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If the fish is being particularly uncooperative I'll take pictures like that but with smaller fish (like my young OB peacocks) I simply press them gently between the glass and my hand then snap a few pics that way. Either way is stressful but it's not like I do it very often nor for a long...

As a general rule all mouth brooding Africans will cross with other mouth brooding Africans. I've had a male yellow lab spawn with a female peacock and produce the male in my profile picture. I've also had a male blue ahli hap breed with a female peacock. Female peacocks really don't care who...

They all look like mbuna (group of cichlids from lake Malawi = rock dwelling) and mbuna the most aggressive grouping for African cichlids. The kenyi (blue with stripes) will get around 5-6 inches, same with the orange fish that appear to be red zebras. The yellow fish with black stripes may be...

Considering that plecos (is your's a common?) come from areas with soft, acidic water and African cichlids come from hard, alkaline water they certainly do have opposite water requirements. I've seen it done, I've tried it and it worked for a short while with my adult male BN pleco. He would...

What brand of pellet are you using? I usually feed just twice a day, the exact amount varies for each betta/tank as most the tanks have other inhabitants that also eat them.

Egg spots are not a determining factor for sexing young bettas. I've got a spawn of ~20 juveniles growing out right now and I can see some males already. The males have an egg spot but I'm 90% sure they are indeed males.

They are too young to be 100% sexable at this point. I would guess that the last 2 pics are male, based on the head shape and not-so-plump belly area. I assure you, once 1 juvenile starts showing that it is male the rest of the males follow shortly after.

African cichlids are a no-go in communities. Either switch to all rift lake cichlids are keep it a peaceful community. What is the temp, pH, and hardness? With the fish you have now you might be able to add peaceful American cichlids such as angels or rams but they will likely eat the...

I'd like to see pictures of the juveniles. All will appear female until they suddenly don't. Egg spots are not a good way to determine a young betta's gender. It's a combination of egg spots, fins, body shape, yellow ovaries, and a beard that really shows who is what. For female, looks for the...

She just has a lot of eggs. Females will always be on the plump side, when their tubby bellies start looking unusually round, their colors pale, and appetite diminishes they can be either egg bound or have dropsy (with scales sticking out). If she's behaving as normal then don't worry too...

Angel eggs don't really belong in a tumbler as they are not mouth brooding cichlid. The parents simply fan the eggs and can for the fry as they absorb the yolk sacs. For artificial hatching I'd simply take the object the eggs were laid on and move it to a separate tank complete with a heater and...

Yellow labs are a species of mbuna that come from Lake Malawi in Africa. They are primarily vegetarian and do best on spirulina (algae) based foods. I prefer to use Cobalt Spirulina Pellets mixed with the same brand of large cichlid pellets. I'm not fan of Tetra brand foods because they are...

Can you post a few photos? Sounds to me it is either an internal tumor or fluid buildup that isn't necessarily dropsy.

IMO the stocking sounds fine, but you will need a very large tank for frontosa, venustus and ahlis. The frontosa will be the largest and I'd not keep them in anything smaller than a 100gal tank, even then bigger is always better. I understand the general idea about sticking to fish from just...

From my understanding I thought the eggs in the tumbler were found/abandoned. I am perfectly aware of what stripping mouth brooders is and means as I've done it a few times myself to ensure I get a batch going before Mom spits them in the main tank. Also @Built2Prfctn it is better to start...

Keep an eye on the tumbling eggs, I think I see a couple off-colored ones that may end up getting fungus. Always remove dud eggs to prevent infecting the others. Odd that the female would spit them out, mine will even hold infertile eggs until they're rotting before spitting them. Good thing...

So many babies :D I had a pair of betta splendens just spawn today and I'm raising up an older batch of bettas, 2 batches of OB peacocks and a batch of albino BN pleco fry. Plus I have another OB holding, and the female to the male in my profile picture has a mouth full too. I'm going to let...

Can you post a few photos to compare? Almost sounds like a low grade cherry, which is perfectly fine.

Might want to ease up on the feeding, he looks pretty bloated in the photos, a male's belly should never be that distended. I have 2 bettas with similar bumpy growths. I believe it is a type of virus, nothing can be done unfortunately. Perhaps look into lymphocystis in bettas. It starts as a...

