BettaFishMommy

you mean a UV sterilizer? won't hurt a planted tank any, but isn't necessary for a healthy tank.

i'm not familiar with otos (never kept them), but it could be mating behaviour? or they may be frantically searching for food - is there a lot of algae in your tank or is it pretty clean?

sounds like a nutrient deficiency. i would start fertilizing with Flourish Comprehensive, to make things easy for you. your light bulbs may also need replaced if they have been running on the tank for a while.

welcome!! can't wait to see photos of your basement project!

pimafix and melafix are considered pretty weak in the meds department. i would just add a bag of carbon to the top of your media stack if you are concerned at all about residual meds and plop that canister right back on your main tank. potassium permanganate will kill off all the beneficial bacteria in your filters and on surfaces in your tank. i wouldn't suggest this route at all, as you will be essentially starting over with an uncycled tank. PP will also kill off snails in your tank, so if you want to keep your snails, don't use the stuff.

week and a half old 'bowl' water will have very high ammonia, and ammonia eats away at the tissues - ammonia burn. i remember back when i kept my bettas in bowls, i did an ammonia test only a few days after a 100% water change on a 2 gallon bowl and the ammonia was 4 ppm! yikes! that woke my noggin up and i moved most of my bettas over to 10 gallon tanks and did just about daily changes on any left in bowls. the chin turning white from shock makes sense, because in a shock situation, the blood flow would be going mostly to the vital organs to keep the fish alive. that's my theory. so the loss of blood flow to certain areas would make the area white. could you please share the link where you read this shock/white chin connection? thanks. big al's carries betta revive. and it's cheap - only a few bucks. the package is small, but in a bowl setting you only have to use a little bit. i recall something like 12 to 14 drops per gallon or per 2 gallons. i can't remember exactly, but i know i've overdosed the stuff in bowls before with no problems. the key with this med is to do daily 100% changes and re-medicate, because it breaks down in the water fairly quickly, losing potency.

sorry to hear! RIP lil betta boy. food will grow fungus on it if left uneaten in the tank. that fungus doesn't hurt fish any from my experience, it just looks nasty. very strange that his fins would rot away so quickly. i've never had a betta's fins get bad so fast. what environment was he in (bowl or filtered tank)? what was the ammonia level? when was the last water change? what dechlorinator did you use? salt needs to be added slowly over the course of a couple days at least, to prevent the shock that you described. quickly increasing salinity content in the water can cause osmotic shock in fish. vice versa, removing the salt content quickly, can do the same. so your betta got 'double shocked' by going in the salted water, then back out of it. i personally don't use salt for fin problems - i believe it makes the problem worse, with the salt aggravating the damaged fins. whenever i've had to cure fin rot in bettas, i use 'Betta Revive' by Hikari. contains methylyne blue and malachite green. good stuff IMO, but if you're not careful you'll have blue hands after.... trust me... this i know. lol. every betta i've treated with it has bounced back nicely in the fin department. a few bettas that have passed away here over the 4 years since i started in the tank hobby have had the white chins shortly after death, more prevalant in red and dark coloured bettas for some reason. i'm not too sure what causes this, but it probably has something to do with loss of blood flow to the area. as for worrying if it is contagious, have you shared equipment between your tanks without disinfecting in between? nets, hoses for water changes, even your hands going tank to tank with no wash up in between? if precautions have been taken between tanks, then there shouldn't be too much worry.

your tiger barb is being aggressive because he's all by himself. barbs are a fish that enjoy being with others of their own kind, and having a good number of them will decrease aggression towards other fish in the tank. i wouldn't add more barbs though. they like the water warmer than 20. did a bit of reading on these newts just now, and it seems the guideline is 5 to 10 gallons minimum for each newt. i'd say that tank should be a newt only tank, due to its size and the adult size of each newt (6 to 7 inches).

welcome to the forum!

