looking outcome. Danios same thing, for the same reason. Another oddball choice: Gouramis. Bigger ones, like the trichopterus, any of its color forms. Not great to keep more than two, but they're wonderful additions to most communities even given their occasional aggressiveness, just because they hang out at the top. Also surprisingly easy to keep.

Returning this week, everyone seemed to be doing alright; however, some time between last night and this afternoon, I seem to have lost a Cory. Down to four now. Can't imagine what happened; everyone else is doing wonderfully, and last night everyone seemed to be good. Not seeing any signs of disease or anything on anyone, even on the body. It was one of the littler ones though, so maybe it was getting bullied for food and I just didn't see it. But, in spite of this (because I didn't notice until I got back), I ended up getting the "centerpiece" fish for the tank: A beautiful Black Orchid betta male. He was probably the healthiest-looking betta in the place, but also I've always wanted to get a Black Orchid. They're so pretty. He was raring to go the whole time I had him acclimating, and the moment I moved him into the water, he immediately began exploring. Hasn't been a problem with anyone, hasn't tried to attack anything. Even so, this evening he's been being something of a border collie for the neons, not even chasing them around so much as just, wherever he swims, it seems to "corral" them. It's cute! I've decided, after looking at OLD pictures from back when I was first getting this tank set up, that all the plants are indeed growing, or at least all the tissue culture ones. (The centerpiece plant I got from ACO hasn't started growing yet, but funny story, someone was using the bulb as a soccer ball while I was gone for the weekend. Dunno if it was the Corys or the snails, but the thing was quite a ways away from where I'd put it. Nothing damaged because nothing was growing from it yet, but it did give me an opportunity to verify the bulb still seems alive, at least.) Even the Cryptocoryne beckettii is definitely growing; the newer leaves appear to be the ones with darker outer margins, which give them an interesting appearance. Don't know if that's a thing, or if maybe I've got a nutrient deficiency, but I think it looks neat. 😛 Scarlet temple is definitely growing, quite a bit and quite well; looking forward to how those take off whenever I manage to scrape together a CO2 system. And the Ammania 'bonsai' (which I'm going to start calling it, because apparently it's almost certainly that genus instead of Rotala) is still going strong too, seeing a bit of spreading even, which is exactly what I wanted out of it. Hoping it takes over the front of the tank. I actually ended up over-compensating for the lack of minerals in the RO water I was using here, and so now the hardness is up way high. XD (It doesn't take much, apparently!) It's fine for now, but I'm gonna have to do water changes anyway, so I'll just hold off on adding anything to the water when I do.

Where was it laying flat? I tend to hold mine in the air, just horizontal, for the full 60 seconds. If I set it down anywhere, I find the test picks up stuff on that surface. I've even gotten cross-contamination just measuring against the bottle, from testing multiple tanks. They're surprisingly sensitive.

In my experience, it's extremely unlikely they'll hog all the food (especially if there's ample algae), but that depends on what all else is in the tank. For example, I've never had Amano with other shrimp (and in fact have never kept any other varieties of shrimp). What all else will be in the tank?

Tangentially related, I've not been in here in a few weeks what with surgery and lack of funds, but our "local" (a one-hour drive is about the best I'm going to get) fish store recently, I want to say back in January, changed hands; it had been Fish 'n' Phipps, but Mr. Phipps wanted to retire and this other guy, Jason, had experience running fish stores and wanted to buy the business. Well, they've finally got their new website up. It's a little sparse, but it's a nice step in the right direction. https://jasonstropicalfish.com/

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As mentioned in my "sorority" journal, an ACO order arrived today. Part of that shipment was a new plant for this tank, dwarf chain sword (Helanthium tenellum), which I'd mentioned above. It also contained the aforementioned algae scraper and Easy Green, so it was a nice receipt all around. Chain sword went in just fine, and you can see, it came with a spike, just like the Amazon sword from a few weeks ago! Might be getting some babies shortly. 😄 As was the case with the sorority tank, this tank finally dipped below the upper threshold of the GH limit after another 25% water change on Friday night / Saturday morning. Probably still need one or two more changes, but we're getting there. The algae scraper did exactly what I expected, worked beautifully on the algae that had been developing on the front glass. Fact is, algae has been growing more, as evidenced by that growing on the little resin skull in these pictures, which tells me the snails are definitely taking a hit. (I mean, the fact that I'm taking tannins out of the tank with each water change is also certainly helping the algae take off I'm sure, but I do know the lack of snails to eat it is the biggest contributing factor.) Many of them have figured out that hanging out at the surface of the water keeps them relatively safe, but of course the algae scraper helps with that too. 😛 I do suspect a lot of the ones I'm still seeing are in fact dead, and I just need to clean them off surfaces. The Corys have been doing particularly well throughout all this. I've noticed, the newer specimens tend to forage during the day, while the older guys tend to do so at night. The other night, I even caught one of the older guys doing that thing Corys do, scurrying up to the surface for a gulp of air and fluttering their way back down. It's nice to see them getting playful!

