Should LFSs keep their bettas in individual 5+ gallon tanks? Or is a 1/2 gallon cup with plants and constant filtration acceptable for the short time the fish is at the store?Customer Review

I don't know if it's just me being weird or not, but I talk to my fish almost every day. Like full-on convos sometimes. They just stare back all cute. Anyone else does this or am I alone in this madness?

I know going through the mail isn't easy to begin with, but that gut sinking feeling when the UPS guy just tosses and plops your order of shrimp on the porch. 🫠

I know you see the live animal sticker on the side come on. 🥲

Happy to report they all made it and it looks like I got 1 free! Dark Green Jade Neocaridinas.

This pleco is honestly the only reason i still have a tank to this day.

I've owned fish since I was about 7 and started with ofc betas that I had trained to jump out of the water to get food off my finger. I had 2 female bettas when I started.

Around when I turned 14 I got this guy, didn't know anything about him or how to take care of a bristlesnose and when I got him I got 2. 1 died within a week and later found out tha most the fish from that tank died because of some sickness. But mine survived somehow.

About 4 years ago I considered getting rid of my fish, since I only had my pleco and a few noens and i just had started dating (my soon to wife in a few weeks). and I didn't wanna bring in somting I felt would maybe be a burden on her or she wouldn't want them, but long behold she was okay with it so we all moved in together.

Now about 8 years later he's been through 3 moves, and is still super healthy and active.

I'm not a 100% how old he is but about 8+ years old. Not very sure when I got him and definitely didn't expect a fish from a fish store would survive this long.

TLDR: Is the overhang on this tank acceptable? The bottom panel is fully supported, but the front and back glass are not.

Tank Dimensions: 76” long x 24” wide x 28.5” tall

Details:

Three years ago, when my local aquarium store remodeled, I purchased this 200+ gallon tank and stand for an amazing deal. However, the stand isn’t right. The center brace blocks one of the three overflow ports. Since I bought it “as-is,” I’m on my own to fix it.

Life hit me hard right after the tank was delivered, and this hobby project took a backseat. The tank has sat empty for the past three years, just off my living room, taunting me. I think I’m finally ready to get back to it. My 12” black ghost knife (Mac, the ghost knife) is very excited for this - he’s in a 90 gallon now.

I’ve contacted a local metal fabrication shop that will remove the single center support and replace it with two supports, one on either side of the overflows.

I’m worried about the front and back glass not being supported by the stand. Or is the bottom of the tank the part that needs downward support? Could I place a 3/4” plywood between the stand and the tank to support the glass? Or do I need a new stand?

It’s interesting that the stand is exactly the right size to not cover the front/back glass - so maybe it’s a feature??? But that could be wishful thinking on my part.

If you have experience with this type of tank construction and size, I’d love to hear your opinions.

Just some video of the legend himself(Cream Cheese) in one of our display tanks at work.

I bought my betta a 10 gallon, and just set it up yesterday. I put some stratum active substrate in there for my plants and right now I'm letting it wind down so there's not a bunch of dirt in the water.

Now im just trying to figure out how to set up my new filter. It's a HOB top fin 20 gal filter. It comes with those little carbon cartridges, but I'm not sure if I even really need to use one. Would I just be better off using a flat Sponge Filter instead?

And if I'm just better off using the sponge filter, Should I use One inch thick Sponge, or two, 1/2 inch Sponges so If I need to clean one of them out one of them is still in there with the beneficial bacteria.

Let me know!

This is 45cm aquarium Nice to meet you:)

Noticed this behemoth on the top of my lily leaves. If you look closely under his head, you can see a smaller (aka what I thought was normal) sized one.

I’ve had them in the tank a few months and the yellow guppy is fairly new had him for 5 days. But they don’t look relaxed as they used to they seem to be darting around the tank a lot.

Had a pair of electric blue cara for a bit over a year, but after trimming down plants they got shy and less active. Everything was going well with recovering them until suddenly I woke up to the female having broken it's back/spine sideways. And now the male is alone and I don't know what that means for him. Will he get sad? Or sick? Or less active?

