I am at a crossroads with this tank.
If I'm going to keep it going, it's going to require almost a complete restocking (see below) and a serious substrate cleaning which might not be successful (also see below). Do I basically reset this setup and start over, or do I take advantage of a very unfortunate situation to tear down the rice paddy and start something new?
Here's the situation. As you might have read on another thread, I've been gradually losing my blackwater fish in this tank for unknown reasons, to the point that it is almost completely depopulated. A recent test confirmed that the water in my tank had become very hard, probably as a result of many, many snail shells in the substrate (which in turn was a result of an extreme assassin snail massacre). Now that I know the cause, I feel very bad for all the fishies that have died. But it's too late to fix that now.
I'm going to rehome most of the remaining fish (I've decided the emerald eyes are too active for a tank this size, and the single remaining sparkling gourami can't coexist with the bettas I plan to add soon). That would leave three dwarf rasboras and a bunch of snails and amano shrimp.
So, to keep this setup going, I would have to rehome the gourami and emerald eyes, attempt to clean hundreds of tiny snail shells out of the substrate without killing the plants, then completely restock the tank. I love this setup; it's been a lot of fun and it would be worth the effort and expense to keep it going.
But as long as I'm starting over anyway, I might just tear down this tank, set my 30 gallon back up, and get going on this Yunnan hillstream biotope I've been dreaming about. Which to choose, which to choose?
... I mean, cents
