Search results

Welcome! Very cool looking little tank! Love bettas. The problem with bettas is.. atleast with the ones I've kept is, they will pick at snails, especially the tentacles of larger snails. Do your snails have trap-doors on them? They look like mystery snails to me.

Canyoncat, welcome! You've got the ideal situation going to setup a brand-new tank. There will be some of the beneficial bacteria you need for your nitrogen cycle in the gravel and hardscape of your 55g, but the majority reside in the bio media portion of your filtration. Typically, all...

Malaysian trumpet snails are great for clean up and won't eat your live plants if you have them. I've got them in 3 out of 4 of my tanks.

That's a nice looking tank! I hear you in that large water changes can be an issue when you're on well water. I know many (even the DEEP ones) in my area were running dry this past summer. Luckily I'm on city water, but are on an old septic system. For this reason I pump my tank waste...

Could be from the effects of water quality, disease, stress or old age. Could also be from not having a proper sized school of lemon tetras. Tetras do best in large groups. Not uncommon for many tetras to live 6-8yrs with proper care.

A goldfish in a bowl type container should have daily (full amount) water changes until it could be moved into a proper home with a nitrogen cycle to process the ammonia the fish produces. Your fish sounds like it's suffering from exposure to high levels of ammonia or nitrate.

I would think attempting to change half your substrate would just cause a huge mess. I'd just move all your livestock and decor you want to keep into a storage tote with enough water in it to run your existing filtration on, re-do your tank, then move what you want back into it.

Do you keep other fish in this 20g with the goldfish? Good to hear you do indeed change water, but I'd do weekly water changes as opposed to every other week. Keep in mind the beneficial bacteria don't live in the water column. They are attached to the biological portion of your filtration...

Robyn, welcome. Those 5 fish are about all I'd put in a 10g. From what I've experienced, guppys tend to pester each other. About the only way to *maybe* reduce it is get 3 females to every 1 male, but then you'll have to contend with baby guppies, which will be way too much bio load for a...

What size tank, how often do you do water changes and how much water do you change?

The only time changing 'too much' water at once can be an issue is if your fish have acclimated themselves to the conditions that are associated with a very high nitrate environment (a bad thing). Your bio load requires more than 25-35% water change per week. I would do daily 20-25% WCs on...

Purp, welcome and that's a nice looking tank!! You're doing well in that you do indeed change some water weekly and you measure your water parameters, but zero PPM nitrate isn't possible in a tank of this size, with this stocking level unless you're doing a large water change many times per...

Looks like a pond snail maybe? Dunno. I'd be surprised if there's only one though. I too have kept sororities of female bettas in my 55g community tank with plants. Up to 6 female bettas at a time. They were a family favorite for sure because of their personalities. Problem was, over...

Without actually witnessing the aggression, it's tough to tell. Some pairs of angels will get along, some not so much. Even some angels by themselves can be nasty to other fish. How do you know you have a matched M/F pair? The only way you can do this is if they successfully breed. I've...

Not sure of the footprint and height of this size tank, but that is an extremely low amount of light in terms of the PAR/PUR it can put out. I don't care for the old watt per gallon for fluorescents rule, but it is kind of accurate for T12, T8 and T5 fluorescent. Minimum recommendation is...

I've got pothos in two of my tanks. Top tank is my oscar and severum 75g and the bottom is my goldfish 55g. The top I've got the roots in a large marina breeder box that uses air bubbles to circulate water through it like a HOB filter. On the bottom tank, I just have the roots sitting in...

The goldfish could have a blockage or bloat. It could also be a tumor, or could be the results of long term exposure to high nitrates, which causes all sorts of systematic failures. The main thing is to feed a quality pellet food as your main food, feed lightly and keep up on your water...

Hey welcome back! Yeah, apparently this site is a shell of it's former self, but that's pretty common for a site that's been around for a long time.

You're kind of limited at ~7gal. You could do a group of 7 or so neons or other cool little fish like celestial pearl danios. I do like the idea of a male betta, but another neat idea would be a sorority of female bettas. Thing is, you'd only be able to do 2, maybe 3 max because of the...

tramca, welcome back!! By far the easiest way to setup a new tank, is with used bio filtration media out of an already established (and healthy) tank. If you have access to that, your off and running the easy way. Do you have a liquid test kit for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? If so, you...