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Did you test your water parameters? Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite? Sounds like you added too much bio-load to the tank too fast. You're never supposed to more than double the load at any given time (and one krib would equal the waste output of about two cherry barbs), but you essentially went from...

The ram might be the only issue. The harlequins, juliis and the otos should be JUST fine. The ram might not be big enough to eat the galaxies, but he might be big enough to pick on them and stress them out. They are TINY.

Yep, I agree with this. Congos, hands down. I LOVE them, especially when they mature and get the gorgeous feathering on the tails!

I'm not sure if the parents are eating them, or they're just dying off. The filter is covered in a sponge prefilter, but the dithers are a good idea. Thanks.

I've got a young pair of Apistogramma panduro who I'm having trouble with. They spawn regularly--about once a week to two weeks--the eggs are fertile, they're tended properly, they hatch out, I see wrigglers, mom picks up the wrigglers to move them, and I never see them again. This has...

I agree with this--the species is still so rare, in the wild and in captivity, and so costly, I myself wouldn't buy any at all unless I was willing to get several and commit to attempting to breed them. I'd rather the small supply end up in the hands of hobbyist breeders who will, in the...

Please don't get just 2. Cories are MUCH happier in shoals, at least 4 or 5. To the OP: Cories can eat eggs, though, as can most if not all plecos. Otos won't scavange much as they rely nearly entirely on plant-based matter and have sucking disk mouths, and spend very little time on the...

Just my 2c as a LFS employee--one who started fishkeeping at 8 and remembers WELL how frustrating it can be to be young and not taken seriously. Generally, you'll get taken more seriously if you politely, quietly, and privately bring a mistake to their attention when they're free. I personally...

They probably are going by "white skirt tetras" there--they're not uncommon, and even petsmart/petco usually have them, although I don't recommend buying fish there. (And a good LFS, once you find one, should be able to order them for you with no problem.) Adding a few more--at least 3, I'd...

Depending where in the world you are, they're also called "white skirt" tetras--mostly in the U.S. Strangely, these fish are really common in the states, but seem to be a lot less of a hobby mainstay in many parts of Europe. (If you can give us an idea of waht part of the world you're in...

95% platies commonly found in the trade are all of the same species--any of the ones with names like "wag" or "coral red" or "coral blue" or "midnight", etc, are just color varieties of Xiphophorus maculatus, not seperate species. It's like a longhaired calico cat and a shorthair Siamese...

Actually, there are no snails that will be suitable for your tank--you have loaches. Loaches naturally eat snails, of all kinds, from itty bitty pest pond-type snails, to huge apple snails. If the loach is small and the snail is big, the loach will just pick at the snail and eventually injure...

You did get quite lucky with two fish turning out to be a pair, spawning, eggs hatching, and successfully raising the fry so quickly and easily. That's not entirely common, in part because they can be so hard to sex and they're often sold as immature juvies. However, technically, this isn't a...

Short answer is, "it isn't". Goldfish are egglayers, not livebearers, and cannot reproduce with a single individual. Swordtails are livebearers--the color of the tail has nothing to do with the sex. The shape does. The female--with a normal tail--is on top. The male, with the long extension...

The problem is, that manmade golfcourse pond that right now has no connection to other waterways probably won't stay that way. You live in Texas. Many parts of Texas flood BADLY. (I was born and raised there and lived through more than my share of hurricanes and floods.) When you have a...

Your namesake would actually go quite well--black (or any other color) mollies. Mollies can be acclimated to brackish or even pure salt water quite easily, and they're small and generally peaceful. I wouldn't do sailfin mollies due to size, but standard types might be a good match. But if...

Are you thinking of the "Common pleco"? These guys WILL get HUGE (over a foot, easy), so a 10 gallon won't last you too, too long.

What is your Ph and temp? The store I'm at has a few in, in fairly soft water around 6.5, and the fish are thriving, but not spawning. (We have either 3m, 2f from the looks of it.) We'd love to get them breeding. Any tips?

I work at a high quality, small, locally run LFS, and unfortunately fish often come in from the transshippers/wholesalers in less than ideal states, and dropsy does pop up once in a while. We treat for any illness or injury that occours (and have nursed some really sick animals back from the...

