Recent content by ScholasticSpastic

I get really sketchy about skirt tetras and most of the other full-bodied tetras around finny fish. Many of those tetras supplement their diets with finnage in the wild and may continue to do so in your tank. My personal opinion is that you're asking for trouble with that combo- regardless of...

This simply isn't true. All you need for a happy betta are: 1) Areas of low flow in the tank. Your entire tank does NOT have to be low flow to accommodate a betta. I'm keeping a betta in a 180 US gallon planted tank with tetras, rasboras, and corys and he's quite happy in there. This is a...

The betta should be fine with these tankmates... unless one or more of your zebra loaches decides to develop a destructively quirky personality. No way to predict that outcome and I'd give it a low (non-zero) probability.

I'm going to have to disagree with your statement about male bettas and large tanks. I'm keeping a double tail male betta in a 180 US gallon tank with pretty good flow right now and there are no areas of the tank in which he appears to have any trouble. It took him a couple of days to build up...

Increase your number of cherry barbs. They're a shoaling fish and will do best in groups of six or more. I'd also highly recommend getting a few more corys. You will not understand how much better these fish are in school until you've experienced it for yourself. Ottos will clean surfaces...

Tiger barbs are a boisterous, shoaling fish. They can be part of a community of sturdy fish in a large enough tank, if kept in groups of six or more. Say, a tank larger than fifty gallons. In anything smaller (numbers or volume), they will harass all the other fish (including other barbs)...

Tinfoil barbs are going to eat a lot of whatever you give them.... and then they'll outgrow your 100 gallon tank.

I would recommend not using that stand as it is. Most of the bottom of the tank is unsupported and this will put a lot of stress on your tank. Consider increasing the width of the stand.

Going to have to disagree with you. There are so many cichlid species out there that you can find one for just about any tank size- even down to 10 gallons. But I'd also be interested in finding out whether there was some preference regarding the sort of cichlids we're talking about for this tank.

The guy at the fish shop is smoking the wrong sort of herbs. White fin tetras are too large for a ten gallon tank and should be kept in a 20 gallon at minimum. Their size in the store may be small enough to cram them into a ten gallon tank, but fish grow up, and those tetras are an active...

Water changes are imperative. You can worry about the mulm (stuff in your gravel) when you've gotten your nitrates down to a reasonable level. At that point, if you're using your gravel vac right and your filter is up to snuff, it really shouldn't kick up a lot of detritus and what it does...

Reading this makes me shudder. Are you trolling? What I should have said is: Do some water changes to bring down your nitrates. 25% per day every day until nitrates are below 20ppm. Doing a large enough water change to get you there in one go will kill your fish. Leaving them in their...

I would point out that aesthetics are also a function. ;) Beyond that, it depends on the species of shrimp. Amano shrimp (Caridina japonica) are very good algae eaters. Most of the other Caridina or Neocaridina are primarily scavengers or detritivores as snazy said. Adding shrimp to a...

I'll stand behind that. :D But I don't think one would need to invest in a 60 gallon tank for a pair of angel fish. It would be ideal, but probably isn't necessary.

You'll get a nice blue sheen off a school of dwarf neon rainbowfish if your water quality is good. Alternatively, you could shell out for an electric blue ram. Aggression in a small enough package will be diluted in a 350 liter tank to the point that you can safely ignore it. Rams don't get...