Green and Gold Severum

Hello everyone! Today I wanted to give you an update on my ten gallon tank, more specifically the severum. My gold severum is still waiting to be moved out of this tank. As you can tell she is too big to be kept in this tank. Fortunately she will be out of this tank soon! However, both severums are in healthy condition with great water chemistry for them to be swimming in. As you can tell the gold severum is a bright yellow which is what originally attracted me to this fish. Not many freshwater fish have vibrant colors as many of the saltwater fish do. It's interesting to note that this vibrant gold color on this severum is due to domesticated breeding and is generally not found in the wild.

These fish are also very calm and trusting fish. That might sound odd for them to be trusting fish, but it's true! They eventually recognize their owners. My gold severum especially enjoys swimming to the side of the tank I may be either standing or sitting by and just floats around in that area. It's pretty nice. My green severum is quite new to my tank and so he still has not gotten acclimated to me yet.
My green severum is a bit more aggressive than the gold. This might partially be due to the fact that he is smaller and so in order to assert his dominance in the tank he has to take it out on the fish. I have seen him trying to bully my snail in the tank but with no success. Fortunately my snail is able to take his threats and my gold severum often puts him in his place which is one of the benefits to having the gold severum around.
I do not believe I have introduced my snail so below is a picture of him in action.

He's a great addition to the tank especially since I have sand as my substrate. If anyone is looking for a clean up crew that remains around the same size I would suggest getting a couple of mixed snails in your tank. This is a better alternative to plecos especially if you do not have that much room in your tank as plecos can grow fairly large. Additionally, I do not have to worry about feeding the snail since he feeds off of the waste and any leftover food in the tank. I also like how this snail is just as vibrant as my gold severum!
Anyways the pictures below were taken during feeding time. The water in this tank is getting quite murky for my taste so I will be doing a water change tomorrow. I plan to do a 50% water change which is fine for my fish.

I generally feed tetras and gold severum fish flakes and the green severum gets Hikari brand sinking pellets. I found it odd that my gold severum is not interested in the sinking pellets whereas my green severum prefers them over the flakes. The sinking pellets are advertised as a color enhancer for the fish. I have not noticed a great difference in the green severum's color but as long as he eats enough then I'm not complaining.
I'm still not sure if I want to add plants to this tank. I know it will help take out nitrates from the water, however, my nitrate levels are stable with the snail eating much of the waste. I am hesitant to add plants like anubias and java fern because the green severum likes to pull out the plants. From previous experience he has pulled out a ton of baby tears from the sand and made the tank a mess. I may decide to add plants into this tank once I move these fish out into my seventy five gallon tank. That way I won't have any fish messing around with the plants.
I purchased this smaller syphon to held clean up any debris on the sand that I can get during water changes.

I hope to use this tomorrow and keep everyone posted on my thoughts.
I hope you enjoyed this little update on my severums and some extras! If you have any comments regarding my tanks or any questions about the aquarium hobby please ask! Thank you!

If you missed my last post about aquarium plants, snails and water quality you can find it here (https://steemit.com/life/@kajalpats/plants-snails-and-ph-part-2)