Hello Folks...

Greetings folks...

My name is Pierre and am new to the forum and new to the hobby of fish keeping...  Started out in January of this year and have an AquaVogue 170 with Pristella, Red Phantom & Cardinal Tetras, a single Lemon BN Plec and four Corydoras Ornatus...  Keeping them company are a dozen Amano shrimp and three Rabbit snails... 

Getting a lot of enjoyment from the hobby and an almost equal measure of frustration at times, but I guess the two go hand in hand with fish keeping... 

Hi Pierre, welcome to the forum.


We are a nosey bunch, we love photos 

Thank you for the welcome folks...   

Please excuse the phone pic Sue, but this is about as good as my photography skills get... 

Here's a slightly better peep at the rather handsome (imo) Ornatus Corys...

Thank you Sue...    

Fascinating hobby this, and feels like no two days are the same...  That tank shot is a week or so ago and has had water changes and plant trimming since then, so looks quite different now...  One thing that really had me going is the appearance of micro-critters, such as those diddy little swimmy/darty things, little white round worms and freshwater limpets...  all of which the fish will eat when they spot them...  You don't see many, but was a shock to notice them for the first time...  For a moment, I thought I had managed to get the awful planaria, but the micro-worms are definitely not planaria, thankfully...  I've calmed down after that initial shock and realise that basically it's best to just think of them as part of the clean up crew, provided their numbers remain in check... 

I did get some pest snails, which I suspect came from the Java Fern log, a later addition to the tank...  I just picked 'em out as they appeared, none were very big at all...  Over time, I kept seeing less and less of them...  The last one I saw must have been at least a full week - maybe a tad more - since seeing the last before that...  I'm fairly confident that there's not likely to be an explosion of them, for now at least, and will keep taking them out if/when I see another...  At the rate of appearance, I don't actually mind them so much to be honest, it's just the notion that taking your eye off the ball could result in dozens of the little blighters... 

Talking of snails, I do have the three Rabbit snails, one a little bambina, and would like to add another snail but this time not another Rabbit...  The one that sounds ideal as a good solid detritivore would be the Black Helmet Nerite, but I am so put off by the sesame seed eggs you tend to get with Nerites...  Other options include Faunus snails, I especially like the Cappuccino variety, but can't seem to find much info on these great looking snails, beyond some basics... 

Your tank is stunning - and the pic itself is good quality, so no cause for concern - and the cories adorable.

As for nerites' sesame seed eggs, that only seems to come with the females. There is a way of working out males .v. females (I'll have to dig out the detail but will add it into this post when I find it), if you were able to buy them from a shop and investigate. Pro-Shrimp is an extremely helpful company and where I got my nerite from - it might be that they'd be able to identify a male for you to circumvent the issue of ending up with a female.

[Edited to add: found the picture I was thinking of but it doesn't credit the source and therefore I'm not sure how 'bona fide' it is, so best not to add - sorry.]

A single MTS will soon be a lot of MTS I'm afraid. They reproduce by parthenogenesis, ie they don't need a male. One female can populate a tank all by herself. They are also viviparous, so you won't see any eggs to remove.

I have black MTS in my tanks, just because I prefer the looks of them to brown MTS.

Your tank is stunning

Couldn't agree more... 
I like how you have mixed the different substrates. And the plants look very healthy.

By the way what is the black and white plastic thing in the bottom of the first photo??

Here's hoping my 10th post means I can start hitting you guys with "Likes" for the nice welcome you've given me here on the forum...