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A 36 gallon? Honestly, you have too many already. 2 inch angels are a point in time, heading for 5 inches plus. I would say in a 75, you could have 6, but you would still have trouble if they pair off. 2 inch Cichlids are a very temporary thing.

Yup. Just four. My odds are so so. Buying eggs is really a gamble. They travel so far, and the mail can be such a harsh process. It really takes patience to see how it pays off, or not.

They are now, in a burst. They are about one cm now. No hints of colour yet.

It seems we have every type of aquarist here, new, old, high tech, old school, middle school - the only thing we try to avoid is mean or nasty ones. That's good for newcomers. It can be intimidating to take in what we say, but remember you'll find your own path, and we'll never know if you...

montezumae are a natural species - one of the most fascinating of the swordtail group. I used to sell huge numbers of them for $5 each... I saturated the market in Montreal and no one would bid on them in auctions... In my opinion, no one has linebred a version of X helleri, or a helleri hybrid...

It may depend on who they kill. Cichlids, even mild mannered ones, can be ferocious in defending their fry in an overly crowded tank. Hopefully, the eggs get taken out by the other fish quickly, so you can look at the issue of moving the breeding pair to their own tank. Once they start, they...

It is a myth that test strips aren't accurate. They degrade over time, but I have done tests with both side by side and gotten the same results consistently. Strips are expensive and you can't keep them anywhere damp, but they are accurate if used properly, and stored properly. Those are fair...

I think there is a degree of serious profit taking with tanks, as the increase in Canada since before the pandemic just doesn't add up. We had very cheap aquariums, for those who shopped around. Our dollar is weak compared to the USD, but pre-pandemic, I paid $25 CAD for a 20 gallon. Now, the...

One of the pet stores I visited recently had some in stock. None of the other fish seemed to want to give them the eye.

Part of what I'm going to do today is just admire the early autumn. It's beautiful out there. The lighting is changing, the nights are cooler and the plant growth is at its maximum. It starts early here, but I hope we have a long slow descent into winter. I hope it hangs in for at least 2...

There is a key difference in natural extensions versus out of control fin growth. It's one thing is a fish has one or more fin rays that extend far beyond the others, as mate attracting finery. You get that on many tetras, but they can swim fast and easily. On domestic strains, the fin growth is...

We go in the same circles, chasing our tails. We have to decide. Do we want ornamental fish, or do we want natural? If we have both, then how do we run the tank? If it's run for natural fish, ornament fish will suffer and not be able to keep up. You can't release the pugs and French bulldogs...

Tank costs vary wildly depending on where you are. Canada has 1/9 the population of the US spread over a vast area, and small markets pay more. Rural areas are more expensive than cities for fish stuff. Here, you can get deals by getting things shipped, but that rarely applies to bulky things...

By the time you learn you may have done things wrong, you are probably doing things right. The main effect of keeping softwater species in hardwater is slightly less colour, and a shorter life. Most people think species that can live 7-10 years are ancient at 3, so they don't notice the age...

I think it has an enormous impact on fish that are swimmers. Bottom oriented and sucker type fish, maybe not. But I know of no studies to back me up. In many cases, the fish have to deal with considerable drag that makes swimming an effort. An effortless swimmer like a zebra danio visibly...

With a sturdy stand, you could have a tap and hose, if you have tanks in the basement. That was my plan before I realized how soft my tap was without RO.

Uh oh. Stress eating.... Beautiful shots of beautiful fish.

I would not do that. Experience gives me a hierarchy of Rift Lake Cichlids, and every Victorian I've tried has been at the very top of the aggression scale. That is clearly a tough lake to stay alive in, and with any motivation, they'll clean the clocks of any Malawi. I will never again combine...

These are beautiful shots of a beautiful set up. I think we let what we are really slip by the words we choose. I think you chose your words well, as you weren't lying to yourself there. You were probably thinking it might be bad and something to get away with. I'd still do weekly water...

