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I've had anubias in that tank before, and it did terribly. I ended up throwing it out. I have anubias in my 240L tank and it looks great, so no idea why it took offense at the 125L. I like the look of the val.... sort of a naturalesque rivery thing going on, if you ignore the aircraft carrier.

Plants are bloody complicated. Who woulda thought. I have no idea what type of val I have. It's whatever Maidenhead Aquatics sold. I'll pick up some root tabs and hope for the best. Hopefully it will grow, but if it melts on me, what else works with lots of current and soft water? Ph is 6.6...

What root tabs do you recommend? I've never used them before. Do you just bury them next to the plants?

Cool. Most of Scotland seems to have soft water, so hopefully that means my plants will be happy. :)

I threw a bunch of vallisneria into my L199 tank the other weekend because I'd read that it can cope with high flows, and I've got three powerheads going in there. The leafy plants aren't managing so well. Then while searching the internet for something else, I stumbled across someone on a...

If your water is hard enough (mine was not, so there was also that...) and you whack in a powerhead, the rubberlip is a good fish. It also needs cooler water than a lot of tropical fish -- 22C or thereabouts. But they're really pretty and industrious algae eaters.

I wouldn't. I had both in a 55g and they fell out with one another all the time. The rubberlip sadly died a few weeks ago -- potentially after a dodgy zucchini -- but it might have been stressed as well. I can say with certainty that the bristlenose seems a lot happier being the only pleco in...

Yeah, I can try. You might see some fuzzy fish-shaped grey things behind a glass.

It's too early to say how we'll do long term. I started my first tank around the end of July, 2018. The first fish I got (not all at once) were cherry barbs, black phantom tetras, and then rummies. When I upgraded the tank from 80L to 125L, I aquired a raphael catfish (she came as freebee with...

I still have seven black cory fry, and the wee fry in the L199 tank is still about. It's big enough to develop markings, and I think it's a habrosus.

Yeah, I expect these to live for years (and some of them like the raphaels, to live for 20). It's disheartening when they don't, and you can't figure out a cause.

Cheers. I wrote that because I'd lost a pencilfish unexpectedly. Then when I added a couple more to the shoal, one of the new arrivals looked off, and then was DOA the next morning. I don't know why the first one died, but the second one either didn't cope with transport or wasn't in great...

Yeah, when I first got mine (not at an LFS but from a breeder in Edinburgh... handing the fish over in the carpark of a shopping centre at 10pm and definitely looking like we were doing a drug deal) it took a few weeks for her to realise veggies and algae wafers were food. That seems to be...

:( So sorry to read that. My big female albino longfin is one of my favourite fish -- they have lots of personality and are easy to get attached to. I'm surprised he jumped. I've never thought of plecos as critters likely to throw themselves out of a tank.

They won't stay miniature, though. That's the trouble! Breeders can make a fortune breeding any arowana, hence it being a big business in Asia. Ones with highly desirable colouring can fetch upwards of $100,000. I think the most expensive one ever went for about $300,000. Russian oligarchs...

This is really a query for those who have kept fish for a long time. How much, if any, fish losses are normal for your tanks? Obviously there is a learning curve for newbie aquarists as you screw up and work out what's compatible for your tanks/water conditions and what isn't. But once you've...

Hopefully he's fine. They are reasonably tough, as far as plecos go.

I have 7 out of 11 or 12 black corys in the fry tank. I saw the one in the L199 tank today. It's hanging in there.

I've just put a small external (Aquael Multikani) in my apisto tank. I know people like sponge filters but gunk seemed to be building up in the aquarium with the sponge, and as it is pretty heavily planet, gravel hovering wasn't achieving much. I was just wondering what others do, especially...

As above. Just curious, really. Do you use sponges? HOBs? Small canister filters?

Your tank looks lovely, and your fish must be thrilled.

My 'fish room' is also called 'the living room.'

All the best, Byron. Take care of yourself!

I think that's an arapaima, a relative of the arowana that also lives in the Amazon and is even bigger.

Poor wee guy. I've had corys do the same thing in otherwise (ostensibly) healthy and well-maintained tanks. In my case, I had other cory species who were fine. They start swimming erratically, just like that, and then drop dead, or I would euth it. Never looked pale, though. I had issues with...

Thinking of you, Byron. Random people on the internet are sending you their best wishes.

Mine will definitely stay in the 10g tank until they're roughly the size of the pygmy corys. Then OH and I have a wee disagreement over the best thing to do. They won't be able to move in with their parents until they are big enough to be raphael-proof, so he wants to move them to the L199 tank...

That's good news. Barbs are probably hoping all the neighbours don't move back.

I feel that breeding is the next level up of fishkeeping, like you've achieved something if your tank conditions are good enough for your fish to breed. Plus, you get some interesting behaviours, especially in fish that take care of their young, like plecos and apistogrammas, and baby fish are...

Yeah, it's just a matter of finding the eggs before the raphaels do. Don't think we're replacing the rubberlip, as the big female bristlenose seems to prefer being the only pleco in the tank, and I'm not sure our water was hard enough for it.

I'm pants at photos, but the little speck in the foreground is the pygmaeus/habrosus fry that seems to be surviving in the L199 tank.

The raphael cats would certainly think they've gone to heaven if I started feeding that tank live or frozen food daily. That tank has been at 23C because I had a rubberlip plec, but since it sadly died, there is no reason why the aquarium can't be a few degrees warmer. I saw on Corydoras world...

In theory, yeah, but in reality, every bloody corner of this flat that can have a fishtank has a fishtank. There is no way you could squeeze another in, and stocking being what it is, no practical way to rearrange existing fish. Could try them on more live foods, though. Currently everyone gets...

Cherry barbs, in my experience, can also survive the apocalypse. I've tried to kill mine on multiple occasions by putting them in uncycled tanks, and the males are huge, red monster barbs. Good luck, anyway. Hopefully everyone will be fine and no doubt happy to be out of a plastic tote.

Mine are looking a lot like Adorabelle's. I think I have about eight. If they all survive, we'll keep three and sell five. C. schulzei cost about £7 a head when you buy them from any LFS, so I reckon I should get about a fiver each. I would really like my CW045s to breed, because those guys are...

I have the E series heaters in my 240L and 125L tanks. I like them because of the LED display and they're in a heater guard, so if things like plecos want to sit on them, it won't be a problem. You'll want a backup mercury thermometer, though, because the sensor on the Fluvals occasionally...

The photo in Barry Tetra's post looks like it might be an Asian arowana, Scleropages formosus: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep24501/figures/1. Would make sense, given he is in Thailand, and breeding them is big business in Asian countries. The anal fin (is that the right term?) on...

I went into a local Maidenhead Aquatics branch to buy some pleco caves and cherry shrimp (they did not have any shrimp), and there it was, a red arowana lazily cruising around the large display tank it shared with a big common pleco. I was quite taken with it. It had a kind of awareness and...