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Awesome, I'm just a state to the east and we're getting pounded with rain. Definitely not normal for us.

Rams and Apistos would certainly work as centerpieces. The tetras and danios may nip at their fins a bit at first, but the cichlids are boisterous enough to hold their own and show who's boss.

Honestly, ph is one of the more over-emphasized parameters in our hobby. As long as your water isn't ridiculously acidic or ridiculously alkaline, most plants and fish will be perfectly fine. Especially livebearers, lots of which being native to pretty hard, alkaline waters. As far as natural...

You can always just put Romo in your QB1 slot - hehe :D A vote sounds good, I'm fine either way - the 2-QB system really inflates weekly scores which can be fun. I'm used to the standard flex format, but different isn't bad. Also - I sent you my email but have not gotten a league invite yet. I...

In again this year. I do have a suggestion - would it be possible to eliminate the offensive player slot (which essentially functions as a QB2 slot) and replace it with a more standard FLEX (RB/WR/TE) position? Personally, I'm not a big fan of how the 2-QB system distorts the draft towards...

Dwarf sag is probably your best bet, but I wouldn't expect a great carpet from anything growing in a low light / no co2 environment.

Sand is inert, but you can easily add root tabs to give nutrients to heavy root feeders. Dirt has lots of nutrients, but is very messy - and after a while, the nutrients will all be gone. This leaves you with a messy, inert substrate. I'd personally go with sand - rinsing it all before adding it...

Primarily fish waste. It sounds like you may not have cycled your tank, here are a couple good reads to get you started: I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?! - Aquarium Advice Fish-in Cycling: Step over into the dark side - Aquarium Advice

It's not totally uncommon, especially in rural areas where you can get fertilizer runoff. I live in a fairly rural area and deal with quite a bit of junk in my tap.

Daily water changes aren't necessary unless you have an obscenely large bioload. Most people go for ~50% a week. In a cycled tank you shouldn't be having ammonia problems, so if it's showing up on your tests, there may be a bigger issue that needs to be addressed. Nitrates ideally should be kept...

Nothing beats water changes.

What kind of filter are you using? Usually the surface agitation from a HOB or Canister filter creates enough gas exchange for proper oxygenation.

If your LFS doesn't have dwarf puffers, I'd recommend looking at wet spot - that's where I got mine. Be sure to do your research though - as Pseudomugil said, their needs are a bit different than most fish.

Bettas are very hit-and-miss with tankmates. Some play nicely with other fish, others will try to kill everything that moves. If you do try to add something with the betta, be sure to have a backup plan. You could do a test run by adding the guppy to the betta tank, and seeing how the betta...

Yup. It honestly shouldn't take a whole lot to bump the ph up a little, so it won't be a big burden when doing pwc's.

I don't believe there's a set formula since you have to account for the buffers already present in the water. You'll probably have to do some trial and error, just go very slowly as to not cause wild ph swings.

I would definitely use baking soda then. Pretty cheap and easy.

What does your KH test at? If it is fairly low as well, you could use baking soda. This will raise the ph and the kh both, and you probably have it on hand already.

I'd be testing twice a day if your tank is going through a mini cycle - you don't want your ammonia or nitrItes to rise above .5, and since you just replaced all the filter media, it will be pretty easy for those parameters to rise quickly.

One of the benefits of doing a fishless cycle is that you end up with a biofilter built like a freight train - after a fishless cycle is completed, you theoretically would be able to fully stock your tank at once without any repercussions in terms of parameter spikes. For territorial reasons, it...

Well, I definitely wouldn't add anything more until you have the tank re-cycled. Keep a close eye on your water parameters, make sure ammonia and nitrates don't exceed .5. If they do, perform a 50% water change. Good luck!

Come over to rural Kansas :D We're rocking a GH and KH of 15, 8.4 ph, 40 ppm nitrate, 1 ppm nitrite, 780 TDS......Yee haw!

The chloride ion can help block nitrite uptake, but you don't need a whole lot of salt at all. To get a 5:1 Cl:NO2 ratio (ideal for nitrate blocking), you only need 8.5 ppm of NaCl to offset 1 ppm of NO2. In a 72g, that equates to a little less than 1/2 tsp. of salt for the entire tank - so...

The logic behind this seems to be that reduced osmotic pressure = less stress = more energy for the fish to put towards bolstering the immune system. However, much like how some pressures do not result in stress for humans, osmotic pressure does not result in stress for fish. Thus, while salt...

I haven't had any problems with neons or cardinals, they're not known to be particularly aggressive tetras. Most rasbora would be OK, except some can be on the small-ish side - could end up being angel food. Harlequin would be fine.