[dwalstad]

I bought distilled water and added some of the 3M Quikrete 'sand' that I would like to use. It's like pool filter sand, the MSDS says quartz silicate but the color says limestone to me. Anybody have first hand experience with this product?
QUOTE]

I bought pool filter sand from Home Depot for my 50 gal setup. It looked cleaner than the other sands that Home Depot offered for sale, and it is working fine.

 

[dwalstad]

I saw the pictures of your new tank. It looks like an excellent start. Later on when its more established you can tinker with it, but you've got the basics. Nice to see a Turquoise Rainbowfish. Good luck!

 

[dwalstad]

I Anybody else keep different Melanotaenia species together? Do the fry survive if you don't remove them or remove the eggs?

I keep many Rainbowfish species together in one tank. Usually the fry get eaten so fast that you won't see them. However, if you look closely at the water surface, you may get lucky and see some fry.

When I was breeding Red Rainbowfish (Glossolepsis incisus), I netted the babies from the breeding tank and put them into a 5 gal that I had set up for raising these babies. I had set up the 5 gal tank with plants from another tank. Those plants apparently brought in eggs from Neon Rainbowfish and one Turquoise Rainbowfish. Now, I have a group of Neon Rainbows, and one Turquoise Rainbow (the few baby Red Rainbowfish I netted didn't survive).

Breeding Rainbowfish is fun. Sometimes all you need is to have a plant from a tank where Rainbowfish are spawning.

 

[dwalstad]

Mommyeireanne,

Your tank setup looks like a winner! You've got plenty of plants and a nice fat Amazon Swordplant. Because the plants came from your old tank, they are already adapted to the submerged condition. So you're way ahead of the game.

I predict that your new setup has an excellent chance of progressing smoothly.