Since my Hubby decided to put "big" fish in my 55 gal I had to set up one of my 10 gal's for my Endlers.

Full tank shot.


One of my boys.



Another one of the boys.



Baby picture!



Family Photo.:laugh:


Lilly Bulb.


Driftwood cave for the corries and shrimp, the light green and white plant is Philodendrian.

Ph 7.4
Nitrate 20
Ammonia .25
Alk low
Nitrite .2

Ph 7.4
Nitrite 0.2
Nitrate 20
Ammonia .25
alk normal

Looks awesome D..

I'm jealous haha.. I have NOTHING here in Vic... A crowntail betta costs over 23 bucks.. and I'm NOT spending that on a betta..

Are you just using the 10 gal to breed them??? and then what're you doing? selling them??

Thank you!
Yes I'm going to breed them for sale, once my colony gets established I want to try doing some line breeding. I have one male with top and bottom white sword with black outline that I want to try to develop.

Damn, 23 bucks for a betta, not in this lifetime.

Your jelousy makes us even, I'm jelous of your salties! :laugh:

Water change last night 50%

Today's stats are
NO2 .1
NO3 10
Ammonia 0.25

Ghost shrimp are stupid, but they survive "the ride" pretty well. :laugh:
The fry have learned from being moved, when the siphon went into the tank they went and hid. :lol:

:omg: I just realised that I left one of my girls in the old 10 gal tank, for the last week she has been living in 4 inches of water with no filter, no air stone, no food. She appears to be healthy and when I put her in with the rest of them I fed the tank again and she gobbled up everything she could catch, lol.

the tank with 4 inches of dirty water, the other tank has already had 1 water chenge but I have ignored this one because it was supposed to be just plant bulbs.





She is finally moved next door and is setteling in.


These are very hearty fish for being so little!

Nitrate 20
Nitrite 0.1
Ammonia .25
Ph 7.4

I still don't know why I'm still getting ammonia readings, according to my chart it is only at 0.003ppm, which isn't deadly but it is still annoying to me.

Still no new fry and 3 of the girls look ready to burst, it was suggested that I do a 30% wc with cooler water to induce the fat girls to drop, so I am going to try that. The next set of stats will be after the wc.

Ghost shrimp.

Java Moss, Thank you Tyler!

Lilly, moss, and wild plant.

Lilly pad and new flower stalk.

Flower stalk and floating leaves of aponogeton.

Wild plant from river.

Endler male, moss, and aponogeton plantlet.

I just found new fry!! jay :woo:

Nitrite .02
Nitrate 10
Ph less than 7.4
Ammonia .25

It pays to look closely at your tank, I just discovered 3 sizes of fry! jay :woo: :joint: :smoke: :woo:

Today's stats.
Ph 7.8
Nitrate 5.0
Nitrite .2
Ammonia .5

Stats after water change.
Ph less than 7.4
Nitrate 0
Nitrite .05
Ammonia .25

What water conditioner are you using? You may have high chloramine levels in your tap water...if so, double up your dechlorinator doses or switch to using Prime or Amquell...

I also don't think your biofiltration has quite caught up with your bioload...I think that is why you may be seeing ammonia/nitrite....In other words...while your "cycle" is completing itself (going from ammonia to nitrate), I just don't think you good bacteria levels have gotten up high enough to keep ammonia/nitrite at zero...

It could very well be from plants that might be disintigrating, or overfeeding, or a hidden dead fish or two...also...have you checked?

I have been using Wardly water care chlor out, it claims to neutralize chlorine and chloramines. It says 5 drops per gallon but I usually go 1 1/2 - 2 times the recomended dose.
There was some dying plant matter, but I usually remove it as soon as I notice it.
With all of the new fry there is no way I can account for everyone :laugh: , and the fry are almost transparent so I can't see any corpses, but none of the adults have gone missing. The only one I havn't seen is my last Kuhli Loach.

I tested my tap water a while back when this first started bugging me stats but it wasn't dechlorinated.

My test kit is Red Sea Marine Lab with Ph, Alk, Ammonia, NO2, NO3, and it expires next year.

Edit-The Kuhli is accounted for.

Test results of dechlorinated tap water.
Ph 7.4
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia .25

Well...I think you have your answer about where the ammonia is coming from....

So there is nothing I can do to resolve it?
Do you think it would do any good to try ammo-lock?(or whatever it's called)

I don't trust ammo lock....Again, I REALLY like Prime by SeaChem....also:Try some chemical filtration like "poly filter", zeolite, or activated carbon...while the carbon dosn't stay "active" all that long, once it is "used up" it makes a great media for bennificial bacteria to grow on.

Quite honestly, I think that time is going to solve your ammonia issue. I don't think the tank has thouroughly (either tank) "cycled" yet...It can sometimes take upto six months before a tank builds up the biofiltration capacity that it needs...

I would also hold off on adding more fish untill your ammonia/nitrite stay at/around zero and only nitrates are showing...

I'm sure this is already posted somewhere...but what kinds of filters and what media are you currently using in them?

Also: remember that many of the water treatments chemically "de-toxify" the ammonia, however it still remains in the water (usually as a sulfer containing salt) and may still show on your test kits, despite being "de-toxified"....

Also...If your Endlers are breeding like rabbits...then the water quality is not too shabby!

At the moment all I have in there for filtration is a sponge filter, and plants. I do weekly water changes of 30-50% to handle the bulky waste.

I won't add any more fish to this tank but I can't say that the Endlers will quit adding members, lol.

I wish I could find some Zeolite around here that doesn't have added chemicals. If I was back in NM I would have it made, a friend is night security for a zeolite mine. I could get anything from fine powder to boulders of the stuff.