Welp, once again, somehow the USPS came through and delivered my ACO order placed literally Saturday afternoon, this morning. Definitely not complaining! Pleasantly surprised! Thrilled, even! This shipment had a number of things I'd been wanting to grab for a variety of reasons, but several of those were the plants I'd talked about here. Water sprite, Pogostemon stellatus, and Hydrocotyle tripartita 'Japan' (the latter being my choice for a "carpeting" plant) have all now been introduced to the tank, after a thorough rinsing in the sink of course. (Don't worry, it's all well water, no chlorine.) I do eventually want to start CO2 in this tank; I know the Hydrocotyle in particular will definitely benefit from it. Seachem Flourite is some of the most difficult substrate to plant in, I've found. I see lots of folks complaining about sand, and meanwhile I love sand for planted tanks! This stuff on the other hand, even if you plant with tweezers it's such a pain; the substrate moves right out of the way, and so of course nothing moves in to hold the roots in place. After much trial and error, I got everything at least in the substrate; definitely not the best job, but they're in there. After multiple 25% water changes over the last few weeks with RO water to try to get rid of the old "RO" water from an RO system that hadn't been maintained in seven years and thus wasn't actually filtering anything out of the water, I now finally have GH down into the acceptable range for the current and planned inhabitants of this tank. On Thursday, as described in an earlier post, the GH had finally dropped below the upper threshold of the test strips, but as of yesterday, after another water change Saturday night / Sunday morning, we're now down to 75ppm, or about 4.25 dGH. This is still a little on the high side for the harlequin rasboras and kuhli loaches presently in there, but it's still within their ideal range; it's also a touch high for the bettas I'd originally planned to keep in this tank, but again, still quite acceptable, especially considering we'd been probably on the order of 1200ppm or even higher before we serviced the RO system and began trying to bring all that down. Everybody was naturally fairly spooked as I planted the new plants, but now, all things considered, they're looking quite pleased. Now to clean up the algae and try to get those faster-growing plants to take off... Oh yes, which reminds me! You can really tell in the kuhli loach pictures in my previous post here, that's the stuff I'd been saying I thought was mulm; rather, after someone brought an older post on the forums back into the current stuff, I realized what I had was a fungus! So, this week I'm gonna try to see if I can find an antifungal treatment when I go out exploring the pet store I'd planned to visit. This won't be the one I mentioned before, as unfortunately my scheduled follow-up appointment in that part of town won't be for another two weeks; still though, it's a store I've not visited in quite some time. Flow's a little weak; I've actually tried to keep it that way since I'd originally planned to have female bettas in here. But, we'll see how things look after these plants start getting to work and I treat the tank for the aforementioned fungus. I'm hoping a lot of my issues will just disappear.

How many do you have? A small number tends to lend itself to skittishness. The species can also make a difference; for example, I've got a tank with a small group of Corydoras adolfoi, and they were all super-shy until I added more to the tank. Meanwhile, I've got another tank with Corydoras paleatus, and for a while I only had three in there, but they were never so scared they had to go hide when I approached.

Same thing, amount for the water change only. Unless you're dosing the whole tank for the first time, or it's been a while since the last time the chemical was dosed (e.g., a week or two, since chemicals are often designed to break down and/or be consumed by the tank inhabitants), then the whole tank. But, yeah, in general, dose for the amount of new water, since that water hasn't been dosed before.

If you're adding the chemicals during a water change, just add enough for the quantity of the change. Personally, for the cases where I have to treat for chlorine (since most of my tanks are in a place we get well water, we don't have to treat for chlorine on those), I treat the water going into the tank, before it goes into the tank. That way there's less chance of some stray chlorine interfering with the fish before the treatment gets to it.

Possibly! I don't really do coffee, but we could hang out. This week I've got plans around the house, but we could coordinate. 😛