firestorm

In a 20 one ram should do fine, but I wouldn't go with more than that for sure. I used to have 5 of them in a 90 gallon, and it seemed it wasn't enough space for them all....lol considering I ended up with all males.

I have to say I use both Hikari Gold products and NLS. I do really like both of them, but to be honest I do see that hikari would cost me more in the long run to buy. I have around 5 tanks full of fish that I feed the 1mm NLS cichlid formula to, and I have had my 5 lb pail for almost a whole year now and with that many fish (around 50-80 fish). I do find it lasts much longer not to mention most of my fish love the stuff. I also feed flake and smaller formulas to my smaller fish, and the containers seem to go alot further than other brands I have used in the past. When you have 15+ tanks running it is not worth it to not buy bulk. That reminds me, does hikari even sell their food in bulk? At least NLS offers this. REDO, I find with my oscar even feeding him the large hikari pellets that he too would end up making a huge mess of the tank. Now that he is about 10" I still mainly feed him the 3mm pellets, and I actually found that these made less of a mess. I think Neil must be right and maybe the pellet sizes are what prevents this. Even still I think a 5lb pail of NLS for your 6 oscars should last at least 6 months or more. I used to feed my fish the tetra brand foods as well as nutrafin, I see a huge difference in my fish since I swtiched to NLS a year ago. One more thing, I find with NLS flakes they don't go all soggy as soon as they hit the water, you try this with nutrafin flakes and they immediately sink to the bottom. Sometimes I will find a few NLS flakes still floating after 1/2hr (in my shrimp tank) which must say alot to how well they stay together and not break apart.

I usually just soak mine for a few days in water, but I am sure boiling for about 20 minutes should be sufficient. After boiling I would rinse it and stick it right into the aquarium.

Haha, he probably couldnt even see the shrimp. If I am thinking about the same kind of aro you guys are a 550 gallon might be more like it :thumbs:

Wow, that's a crazy set of roots......I would hate to pull up my cryptocoryne from my 5 gallon tank :boxed:

I think if you stick with at least 3 of each type of cory you should be fine against cross breeding but there will always be that chance when mixing them. I don't think cories are very easy to breed either, so you might not even need to worry about that. In a 33 the most for Bolivian rams I would get would be 2-3. I would definitely try for a pair if you can or even 2 females and 1 male, 2 males could possibly kill one another in a tank that size. Bolivian rams are slightly difficult to sex especially when they are younger, so if you can young ones that are still fairly small, try buying about 5 of them and then as they grow get rid of any that aren't going to work out.

I don't see a problem with them being in a community tank either. My lucky petricolas have tons of rock work to play around in, that would be the most important thing. I would only worry about them eventually knocking around more delicate plants and possibly uprooting them when they get bigger, but they might not.

Cories can be sensitive to salt though, so be careful with that. A bolivian ram should be fine with cherry barbs and ghost shrimp, they get larger than the german blues but they don't tend to eat smaller fish very often, besides that the cherries are faster swimmers. I had bolivians in with smaller cardinals and didn't seem to have any disappear.

Most of the time filters will leak because there is either a crack in the filter or the o-ring needs lubing or replacing. I suggest for next time check the oring, if it doesn't seem badly dried out or cracked then just lube it up instead of replacing the whole thing.......much cheaper. Also if the cover plate for the impeller is broken or the impeller is worn out I have found they can leak. Randy, they can only go on one way, they won't even go on at all if you have it on wrong. The rena XP's however can go on either way.

I feed mine the small fish formula pellets which are the 0.5mm, and I also feed them the NLS flake. I am sure if the guppies are big enough they could eat the 1mm, but I would be worried of them choking on ones that size. You could always crush the 1mm like Jerry said.

I have to slightly agree with Anne marie, I would start off simple if you haven't kept plants before as I too have wasted lot's of money on the HC to only have it go to waste. But if you are really that determined I will answer some of your questions with what I think. Most plants will do well in temps of 20-28 degrees, so I am pretty sure your plants will be fine together. For substrates I would definitely recommend a plant substrate like seachem fluorite, eco-complete, laterite etc. You should be able to find these at Big Al's, I know the one down here has all of them. It's not cheap but your plants will love you for it. I find dry ferts are better for your money, but with only 10 gallons or less you could probably get away with liquids like a comprehensive fert that will dose for NPK, and get some iron ferts. I like the seachem products myself. For a 10 gallon you could also dose with flourish excel for your carbon or do a DIY system. For DIY get a 2L pop bottle, insert and seal some airline tubing in the lid, and you will need something to break up the bubbles like a bubble ladder, hooking it into a filter or power head, or some people use an airstone. All you need is yeast, white sugar, water, and some people use baking soda which is not absolutely necessary if you have hard water. For lighting and those plants I would aim for around 3-4wpg, but you will need to dose with some form of carbon as the fish won't produce enough for the plants. A betta can probably handle the lights, but will probably eat the shrimp. You can buy hoods for 10 gallon tanks, but they can be rather expensive. You can do an open top and buy a small light fixture, I personally like the hagen glo T5HO lights but the smallest they come in are 24".....and I believe the average 10 gallon is 18". Coralife makes smaller fixtures, but I find they get hot. Or you can buy regular fixtures that take the screw in bulbs.