Truer words have never been spoken. We work with partially good tools, and do our best. For new aquarists, it seems like we overcomplicate things. To chemists, we're fumbling in the dark. Ideally, we should have water company results, KH, GH and pH tests, and test results from the aquifer or...

I'm back from the real city with 25 fish. 15 Enteromius fasciolatus (Angola barbs) and 10 Poropanchax normani lampeyes, a species I've kept and bred many times, and just plain like. These ones looked very good. I also got plants and algae wafers for the herbivores. I spent four hours driving...

The title of the thread is your answer. You didn't ask if this would work, or if this could be a good set up for the fish. You asked if you could get away with it. To me, that means you know you can't, but you're hoping there's an angle that you haven't thought of. There isn't. You don't want...

We love test kits, and pH was one of the first available. It's so easy to test. For fishkeeping, GH and KH matter more. I go with TDS, because it's easier to measure and works for my purpose. I know my water from the tap, and can look up monthly reports from the city for variation. It's...

In the aquarium, I see them as decorations - not adding anything unless you like them. As for thinking plants, I recently saw an interview with Robert Plant, and he was pretty articulate. All along the roadsides in Gabon we had to cross big patches of sensitive mimosas, the little plant that...

Colin's advice still stands. The question is if you have 3 males or not. The one being picked on will be eventually killed, so it needs to go. Then you have to see if the aggression turns onto the 3rd fish. If so, it has to go too. Or, the new aggressor goes, and you see what the two remaining...

Dwarf water lettuce grows poorly without bright natural light. Here, it dies under a window in full light, in winter. The light isn't enough. Elodea is fine with Bettas.

Today, I visit my daughters, which means I get to visit a quality aquarium store on my way into their city. My local stores aren't very good - okay, they are pretty bad - and I'm old school. I'll only order online if it's hard to get and the seller is very reputable. I want to see the fish I...

There are, but you may do well with them. Floating plants are trial and error, and what works in one region's water won't in another's. I grew buckets of guppy grass in my last house, but in this one, no luck. Riccia ruled 3 houses back and died off after I moved. You have to look up plants to...

I would never keep a betta without floating plants. I see them as essential for the healthy lifestyle of a betta.

There is a virus that causes spinning in cold water fish in North America - maybe not something Colin would see in Australia. I haven't heard of it affecting tropicals though. Snails aren't like cockroaches. They're like earwigs.

Good luck!

If you aren't overstocked, a few days at this time of year.

It's entertaining to look at 'sure thing end of the world predictions' in the period we've been recording things. There are thousands on record, across all cultures, countries and belief systems. We seem to like the idea of this wonderful world being wrecked. It's a universal human dream, it...

Microworms are really small, and are something I might use for a freshly hatched fry too small for artemia nauplii. I wouldn't feed them to any adult fish here. They often get ignored. They're a lot of work for minimal returns.

Another serious issue is age. A farm wants to move fish out and make space for new 'production' as quickly as they can. With fish like gouramis, the cheaper, less ethical farms will dose them with hormones to rush their colours, and move them out. These are rarely sexually mature fish, and...

Somewhere, combining gourami species worked for one person, or didn't but they took a guess and stuck it on the internet. "The truth" would be more the consensus from people who have kept them. Experience says it is highly unlikely to work. There are always people who get lucky with individual...

The deer and the antelope play there. The kids, not so much. Here the kids would be in at the end of this week.

Without sidetracking or getting too political, the 1920s and 30s got pretty nasty, and the 1860s got a bit divided in the US. I don't think we're any weirder than we were in the 1500s, 1400s, 1300s, the falling years of the Roman Empire, the Crusades, even the Malawi Cichlid craze of the 1990s...

I made an air driven variant on those inefficient old siphon filters. I took an airdriven box filter (which I use a lot of) and extended the pipe so the bubble and water ejected fell into an above the surface trough structure, flowed through media and fell back into the tank via drilled holes...

Once you know your water, choosing fish becomes easier. Then it becomes a narrower list, and you have a good chance of success with the fish you like the most from that list. Choice is crucial, and after that it's doing tank maintenance with weekly water changes, not overfeeding and setting up...