Depends exactly where you are, but I may be able to take them, or find somewhere for you to take them. (I'm down in San Jose, so I'm not immediatley by you.) You might consider contacting the San Francisco Aquarium Society -- http://www.sfaquarium.org/ -- and see if you could donate the fish...

The store I work for will take guppies as donations (to sell, not feed), and buy (cash or credit, seller's choice) any common livebearers EXCEPT guppies "at cost"--i.e. the same price we'd pay for the fish at a wholesaler, which generally averages about .50-.70 for platies, swords, and common...

While they might end up in a LFS from time to time, mislabled and unrecognised by an ignorant staff, due to the way they have things set up with their wholesalers and disributers, I don't think there's ANY way, EVER, that true zebras would have any chance of making it into a Petsmart or Petco...

My "fishy" present was a nice, detatchable, corded external flash for my digital camera, something I've really been wanting to help improve my aquarium and fish photography. Restricted or inappropriate light sources have been my biggest problem in taking aquatic photos so far, so I'm excited to...

This technically isn't hybridization, just a study in coloration inheritance. All the mollies you have are most likely the same *species* (Poecilia latipinna), just different color morphs. Just like with cats, a longhaired tabby cat, a shorthaired calico, and even a hairless cat are all just...

The first thing to do is look at it, and find out what "kind" of sand it is. The most common sands are calcium-type (limestone or coral, usually for saltwater tanks or cichlid tanks), quartz or silica type (this is also the most common sandbox/pool filter sand). A calcium-type sand is totally...

What size is the tank? Gold barbs will eventually grow a LOT larger than the average cherry barb, so the tank size is relavent.

Store I work at isn't anywhere near you (we're in the U.S.) but we've got Galaxies in so I can add a couple thoughts from personal experience. (We've had the current shoal of 6 in for about a month.) They are weird about their water--if they survive the acclimation and the following 24 hours...

Hah... I pity you. That only gets worse with time >_< Been at my LFS about 7 months and STILL at least twice a day on weekdays and at least once an hour on weekends it's "OMG NEMO NEMO NEEEEEEMOOOOOOO!" without ceasing.

Like this !

A lot of the rarer livebearers go by part of their scientific name as their common name, or have really strange common names that don't tell anyone anything useful. Heterandria is a much more accurate name than this fish's common name--"least killifish"--because it IS a livebearer, and not a...

They laid eggs again today, so let's try this again and hope for better survival! :good:

Based on behaviour, I'm guessing this batch didn't make it--not too suprising for a first spawn. The female has stopped her hiding/defending behaviour, and she and the male are both cleaning the pot they spawned in the first time, and displaying/shimmying at one another, so if I'm reading...

Can or will you name the forum in question? I've been getting much more interested in exotic plecos lately, and while I'm nowhere near ready (skill/knowledgewise, or financially) for zebras, I'd very much appreciate a pointer at a good resource for them. There's just SO much bad information...

The eggs at least hatched... I saw them hatch as wrigglers, I saw her move them all to one hiding place... then she moved them again. I can't find them. Either they died off, or she's hidden them REALwell. I'll find out ina couple days.

That's AWFUL. I LOVE it! *squeal* cuteittybittymole!

This, I can (unfortunately) agree wholeheartedly on. Although I"ve never seen an oscar given banana (and don't know if it would be good or bad seeing as they're mostly carnivores) the giant gourami that's the mascot of the fish store where I work gets banana as a very, VERY occasional treat...

I'll be darned. I guess the clarkii is what I had in mind as the "common" cray. The good news for you, is that a blue morph of the clarkii exists, is pretty easy to breed, and seems to breed true, so you could still get a blue cray, just not nessecarily the species you had in mind.

Huh, really? Any, or just certain species? Most stores I know around here offer several species. Even the store I work at has the common reds, and the blues, and the owner is usually REALLY good about staying on the legal/ethical side of things. (We don't sell dyed fish, illegal reptiles...

I got a pair of Apistogramma panduro (blue panda apistos) last week. They're alone in a 10-gallon tank except for some danios as dithers, and they've been increasingly coloring up and acting like a "pair", but I didn't think they'd spawned yet. However, today I was using a turkey baster to...

No, they're not. Basically, they're illegal in any state that has "warm" winters--those that don't get a hard freeze strong enough to drop waterways (rivers and lakes, etc) to near freezing on a reliable yearly basis. Pretty much any state that's considered "southern", "southwest" or even...