Rainbow bubble tip not fully inflating

[Mark_C]

I dropped a rainbow in an 8 month old tank, told by the sales guy (of course) that it would be fine.
Withered away in weeks.
No habit changes over the next few months.
Added a condy after a year then added a rainbow. Both were happy, healthy.
Your question has me wondering what really is 'the balance' that occurs throughout the course of a year plus. Bacteria is obvious, as are other microorganisms.
But who is fighting who, who is winning, do different salinities, temps, etc encourage one micro-organsim over another?
Is this the decisive factor in what we can and can't keep? It seems so.
I'm going to be laid up for a few months in a few weeks, this could keep me very busy. Though I am a dolt, I'm also a doc, so I did a lot of that pour this in here and see what happens stuff.
The chemical parameters of tanks over time, especially those specifics we don't check for, as well as the establishment of microorganisms, their timeframe, and how they fit into the chemical profiling of the tank is beginning to intrigue me.
Think you just gave me a research assignment for the the summer.

 

[Jeremy Brito]

mark me and a friend have an idea to take samples from tanks at different ages 1 month 6 months 1 year an so on have the water fully tested and do bacteria cultures and bacteria counts trying to find a pattern.. my thinking is this we artificially make are water to the parameters we need it to be yes nature does some work but we do the rest i want to know what part is missing i dont believe simply the age of the tank is the key... it has to be something in the water and if so what and can be created me and my friend are well were both bio majors at some point in our lifes and both took marine bio we actually have been working on a scientific theory for this since i first posted the question on here. we have a way of doing bacteria counts similar to how they used to do blood cell counts with a microscope and slide. and have culture dishes to see if this bacteria can be grown.. how ever there are somethings we might send away to a water lab for better testing