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If you have no filter, you have the answer to why you are losing fry. Fry are fish and have the same needs as any other fish, which includes temperature control and water quality control.

120 watts of fluorescent light over that tank would be marginal at best and would be unlikely to be enough for many plants.

If you do not allow the waste side of your RO to waste water, you will quickly stop producing good RO water. Using that waste water is another matter. If you have tanks where high mineral content is well tolerated, you could collect your waste water and use it in those tanks. You might even have...

Any wood subjected to water will warp and twist out of shape. If you get very lucky, it may dry out and straighten back out but I have yet to see that happen perfectly. To me that means that once you get the new stand dry, you will probably have to plane the top to make it flat again before you...

Polystyrene cannot be used to level a tank at all. It can be used to cushion a tank that is designed to be supported directly by the bottom glass to prevent localized stress points on that glass. If you actually need to level a tank, use solid shims under the stand, not the tank. If you have a...

The purigen will remove chemicals even quicker than carbon and will also exhaust faster, so that substitution is no answer to chemical "leaching" concerns. Actually leaching is a straw man, not a real problem. What happens is that as materials are absorbed or, in the case of carbon, adsorbed...

Actually the chances of designing an ideal shape with aluminum, aluminium in the UK, foil is poor. Since you cannot expect to reach that ideal shape, simple white paint inside your light fixture is almost as good and is less likely to cause problems.

Lighting troubleshooting is rather straight forward. First off inspect the fluorescent tubes. If there are dark areas near the ends, the tube needs to be replaced. Simple huh? If it is not the tubes, the only things remaining are the ballast and the wiring. If the wiring is solid, it is time to...

In general a canister filter requires being placed x amount below the tank water level. In most cases that ends up being under the tank but in the case of a very tall tank it might be on the same shelf. Each manufacturer specifies how far the filter must be placed below the water level so that...

How about a nice wooden DIY hood with a 4 foot long shop light fixture inside? Another DIY option is a section of white plastic guttering as a reflector and again a 4 foot long lighting fixture. You can even buy gutter end caps to finish off the ends of your new "hood". My wooden DIY with the...

You should look for a well matched pair from a specialty breeder. You decide what colors and tail types you like. If you are going to try breeding, please do not become another person who breeds substandard bettas because they didn't start with superb stock. A good pair will run a pretty penny...

It is time for a huge water change. By replacing the filter you have uncycled your tank. I am a bit surprised you are not seeing stress symptoms in all of your fish.

Why not post a progress thread as you go in the Hardware and DIY section.

Losing half of the fry from a drop is excessive. This is a tank at day 1 after a drop. This is the same tank and fry 35 days later. As you can tell, the fry are mostly still all there. I never did count that drop. I would start looking for something else wrong with the fry tank. Have you...

Welcome to the forum guppymaniac. It is always easier to start with the fish that you want and then add on new features. Pineapple swords have already been developed but you could add features like a lyretail or such by crossing to similar colored fish with the other feature that you want, then...

Maybe nmonks will come by. He is our halfbeaks expert.

The first series has a female that is a week or two from a drop. The set with one sitting on some decor is getting fairly close to a drop.

When doing a fish-in cycle, as it seems that you are, you must do enough large enough water changes to always keep nitrites and ammonia at less than 0.25 ppm. It is always easier to do large water changes than to simply limit yourself to tiny 80% or 90% water changes. I drain my tank until my...

When all fish are at the surface, check your nitrite levels. Nitrites will show up in your tank as an asphyxiant. Nitrites will seem like carbon monoxide might to mammals. It will prevent proper absorption of oxygen by the blood in your fish but will otherwise be hard to detect.

Deranged: there is a reason we do not allow that site to post or be linked here. We have found, by review of knowledgeable people, that the site is much too simple in its application of its limited stocking knowledge. Instead we block the site and ask that people looking for stocking advice ask...

At a reading of 5 ppm of nitrite, your water change was way too wimpy. Try doing another 90% water change before you add any fish at all. That will at least get you into the safe range for nitrites at the beginning.

If you have off scale readings for both nitrite and nitrate, you may well come to the conclusion that you have a particular nitrite reading. Please mentally walk though your nitrite test with me. You grab a water sample and add your chemicals. At that point you think that you see the maximum...

The advice given by tmiller is correct. It is best to never introduce any fish until you have completed a fish-in cycle. It is not that you cannot control a cycle with fish like zebra danios in it but that it is an incredible amount of work to do all of the water changes that such an approach...

Guppies at 26 to 28C are being stressed. They will do best at around 23C, 73F. Your 8.0 pH is a bit higher than usual for these fish but is well within their tolerance. There is really no reason to restrict the filter flow, guppies work out fine when given a bit of current to use as a need for...

Be careful buying fish off of Aquabid. I have bought some there myself but anything less than a pristine reputation should be considered a warning sign on that site. Another thing to be aware of is that many sellers are not located inside the US and do not do anything to help you get fish...

They breed completely out of control. One of the betta's basic jobs is to control endler populations but he is a total failure in that role. The endlers are self limiting really. Once their numbers reach grossly overcrowded conditions, far fewer fry survive to become adults.

Bettas are fish that will feed constantly but not much at any one time in the wild. The best thing you could do is to feed only until he is satisfied each time but do it several times each day so that not much time passes while he is hungry. That means tons of very small feedings each day. With...

If you have males in your tank, it is almost certain that a female is carrying fry. All we can really do is help you estimate the time for that next drop.

You cannot use straight RO water for most fish. They require more minerals in their water than RO water provides. I get about 10 ppm of TDS when I use my RO and about 5 ppm of TDS on rain water. It is possible to use an RO followed by a deionizer, RO/DI, and get water in the 1 ppm range of TDS...

If you collect rain water, first let the rain wash loose dirt from your roof, then collect the water during minutes 21 until the rain ends. That way anything that has settled on the roof does not end up in your tank. The 20 minutes rinse in a decently heavy rain seems to clear out any residue...

A digital pH tester requires frequent calibration against a "standard". For most hobbyists that would be a cumbersome and prohibitively expensive thing to do. It could give slightly more accurate results than our tests do but those results are not needed. The alternative of using a liquid test...

That 2500 uS/cm is a huge number for fish keeping. It would work well with things like pet shop mollies or Africans but not very well with much else. I am sure I have missed a few species that tolerate water that high in minerals but you may have trouble with most egg layers and even many...

"Does this mean there is now no need for a more detailed discussion of how and why the bacteria can and do survive adverse conditions for extended periods?" What it means is that I have other things to do with my time. As it is I spend several hours on this forum each day just doing routine MOD...

Not all that expert Cazgar, just more experienced than some other folks.

The problem will take care of itself in a couple of days. Meanwhile, feed it just like the others.

I cannot tell from your pictures. Do you have a shot from the side?

I never go by the color of the fish. Many fish, not all, have some color to their skin so you cannot see a gravid spot. This fish never showed a gravid spot but she dropped over 30 fry just a few hours after I took the picture. Swordtails often show more gravid spot than that molly does.

I have never kept CPDs so I don't know their habits or aggressiveness.

Gestation time is only about 4 weeks.

All posts from this subsection are being moved to the Livebearer main heading. If you don't find a recent post, look there. I have moved at least 10 pages so far. Move now completed. All posts can now be viewed in the "Livebearer" section. Please do not post any more here. If you are like me...