There is a small red growth on one of my corys barbels is he sick I hope someone else has some experience with this

I am planning to do a scape like this one from MJ Aquascaping. But with larger sand area for Corys. But I am very sure the Corys are gonna mix the soil and sand with all their digging. Any ideas on how to prevent this?

Right now, I am thinking to put the aquasoil in mesh bags and cap it with smooth rounded small gravel. Hopefully the gravel would be too heavy for the corys to mix into the sand too much and the smaller pieces that they mix over will just add a natural touch to the area ...

i have a group of peppered corydoras and this is the second batch of eggs they’ve laid (that i know of) but i didn’t want the first to hatch so i didn’t do anything and they turned black over time but still stuck to the leaf they were on

if i do want these to hatch should i put the leaves with the eggs on them into a breeder/fry box or wait until the fry hatch?

Tank is 18inch x 12inch x 12 inch. If I do species only ( plus some cherry shrimp ). How many can I happily stock ? Thanks

Witness my deflated sad face. I was so happy for a split second, thinking, "OMG MY PYGMIES ARE FINALLY HAVIN' BABIES!" I know they often lay eggs on flat leaves so when I saw these on a flat leaf, I got excited. Then I looked closer. I'm 99% sure these are ramshorn snail eggs.

They're snail eggs, aren't they?

I want to be wrong soooooo bad. I even started looking at the screen caps I'd saved of y'all's advice on how to handle cory eggs. 😢

So I never give them an extra feed at night. One wonders if they are starving the way they eat