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My son’s new tank


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I had a calamity with my sons first tank- went like gang busters until I had a mass die off. The post-mortem seems to point to a dead mystery snail leading to an ammonia spike which then killed other critters, released more ammonia, stressed out the fish and then released some sort of bacterial hell on the tank. Here’s the original post. 

Well I cleaned out the tank, bleach dipped the plants and tossed the substrate and hard scape into my “graveyard” ie wooden planter box I keep all of that stuff in. Found that I scratched up the front glass and I’d painted the back so luckily petco had 50% off all tanks so nearly a dollar a gallon. The LFS will take it and give it to a kiddo who can’t afford it. Wife and I had been talking about upgrading our other sons 10 g so I grabbed 2 twenty breeders for $40 plus another $36 for glass tops - I’ve been making them from acrylic but they never fit right I just decided to splurge. 
I put some window tint on the back of it for background instead of painting- had seen this on MD Fishtanks and some other FishTube channels. 
The substrate- put down some laterite and bacter powder, I used some Lava rock, small river rocks and crushed coral gravel I want to make sure that I don’t get any compaction and ammonia trapping I noticed when I took the last one apart there was some of this with the flourite sand. I put some stratum on top along with some aragonite sand. 
Hardscape is local obsidian- mahogany and snowflake I love the colors and texture. My sons and I hunted these locally at Glass Butte. 
Planting is some crypts - pink flamingo, wendtii green and red, regular spiralis; some PSO; water wisteria; Taiwan Lilly; dwarf sag: Java moss
For the light I’m using a 24” shop light rated to 6500 k. I’m going to grab some gutter and paint it black for a cover. 
It was an enjoyable build. Now we’ll just cycle and get ready to stock. Preparing for this was half the fun. Made me forget about the horror show of over a month ago. 
Contemplating platys, black neons and a pair of honey sunset gouramis. 
 

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This tank is going like gang busters - minimal melt, clear water and really like the look of it! I’ll check water parameters and just keep watching the cycle. My neighbor just had some black Molly babies and I think they’d be fun along with some gouramis. With mollies being chunkier then platys I’m thinking may have to pass on the black neons. Anybody have some thoughts on that subject? 

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Looks great! Hard to believe one dead thing can cause such chaos, wasn't there also an instance of overfeeding?

You can have my black neons 😂, they're kinda jerks so I'm thinking they probably could hold their own with other big fish. I affectionately call them murder fish since they picked off a few of their own when I first got them. 

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Yeah that I'm not at all surprised about. The neons are pretty but it makes me appreciate my Harlequins so much more since while they tend to sporadically chase each other I've never seen them be outright agressive to each other or the other creatures in the tank- but for the tiny baby otos they've eaten but hey, moving food I can't fault them. 

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That’s a good point @xXInkedPhoenixX rasboras would be a better choice - love harlequin and porkchop with an obsession with kubotai neon greens. Don’t think the green neons would be a good fit with the mollies think they could probably hang with the gouramis. 
 

I just checked the parameters and they are really good no ammonia, nitrite and 10 ppm nitrates. I’ll do water changes today and see what things look like next week before thinking about stocking. That’s the thing with so many tanks is you always have substrate or media to cycle tanks. 

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@Patrick_GI have the sunset honey gouramis in quarantine- only surviving members of the tank that died. They’ve been medicated and look good. I guess they’re the only non-negotiable stock. The rest of the stock is up in the air. I’ve got time to sort it out. 
The Molly idea was because they were free from my neighbor. I was at PetCo and the young dude there was so lost it wasn’t even funny but he was so guileless that he told me which ones came in sick and which were medicated etc. and told me to come back in “a week or two then we’ll know which ones are survivors.” Reminded me of Cory’s last top 5 from on of the big box store. I love shopping my LFS but man their markup is stiff. Often I order online because even with shipping it’s cheaper. Not as cheap as big box store but a middle ground $$ wise. I need to show the little man some pics of some fish to decide. 

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@Patrick_Gi have them in my main display and there is nothing as bright as a male cherry barb sparing with another male for the females attention. Brilliant little fish. I’ll see what my son says. The other fish I’ve seen recently that I’ve loved is danio choprae the glow light danio, seem like great schooling fish with gorgeous coloration but might be too similar in color to the gouramis. Haven’t had danios in a long time. I’ll give my son a bunch of choices and go from there. Great suggestion!

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 Just a heads up my glowlight danios are very boisterous and fast. They may outcompete the gouramis for food. I have around a dozen in my 75. I moved my kubotai school to the 55 because the glowlights were hogging all the food and stressing them out.

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Never had honey gouramis, not sure.  I have 2 female dwarf gouramis in with some emperor tetras, and they do ok during feeding time.  I've kept swordtails (long time ago) and they seemed to get along with my other fish. Not sure how mollies would do with kubotai. I'm sure someone here has tried it.

I'd have to say besides the shrimp my kubotai are my favorites.. so I'm a bit biased 🙂
Mine got along great with my shrimp when they were in the 75. They would even take turns in the feed dish full of shrimp. They'd do a little swish to get the pellet particles to float, then grab those in stead of the pellets. The glowlights just knock the the shrimp out of the way.  I'd compare their activity to nippy  tetra behavior. They are pretty though, and do have some very interesting spawning behavior, which they do a lot.

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  • 2 weeks later...

F7083898-3F6C-4858-8362-31AC17ED2C14.jpeg.c2e63b92330815fd4e814f0df8795f09.jpegC141BBEA-FC61-4A7E-B8A0-DA8E79707597.jpeg.a691b00299a4e5c1e6fbf210cd334687.jpeg055B5263-98CA-4D0C-A0D6-14A33EF26CAD.jpeg.0262c48bf5ba38b1c77092efa0265e2e.jpegEEC1B8E0-D7D2-4972-ADFA-B4930774E49A.jpeg.7784f35a710718a1ba3dc138b188b8ac.jpegI am loving the plants in this tank. Some trimming last week and bam lovely growth. 
I did go ahead put 5 baby black mollys in this tank. I don’t see it as their permanent home but with the diatoms and algae I think they’re a good choice for the next 3-6 months. 
I have 7 Pseudomeugil luminatus in qt and they made it beautifully through the med trio. I water change that tank today and if they look good this weekend I think they’ll go in with the trio that’s in there. 

Edited by Beardedbillygoat1975
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