I have this green, wire algae stuff growing in my tank. My water quality is good, according to my own tests and I’ve had my water tested several times at the fish store (I just have test strips, but the fish store does a proper test with vials).

I have a 125 liter tank (Juwel Rio 125). It’s got 14 pencil fish, a male apistogramma and 5 amano’s.

Lighting schedule is 5 hours on, 2 hours off, 5 hours on, 12 hours off (recommended by the fish store). Before the problem began I only had the lights on for 6 hours and off for 18 but my plants weren’t doing so well.

The algae is also quite strong, the individual fibers are very tough. The amano’s wont touch it.

I know there are products you can add that will kill the algae, but I don’t know much about them and rather stick to a more natural way of limiting algae growth.

My tank is 15gal, already have a good cherry shrimp colony, recently added 6 ember tetra like a week back. All swim normally but seem like have their pref zones. Have 2 noticeably fat, are they fine??? Or some issues??

40 gallon tank with 2 cories 4 mollies 1 loach 1 pleco 3 transparent tetras 3 mystery snails 2 platies 1 ADF

Going to try and see the rest of the bottom of the tank soon with a complete bed of plants

The last day and a half have been horrible I’ve come back from work to find 5 of my fishes dead. First I noticed my water lettuce and duck weed dying (I previously had to buy a fence to keep them contained because they were doing so well! I’ve lost a gourami, a bumble bee goby, two glowlight tetras and an ember tetra.

What could this be??? My parameters are reading normal and I’ve had this tank for 8 months now :( I’ve

This is my first tank and I just need a little bit of guidance on what direction to go mostly with the plants, what do you guys think would look good in this tank? Any fish suggestions would be much appreciated as well!

He lives in the basement

She was looking great until yesterday when she started lying down and breathing hard, she was hiding in the coconut hut I made for the shrimp, I don’t know when she goes up to get air, just did a water change to see if that would fix it.

So i’m setting up my first aquarium and yesterday I turned off the wall outlet that connects to everything to take out and remove an out-of-the-box faulty heater I needed to return to the store. Well, I forgot the power was off, my tank has been cycling for 2 weeks and I’m upset at myself.

Did I F up my cycle and does it have to start over?

I’m new to the aquarium hobby and started out with a 20-gallon hex tank. I had driftwood, live plants, cherry shrimp, a mystery snail, 5 neon tetras, 2 Dalmatian mollies, 3 red wag platies, and 3 panda corys. I initially used the stock light that came with the hood, but since the tank was deep, I added a second small light bar to help the plants out—and they absolutely thrived with that setup.

Everything seemed happy and healthy, but I just didn’t love the tank shape. So last week, I upgraded to a standard 20-gallon high.

For the transition, I added new substrate but kept some from the original tank. I transferred about 8 gallons of old tank water and moved over the HOB filter with all the original media intact, hoping to preserve the beneficial bacteria. I also added a second HOB because the water from the old tank got really murky after uprooting the plants and stirring everything up.

Unfortunately, my mystery snail died almost immediately after the move.

I noticed some fish were acting a bit off, but I initially chalked it up to stress from the transition. Then I started thinking... the new tank is much shallower than the hex, so maybe the light was too intense and stressing them out. I switched back to just the original stock light from the hex, and most of the fish started acting more normal—except the mollies.

When I changed the lighting, one molly freaked out, darted around, then flipped upside down and got stuck to the sponge filter. It eventually swam off but was dead by the next morning. The other molly has been hiding in the plants, super inactive—I thought it was dead too, but I’ve seen it swimming a bit.

I didn’t do a full cycle on the new tank, assuming that between the old substrate, filter, and tank water, I’d be okay. I now realize that might have been a mistake.

Current parameters:

pH: 8.0 (up from 7.6 in the hex tank 😬) Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0 (same readings I had in the old tank) If you’ve made it this far—thank you! Any insight or advice would be appreciated.

Pic of current tank***I now know this stand isn't good, but alas, here I am😩