r/fishforthought

After over 5 months of my aquarium i trimmed the higrophilias a bunch of times and sadly the red plant in the back i forgot its Name isnt growing anymore

I’ve had this fish since February 8th, I’ve been feeding him this for that period of time. I’m new to fish keeping and this is my first shot at a betta fish tank with a decent budget. I got $170 extra for the tank what should I get?
Also how on earth am I struggling to keep duckweed alive💔💔💔

Hello,

I have these two tank I have recently set up, a 20 long and a 5 1/2. The 5 1/2 is not yet cycled as you can see by the cloduiness, but the 20 has been running for months, but I added most of the plants recently which is why they're not as tall(i can't wait for them to finish taking over jeje).

Now the thing is I have no idea what to stock them with. I was thinking of a community tank for the 20, but I really wanted pea puffers but after doing further research on them, they seem more trouble than they're worth imo. I know I want to add some shrimp to that tank for sure, but now I can't decide what fish to get, I don't want to be too basic and get guppies. I considered some types of Corys but I don't know how they'd perform in a heavily planted tank?

Now when it comes to the small one, I was initially going to make it a shrimp and snail only tank. I probably won't add anything to it for another month or two because I want to give the plants time to grow on their own and for the tank to be as stable as possible before slowly adding anything. But what is able to thrive in a tank that size? If there's nothing thag hopefully isn't a betta, I'll just conform with shrimp and snails lol.

Found this weird worm in my tank that’s just finished cycling, what is it and is it bad? Also found a little snail and my floaters are turning brown, is it connected?

Look i didnt mind Marvin my mini ramshorn but who's baby is this? Like its so tiny I cant identify it as bladder or mystery snail what snail is this hitchhiker of mine?

Hey everyone,
Just wanted to share a little update and success story with you all. About three months ago, I was at a local store and saw this gorgeous betta stuck in one of those tiny, unheated, unfiltered display bowls. This little one looked incredibly clamped, pale, and stressed out, and I just couldn't leave without taking them home.
I brought the betta back and carefully acclimated them to one of my established planted freshwater tanks. It was honestly amazing to watch the transition from sitting totally motionless in a bare glass bowl to tentatively exploring a dense jungle of real aquatic plants.
Fast forward to today, and they are an entirely different fish! Those true colors have completely popped, the fins are beautifully spread without any clamping, and there's so much personality now. You can always find this fish weaving through the stems, resting on leaves, and actively patrolling the territory.
It’s incredibly rewarding to see a rescue thriving in a proper, natural ecosystem rather than just surviving in a tiny container
Has anyone else brought home a sad-looking bowl betta recently? I would love to see your glow-up pictures in the comments!

I have a new group of stiphodon ornatus that have been flashing periodically and I am not sure why. Some of them have injured fins from when I purchased them, but not all, and some who do not have injuries have also flashed. It's roughly 1/8 of them every 5-10min will flash a few times then go back to what they were doing. I know these are all wild caught so it may be some sort of external or maybe internal parasite issue, but in my experience my typical treatment for that of Paracleanse/General Cure is extremely hard on these stiphodon gobies. It's been about two weeks of either no change in behavior or a slight increase in frequency of flashing. All of their tankmates were purchased at the same time hence they haven't been quarantined separately. I have 3 males and 5 females.

Otherwise they act healthy enough, males have established territories and dug burrows, and all have been eating algae/biofilm as well as taking to hikari algae wafers, and aquarium co-op magic small fish feed. They don't like my NLS Algaemax wafers yet.

40 breeder 72-74 degrees F; 0,0,5 Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates with no spike when fish were first added. Tank is heavily oxygenated. PH ~8.2

Housed with 20 WCMM, and 3 Reticulated Hillstream Loaches.

Ignore dead plants I need to clean those up. I also have crypts growing in the back with the amazons. The pushed around soil is due to my Kuhlis and they’re digging habits. They tend to kick everything around. I also add tannins weekly as you can see in This photo it was added a hot minute ago and I need to add more. I also use a searchem filter HOB and recommend it because it filters quietly and quickly for a filter.

After about a month and a half of growing, the bowl is looking pretty good. It ended up being inhabited by a few snails that hitched a ride on some plants lol