The Endlers originate from a stagnant lagoona in Venuseula and have been kept in a wide variety of paramaters, breeding them takes absolutly no effert, the effert comes in keeping them from breeding. :laugh:

Well...since sponges are physical filters (at first) it's going to take some time for your bacteria colonies to get going...make sure you never rinse the sponge in chlorinated water...once a sponge gets a good colony of benificial bacteria going, they are awesome bio-filters...just remember that sponges take a while to get going...

I think your fish will be quite alright with your weekly water changes and sponge filter...give the tank some more time, and start using "Prime" and I think you will see your ammonia/nitrite staying at zero, and going directly into nitrates.

Ok, I guess I'll get some Prime next time I'm somewhere that carries it.
When I get it do I just use it when I do water changes?

I add it to my new water in the bucket before I add the new water to my tanks...You can also "dose" the tank with it for emergency control of nitrites/ammonia/other pollutants...It's really good stuff....I really trust SeaChem's products...they seem to use more science than Wardley,Tetra, Aqurium Pharmacuticals (AP) etc, in developing their products...I don't think AP or Wardley have updated their products in years...some of the Tetra products don't even treat for Chloramine, which has been used in municipal water supplies quite regularly since the 1980's......I also use SeaChems rift lake salts and buffers in my high pH tanks...

and from what I can tell...AmmoLock is straight dangerous stuff....I have had some very bad experiences with it...lost a whole brood (150+ )of f1 calvus fry when I used it instead of AmQuel+ (before I strated using Prime) for a water change...I still have a bottle of it sitting in my fishroom that I need to just throw away...

Thanks for the info Seedy.
I was closely watching the tank last night and I think that my fry outnumber my adults jay :woo: I definatly do not want to do anything to put my fry in jeopardy.

When my colony matures a bit I want to try some line breeding. I have a male with top and bottom white swords with a black outline that I want to put with a female that has a black area on her tail.

It is kinda rare to get a female with any color other than the gravid spot, there are a few known but the markings on them are different than my girls tail. Mine has a solid black line at the beginning of the tail that goes top to bottom, the other females with markings on the tail have 2 fuzzy, faint spots more like a peacock eye that is common in the males of this species.

I can't wait for my fry to color up so that I can see what I have to work with :woo:

I have cut back my feeding schedual.
I was feeding the following list twice a day
4 Shrimp pellets
about 15-20 flakes-crushed
1 small pinch of freeze dried Blood worms
1/2 of an algae tablet broken into 3 pieces

I noticed that there was usually a little bit of shrimp and algae left over at the second feeding time.
I didn't cut back the serving but I cut back to feeding once a day instead of twice. There is a lot of fry in this tank and the fact that some of the food is still around for them to nibble on is reassuring.

It has been 2 days since I cut back to one feeding a day, I think I will check the water later and see if it has made any difference.

Ph 7.5
Nitrite .1
Nitrate 5
Ammonia .25

Ph 7.8
Nitrite .1
Nitrate 5.0
Ammonia .25



Rain barrel water
Ph 7.8
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ammonia .25


Ok, I'm about ready to friggen give up on Ammonia testing, either somthing is wrong with the test or I am doing it wrong, but I am following the directions so :wtf: .
Even the water in my rain barrel is showing .25ppm of ammonia.
I think that on payday I am buying some distilled or bottled water and testing it for ammonia because this is BS! :cuss:

50%wc on the 12th, also lost 1 corry.

Ok, I took 2 adults and 2 jouvenile females(I hope :laugh: ) out of the 10 gal on the 12th and put them into another 10 gal. I'm calling this the light 10 and the one they came out of the heavy 10.

Heavy 10
Ph 7.6
Nitrate 5.0
Nitrite .01
Ammonia 0.5

Light 10
Ph 7.6
Nitrate 10
Nitrite 0
Ammonia less than .25

I did 25% water changes on both 10 gal tanks.

I just found at least 7 new fry in my light 10. jay :woo: :joint:
My colony is growing exponentially. :laugh: :thanks:

Just spotted another new batch of fry in the heavy 10 gal ( the original planted 10).
That makes 2 new batches of fry in 2-3 days! jay :woo: :joint:

10 Planted
Ph 7.4
Nitrate 10
Nitrite .01
Ammonia .25

10 Light
Ph 7.4
Nitrate 10
Nitrite .05
Ammonia .25


Bottled water
ammonia Less than .25

50%wc today on light 10 gal, also moved one of the lillys to the light 10 gal, the planted 10 gal looks like a mud hole from removing the smaller lilly, so I havn't done the wc on it yet, I'm afraid that if I do a wc I'll vaccume up fry, so I will wait until the water clears on that tank.

Stats before wc

Planted 10 gal
Ph 7.8
Nitrate 10
Nitrite .1
Ammonia .25

Light 10 gal
Ph 7.8
Nitrate 10
Nitrite.1

After wc

light 10
Nitrate 0

New fry in both tanks. My favorite male vanished from my light 10 about 2 weeks ago. The large female in that tank dropped about 12 fry so hopefully they are from my missing male, he was pretty.
I also have 2 jouvie females in there that he may have breed, I sure hope so.

The planted 10 now has about 30 adults and heaven only knows how many fry!

The light 10 has about 15 adults and lots of fry!

wow........ i am so setting up an endlers colony

I added a small light colored pleco to my lightly planted 10 gal, this tank doesn't have a power filter yet so there is less water movement and the algae grows fast.

Bought a Whisper 20-40 HOB for the heavily stocked 10, moved the 5-15 to the lightly stocked 10 and now everyone has filtration beyond a sponge filter. jay :woo: