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Ammonia and nitrite should remain zero. Have you been adding ammonia? Fish food, and the fish itself, will not produce as much, so you shouldn’t see any.

US gallons? Oh dear.

Ok, sounds good then. :)

…now I can’t see the fish. (that’s not me, btw).

Can’t read those against a non-white background in dim lighting. Ammonia looks greenish?

I’d definitely say underfed if they’re staying there waiting for more food, and if they’re only fed once a day.

All the old domestic Swordtail strains are hybrids. I had a Red, a Green, a Sunset and a Red Wag, all 5.5-6”, and all hybrids. In my experience they can grow far bigger than the wild types.

I’ve had 6” female Swordtails, and males about 4.5” excluding the sword. They have the potential to get this big (depending on their genetics and care, etc), but most only get to about 4” (excluding sword). I wouldn’t keep Swordtails or Mollies in 20g. I would keep Platies, which I think I...

Cichlids are individuals and so the best predictions of behaviour are only probabilities. Some of them don’t read the books. In most cases, a self-matched pair in a large tank will largely keep to their own business and leave non-cichlids alone. A lone cichlid often behaves very differently, ime.

Yes you can put the plants back in. Make sure you kick the carp out of the reagent #2 bottle. They don’t tell you that in the instructions. One of the ingredients precipitates out as a white solid on the insides of the bottle and needs to be dislodged so that the shaking can dissolve it again...

Hmm, the nitrate can’t drop unless it’s removed. Which test kit are you using? The strips can be very inaccurate, and the liquid kits need reagent #2 to be banged on a hard surface before shaking, or false readings will come. From the rest of the results, if they’re reasonably accurate, I’d say...

Between 4/12 and 6/12 the nitrates dropped from 40-80, to 5. Was that a water change?

Put a pair of Bolivian Rams in 280 litres that’s to their liking and they’ll think you’ve set them free. Add lots of decor like plants, wood, caves, branches, leaves, including plenty of places they can go where you can’t see them, and they’ll be as happy as pigs in… their natural habitat. For...

I meant from the side and level with the fish?

Not sure about roses but strawberries yes, and Java Ferns. The parent nourishes the baby until it can nourish itself. :)

The parent leaf dies, but it can take a while. You can glue it, or tie it, or weigh it down with something… but if you want the little one to grow quickly, remove it with part of the leaf and hold it down so those brown roots are on the substrate. It’s only the green roots that shouldn’t be...

I’d say probably female. Can you get a picture from the side rather than above the fish?

It seems to have gone over your head, but… How about do what EVERYBODY else does… leave the fish in one tank and never catch them unless it’s absolutely necessary. This will end their stress and you won’t get these health problems with them.

Attach the leaf so that the ‘baby’ is touching something, and in a few weeks it will have stuck some roots to that thing. Then you can remove the piece of leaf it was attached to, if you want to.

I’m with Gary and your family. Don’t do it. It’ll probably end up more expensive, with deaths, illnesses, the wrong fish, etc. I’ve only ever bought fish online once. That was because I couldn’t get the fish from a store (Etroplus canarensis). The seller dealt in the more hard to find cichlid...

You move the fish to another tank to feed them? This is keeping the fish extremely stressed. Even just catching a fish in a net causes a lot of stress. Lifting them out of water causes a lot more. Stressed fish are never far away from health issues, and with continued stress it’s inevitable...

Can we have water parameters please?

If you end up changing the same amount of water, no. It sounds like you need to change more water.

Don’t know if it’s still true, but the most popular ‘pet’ in Brazil used to be the Goldfish.

👍🏼

This would mean you’re causing this by not looking after the water properly. I would keep on top of maintenance to prevent this, rather than letting them get it and then treating. Any bacterial treatment should work. Medicated food is much harder to dose.

I’d go for a herbivorous one, if any…

Another aquariumscience article that gives zero consideration to stress. “It’s ok because not many died”. I take that whole site with a pinch of salt. Many bad articles based on bad practices that “seem to work…ish”, and not many based on actual knowledge.

Bear in mind a carnivorous plec will eat the elephants’ food, and probably be defensive of its feeding territory.

The commonest carnivorous plecs are Hypancistrus and Leporacanthicus.

You seem to have labelled the pictures wrong. The spotted one is a Uaru and the other two are Severums. They all look too young to be sexed yet. Btw, Uaru need to be kept in a decent sized group, and can grow more than a foot long. I hope your tank is big enough.

All the Pelvicachromis species are easily sexed by the shape of the pelvic fins from about 1” long. Females’ are short and rounded, males’ are long and pointed. It’s why the genus PELVICachromis was created for them. :)

Both female. You can easily tell from the shape of the pelvic fins.

There’s nothing actually wrong with using fish food as an ammonia source. It just takes longer. It promotes heterotrophic bacteria and (harmless) fungi that break down solids, but once you’re cycled and the ammonia is coming mostly from the fish, the numbers of heterotrophic bacteria will fall back.

Nitrate will show as soon as you have the relevant bacteria. You added both lots of bacteria when you added gunk from a mature filter. You don’t need to add many, as they’ll double their numbers every day.

It is very cruel, and illegal. I’d only take advice from people who actually care about fish.

In the UK Waterlife Biomature is a good alternative. It’s “a source of ammonia and other bacterial nutrients”.

It’s a bacterial bloom, because you’re using flakes as the ammonia source. Fish food is broken down into ammonia by Heterotrophic bacteria, which is why the cycle takes longer. But it takes a lot… a million of them to do the work of 1 (one) single Nitrosomonas bacterium. So that’s what the bloom...

Again not the slightest bit concerned about the needs of the fish. You’ll do what you want to do regardless of advice which just makes me wonder why you asked at all.