It can but protein should make up a small portion of a mbuna cichlids diet as they are mainly vegetarian. I'd do a quick search about Malawi bloat to get a better understanding why mbuna should not be fed too much protein. At most once a week, a few fry each time. I usually feed fry culls to my...

Looks like a peacock gudgeon to me.

I personally think it is the environment. You say they don't like to hide but I'd say otherwise. Every stressed fish will want a place to hide and your catfish is definitely stressed. Adding dark gravel will make it feel more comfortable and adding a place to hide will hopefully de-stress it...

Are you talking about the grey/brown scales? She looks alright to me and I do believe her tail fin is healing. Because you do not know if the tank is cycled I suggest you be doing every other day 50% water changes and move the boy to another tank ASAP and do the same with him until both tanks...

Just from the title I just knew you were talking about a java fern. It's how they create more plants, old leaves will grow little plants from the nodes on the underside. If you see a lot of them doing it then it may be a sign of stress, the plants look ok to me though.

Little 3.4gal I set up about a year ago. Flourite black sand capped with a layer of fine black sand and then a layer of pool filter sand. Mini heater, tiny filter, goose neck lamp with an LED bulb, hunk of wood, rotala, duckweed, and crypts. There's a few cherry shrimp in there along with a...

As a fish keeper you need to come to terms that you cannot raise all the fry born in your tank. If I tried raising every egg laid I'd be overrun. If you want to raise the fry then move them to a fry tank. Be aware that you can only keep so many fry in a certain sized tank before it becomes too...

I must of missed that bit of drama? You've been my favorite on this site and more or less the main reason I check back in periodically.

Don't do a 100% water change, that will likely stress them even more. No more than 75% should be changed at a time. Cherry shrimp will fade in color when they are stressed, they will also look more pale when in a bright tank with pale substrate. How long have you had the shrimp? What is their...

Probably too late, but got any pictures? I've noticed that some of my young dark bodied males would get vertical stripes when they were showing aggression in the grow out tank. I'd assume it is stress or aggression related.

What is the pH and hardness of your water? Most livebearers really need hard water with a high pH. Also, what are some of the symptoms your fish show before they die?

The fluffy stem plant in the back right is filling in nicely. But if you let the Rotala grow much taller you won't be seeing anything else soon.

It is more often caused by feeding micro worms though, because they sink faster than foods like baby brine shrimp and the betta fry will be near the bottom looking for fallen worms. In theory the bottom of the tank will have a higher concentration of ammonia and whatnot that is being produced by...

Oh I know he will. I've already tried sneaking in a couple when the tank was overrun with rotala but I haven't seen them in a long while.

It's been a good 5 months since the last update and a lot has changed. Both the new additions from the last post died. That's what I get for not quarantining... Then the larger of the two Red empresses died, she showed major signs of stress but looked perfectly fine otherwise. I did a big water...

A few update pictures. Before and after I trimmed the plants. I switched out the piece of wood for something taller and of course there's more tannin too. Debating on adding some shrimp. I'm pretty sure the betta will eat them. I might try just a few brown shrimp first and see how they do.

Well over due update. I've traded in most of the first batch of fry ~2 weeks ago, they were right around 2in. There's still a few runts and a couple I couldn't catch without tearing the 36gal apart. Roughly 30-35 fry made it to a good size. Not bad, not great I suppose. Now I've got another...

I was feeding them micro worms starting a few days after they were free swimming. At one month old they should be eating larger food items like baby brine shrimp, but micro worms will be accepted as well. Keep in mind that micro worms do not have a lot of nutrition so the sooner you get them on...

A hard no to angel fish. I honestly prefer longer tanks to tall tanks, there are far more options with them due to available horizontal swimming space. I'd probably do a planted tank with pea puffers or honey gourami with a schooling species (if soft water), some live bearers like platties or...

Sorry but I must disagree with you Colin. I have first hand experience with micro worms causing missing pelvic fins. It was my fault really, I wasn't cleaning up after each feeding so the left over micro worms rotting at the bottom caused their pelvic fin buds to "burn" off. Not all the fry were...