but if it is a bacterial infection, wouldn't the raised temperature also increase the metabolism of the bacteria, causing it to proliferate? or would the salt counter-react the effect of the raised temperature? i'm always hesitant to raise the temp when there is a bacterial infection present.

i get a few hydra in one of my tanks when i overfeed. the tank is bare bottom with plastic decor, so the hydra are easy to dislodge and suck up from the glass (the only place i ever see them) when i do my water changes. just cut back on feedings and get the hydra out via water changes, no need to fast your fish for a week. maybe feed every second day and only a small pinch?

yikes! i would've had a heart attack moment too! what brand of filter was it that had the crack?

yes, i have seen long finned female bettas, but they are rather rare and not seen in the hobby often, so it would be fairly safe to say that females are short finned here (at least until fishclubgirl brings hers in and starts breeding them!)

i'd be concerned about the salt content in most 'african cichlid' buffers. snails and salt are not a good mix. another concern is fish nipping at the antenna of the snails, thinking they are worms to eat. this can result in the snail staying tucked up inside it's shell and not coming out to feed at all. i personally would not keep apple snails with africans.

when i had 7 bettas none of them cared for brine or mysis. my last two bettas over the past couple years have eaten mysis and brine, but much prefer bloodworms. you should be able to see either the breeding bars (vertical) or stress stripes (horizontal) on any darker coloured betta. it's the really light coloured bettas that don't show bars or stripes well. i just went back in the thread and something jumped out at me from your first post - "I'm actually not 100% sure the females are all girls because they're plakat and so could be males" - all female betta splendens are short finned. the ovipositor is the only definite gender check.

microworm cultures are a definite necessity when raising baby bettas.

with bettas, prime breeding age is under 1 year. so yes, your male may be too old. half of a styrofoam cup floating on top of the water and taped to a tank wall works well for a calm area for the male to make his nest. is the bubble wrap laying flat on the water? maybe he doesn't want to build his nest that way. as for miss bossy female that needs to play nice with the new girls - try removing her to her own tank for a bit, and put the new girls in the sorority tank. this will give the new girls time to settle in and claim their own little territories in the sorority. put miss bossy back in about a week after her solitary confinement. keep us updated!

paratilapia pasghetti? lol.

the anal fin on male livebearers is the gonopodium. thanks for the info!

could somebody please link the articles regarding this swordtail type not being able to breed? i'm quite interested in reading them! thanks.

sometimes i wonder if we should just start referring to home depot as 'fish stuff depot', lol!

i would just take the fittings in to a hardware store and get tubing that is the right diameter. those fluval hoses are a pain in the tookus because the ribbing on them collects so much crap. plus, tubing at a hardware store is going to be oodles cheaper! just be sure to get tubing that is thick walled enough that it won't kink.

with apple snails, you need a male and female for them to reproduce. apple snails are not hermaphrodites like other smaller snail species commonly are. i raised 7 generations of apple snails, and kept them all in the same tank the whole time, so i'm sure some inbreeding happened. none of my snails had any mutations or problems. a great resource for all things apple snail is www.applesnail.net. the section you want to concentrate on for info on your snails is 'Pomacea diffusa'.

i think the fixtures you are using are throwing light sideways too much, especially if the bulb comes past the edge of the fixture's 'cone' at all, and the lights are 5 inches away from the water. lining the inside of the fixture with tinfoil, and extending the foil down past the edge of the fixture can help to direct the light better down to the plants. i personally would just buy a different fixture and bulbs though. how long do you leave the lights on each day? posting photos of your plants could help us determine what sort of deficiencies they have. things like yellowing leaves, brown spots, etc - each 'symptom' has a reason behind it.

if your bettas are piggies about food and associate you opening the tank lid with feeding (wait, don't all bettas think this way? lol!), then hold the camera level with the top part of the tank, just below the water line, and open the tank with your other hand. snap the picture when the bettas are nose up, awaiting food.