"Iridescent Shark" in my first ten gallon.
'Nuff said.

Common names are even cooler, though.

Man Eating Catfish
Alabama Hog Sucker
Needle Fin Eater & Malawi Eye Biter-- "The guy at the pet store said it was a good community fish."

Plants are well worth your while. Java fern, java moss, hornwort, crypts, maybe anubias nana should do ok. Or throw some more light on there; even the "low light" plants will appreciate it.

Do they come out at feeding time??

My two bigger ones usually stay hidden for the lights-on feeding. The smallest one sometimes comes out. They all go nuts for the night feeding, though.

. What do you keep yours wit?? -- rainbows, dwarf flying foxes, a clown pleco and a sturisoma. A colorful banquet someday for an 18-inch fish... Are they very aggressive to other fish?? The biggest one evicted the clown pleco from his cave, but more by pushing than by biting. Other than that, not ...

Well... I have three of them, which I bought before I knew about this site. The well-meaning folks at the store said they wouldn't get much bigger than 6 in. or so. A few days after I had popped them in my 30 gal. I found out they'll grow into 18" monsters needing a floor-cracking tank. That said, I ...

I'm looking for some suggestions: I have two new 20 gals. One I found in the trash; it's been up for a month with giant danios. The other I got for $5 after the LFS refurbished its fish room. They'll be side by side under an 80 watt of flourescent shop light (40 watts per tank= 2 wpg,) well planted ...

zucchini and cuke are not the same thing.

Some low light-tolerant plants: Hornwort, Anacharis (aka egeria densa,) Anubias Nana, Java Fern, Java Moss, & Crypts (cryptocornii -- spelling?) All pretty easy to find in our area. Java Moss is a staple for breeding tanks, and it looks cool covering a cave rock. If you have some extra $$$, you ...

Assuming you're using a "python" hose for water changes, you could suck a liitle bit of water out of the tank so it doesn't overflow. Then turn up the faucet to high pressure and add water back in with the hose at the bottom, pointing the tip right under the driftwood to blow the waste out into the ...

should I make the 25 gallon a planted cory tank, A heavily planted tank is a beautiful thing, well worth the work and $$$. Perhaps you could involve your wife in the project on this one, bring her over to our side. On the other hand, you could make a breeding setup with the tank. It would probably ...

Thanks!

Will sturisoma eat algae wafers? Any particualr veggies they like more than others? What's the best food for a specimen that lives in a tank with very strong algae growth, to balance its diet?
I'm not sure which species it is.

I had left the bags in the water for 20 minutes, but I did not gradually add tank water into the bag.... that could have been my error. That would be my semi-educated guess. There's probably a difference between the pH values of the tank water and the merchant's water, as well as other chemical ...

Get a bunch of cheap, fast growing plants like hornwort and anacharis and drop them in there. Those two in particular are indestructible. I started a brand new tank with a few good wads of stem plants and never had an ammonia spike.

Some of the starter kit equipment I've seen around is pretty weak. If you are a shrewd negotiator, you can get them to throw in a better filter for a little more, and perhaps a two-bulb light if you want high-light plants.

$169 is cheap, but there may be stuff you have to replace. Maybe they'll upgrade the equipment for a little more $$ if it's substandard.

Thanks for the heads up. My cats didn't "shiver" per se; it wasn't that violent or fast. More sinuous and fluid. Really stunning.
I think may have put a premature stop to the action when I stuck my face right up to the tank to ogle them.

Yesterday two of my small (4.5-5 in.) h. brachysoma tangoed pretty intensely for about 1-2 mins. They were sort of nuzzling one another, rolling around, sort of half-intertwining, and then sort of shimmying and rippling slowly, side to side. Whatever they were doing looked pretty sexual. I had just ...