Thank you! I care about the fish more than the plants. If it comes down to doing what's best for the fish or the plants, I choose the fish every time. One exception is when I found a home for my britslenose male because he was just destroying everything, but that's mainly because it made keeping the tank more stressful than relaxing.
That's exactly why I got the rummies in the first place but really fell in love with their schooling behavior. Only complaint about them is they spook real easy.
Absolutely!
The tank is a 40 breeder, it's been up for about two years now. It currently houses 23 rummy nose tetras, 10 black neon tetras, a sole survivor old neon from a previous tank years ago, a male apistogramma cacatuoides super red, 6 otocinclus, 5 or 6 panda cories that have spawned, but I wasn't aware of it until babies appeared out of nowhere lol, two false julii cories, a good colony of cherry shrimp, some ultra reclusive amano shrimp, and more snails than I'd even care to guess, including a couple nerites, but mostly ramshorns and MTS.
I inject co2 and utilize the EI method for fertilization, the substrate is a mix of BDBS and Controsoil - it used to be capped but after pulling up some big crypts for a partial rescape, that went out the window, at least on that side. lol
8 hour photoperiod at full intensity utilizing a Fluval 3.0 and a Finnex Fugeray Planted+, I've been contemplating upgrading the Finnex to another Fluval 3.0 or revamping the lighting altogether to try out the SB Reef offering.
It seems like a lot of fish but going off the bioload via testing parameters and the fish behavior, I don't even think it's fully stocked to potential, but I'm also not one of those people that needs to cram as many fish as possible into a tank...slow and steady wins the race. I've been thinking about adding a farlowella and a female apisto, but it's not a priority.