Hmm let me think lol. I got a 5 gallon tank, a 10 gallon with a screen lid, a madagascar lace plant, an echinodorus "red special" plant, some hygro polysperma, white cloud minnows, and some magazines.......I think that was it. I probably spent as much as I made hahaha. Guess I will find out when I get my check.

Ghost shrimp will look like this when they get bigger, definitely interesting to watch. They may not be as colorful as some of the micro shrimp, but can usually be safely kept with fish that will eat smaller shrimp. BTW, some mollie species can handle the brackish/salty water, others cannot. I will go back and find out what species they were. But for the most part I think the mollies sold at most LFS's are the type that can handle salt.

I will be bringing a bunch of swords, anubias nana, crinum calamistratum, ludwigia repens, some hygro, a floating plant I can't remember the name of off hand lol but perfect for livebearer breeding tanks, a couple micro worm cultures and some juvenile fish. I think that's it but I am tired and off to bed........and yes the portions at the auctions are usually much more than at the LFS, so you usually get your moneys worth. Stacey, I cannot believe how huge that sword is.....if I hadn't have won a baby from one of the meetings I would have definitely bid on that bad boy

Thanks guys.....if you want a betta like him there were a few that looked almost identical at BA's in Calgary here, not sure if they sold them all or not though. I fell in love with him the first time I saw him, didn't care he cost me over $20 lol. He harrassed the 2 blackskirts I had in there before so I had to take them out. I don't know my secret to getting the hairgrass to stay, I just made sure it was buried good, and maybe the fluorite sand is heavier than your regular sand and finer too. The rocks I also picked up from BA's, I piled a few pieces in the corner and have another sitting in the middle of the grass which you can't see right now. As for plants I plan on using the christmas moss and attaching it to the rocks and hope it fills in. The sponge filter and heater are covered by the rocks. I think I got a few hitchhiking plants with the hairgrass though, not sure what some were but I am sure one is part of the bladderwort family.

I would also go with the acei. Socolofi are really aggressive and they tend to be alot more territorial. If you have males and females of the labs and the other fish you shouldn't have to highly worry about cross breeding. I have found that they typically cross breed when the males don't have some of their own females to breed with, or when the males or females are very similar looking.

Looks great. Yes you can trim the pogostemon and replant it, you can do this with any stem plants. The reason you see some have red and yours don't, is because you need to dose with iron if you want red plants to turn red. I would recommend dosing by the EI as well, then you will definitely see some good growth with your plants. Tom Barr even did some research on how ferts affect shrimp, and he found they didn't seem to have any negative effects. You can find the post in his forum. Edit: And I noticed your new plant is riccia. Unfortunately it is naturally a floating plant, so it will not root itself to the wood. You will need to use some mesh to hold it onto the wood if you want a nice carpet effect, otherwise it will all just keep floating to the surface.

Looks great with the plants filling in, you might be able to find some good plants at the auction tomorrow.

The glass actually wasn't really sharp at all, but I am sure you can probably sand it down with a special sand paper if you needed to. Ok so an update, sorry this has taken so long. I removed the stem plants a week ago so I am left with the grass and some christmas moss. It's not the best of shape right now but it is due for servicing. Right now it holds my new betta I bought from Big Al's, and he was worth the money

Did you find the flame moss at a store? The only place I have seen it is on aquabid or ebay. Would love some of that stuff, there is also another type of moss I want, just can't remember the name off hand. I saw it on aquabid but would be coming from over seas.

I have christmas moss and java moss in tanks where I only dose with excel, and I have never found that they melt.

Congrats :thumbs: It's always exciting to have new fish spawn. Can't wait to see pics of progression

Sorry to hear that. It can be very hard when a fish stops eating, and frustrating when meds don't seem to work.

And remember snails can be a source of inforsia for fry and I believe shrimplets as well.

Yes Nick, it is. I really tried to make it hard but I guess you guys really know your stuff lol.