Need Help With Stocking

[Mothi]

Hi everyone
 
I have a very tall tank in my living room that has been empty for over a year. It used to be setup with a pair of angels, a group endlers, a pair of mollies and 4x golden barbs. They all died unfortunately because my mother accidentally switched of the socket switches with the tv switch etc before we went away on holiday. I never got around to setting it up again as I got annoyed and put off.
 
I'm now thinking of setting it up with some easy to care for plants and some fish in a month or so.
 

• I have to have some big fish in there because the family wants it.
• I have to have some plants in there because I want it.
• I really want green tiger barbs.

 
I was thinking angels, cardinal tetras and green tiger barbs (I really really want green tiger barbs). I have in the past successfully kept angel fish with cardinal tetras and don't mind trying that again. After reading about tiger barbs and angels I see that it's not a good idea at all.
 
What fish can I keep in there that grow a bit big around 6 inch or a little more wont get harassed to death by green tiger barbs to death? It would be a plus if I can keep cardinal tetras with them too.
 
 
 
My tank measurement is 80cm wide, 110cm tall and 50cm front to back.
 
Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks
 
 
 

 

[Ch4rlie]

Hello, hmm tiger barbs are not good tankmates with angels to be honest, they will fin nip a lot, not just with angels but with just about any slow moving, long finned fishes.
 
Ideally, imo, tiger barbs should be in a single specie tank only or with similar sized fast cyprinids, you can get a good number of barbs in your sized tank actually.
 
Or perhaps hold off on the barbs, and have a nice angel planted tank.
 
There are a lot of choices out there, so don't rush and ask for lots of advice and suggestions as well as doing your research.
(I'd really like a tiger barb tank myself one day )

 

[attibones]

I have to agree with angelfish and tiger barbs. You'll have a disaster on your hands in no time. A tiger barb tank would be very pretty and active. Though the footprint is a little small you have volume on your side. You could mix any of the colors of tiger barbs as they are the same species (I'm pretty sure they are the same species, if they arent, get a large number of one color).

Or you could do Angels and the more peaceful cherry barb. At least twelve cherry barbs or more and they won't bother the angelfish. That was my experience anyway. Very neat fish.

Tiger barbs do attain a pretty decent size, so you could knock out two of your list items with just the one species.

 

[Byron]

Likewise.  The Tiger Barb (green or regular) cannot be combined with any sedate fish, so having these will limit options right off.  But that is not to say they can't form the centrepiece, but you just have to select tankmates carefully.  Unfortunately, most "large" fish will be sedate, and the two do not mix.
 
With the tiger barbs, other barbs and substrate fish from the smaller loaches could form a nice SE Asian geographic tank.  Some branches, sand or fine gravel substrate, plants.  Barbs also are known to eat plants, especially fine-leaf ones, but Java Fern attached to some of the branches will not be eaten, and some floating plants will complete the authentic aquascape nicely.
 
On the other hand, forget the barbs and you have some of the larger gourami like the Pearl, angelfish, or the larger colourful rainbowfish as centrepiece (not together these three) with some peaceful rasbora (larger species) and/or tetra (depending which centre fish) and substrate fish.
 
What are your water parameters?  Meaning GH (hardness) primarily, also pH.  Just so we don't have possible issues.
 
Byron.

 

[Mothi]

Hello, hmm tiger barbs are not good tankmates with angels to be honest, they will fin nip a lot, not just with angels but with just about any slow moving, long finned fishes.
 
Ideally, imo, tiger barbs should be in a single specie tank only or with similar sized fast cyprinids, you can get a good number of barbs in your sized tank actually.
 
Or perhaps hold off on the barbs, and have a nice angel planted tank.
 
There are a lot of choices out there, so don't rush and ask for lots of advice and suggestions as well as doing your research.
(I'd really like a tiger barb tank myself one day

)

 
Hi Ch4rlie, Thanks for your reply. I agree angel fish and tiger barbs wont go together. I have plenty of time before setting up this tank so I will most definitely ask for advice here if I decide on any fish for the tank just to be safe Thanks.
 
Can you recommend any similar sized cyprinids? I mainly keep goldfish and livebearers so I'm not very good with cyprinids.
 
Thanks

I have to agree with angelfish and tiger barbs. You'll have a disaster on your hands in no time. A tiger barb tank would be very pretty and active. Though the footprint is a little small you have volume on your side. You could mix any of the colors of tiger barbs as they are the same species (I'm pretty sure they are the same species, if they arent, get a large number of one color).

Or you could do Angels and the more peaceful cherry barb. At least twelve cherry barbs or more and they won't bother the angelfish. That was my experience anyway. Very neat fish.

Tiger barbs do attain a pretty decent size, so you could knock out two of your list items with just the one species.

Hi Attibones, thanks for replying You're right tiger barb tank would most definitely be very active. That's one of the reasons I want them. They just never stop swimming and chase each other all around the tank. I did some image search on cherry barbs and they do look kinda nice. I'll try finding some videos on them in the evening to get an idea on how they behave etc.
 
About the tiger barb colours, so far I have seen only green ones and yellowish with black stripes (I assume that's where they get their tiger name from). Are there any more colour variation?
Thanks

Likewise.  The Tiger Barb (green or regular) cannot be combined with any sedate fish, so having these will limit options right off.  But that is not to say they can't form the centrepiece, but you just have to select tankmates carefully.  Unfortunately, most "large" fish will be sedate, and the two do not mix.
 
With the tiger barbs, other barbs and substrate fish from the smaller loaches could form a nice SE Asian geographic tank.  Some branches, sand or fine gravel substrate, plants.  Barbs also are known to eat plants, especially fine-leaf ones, but Java Fern attached to some of the branches will not be eaten, and some floating plants will complete the authentic aquascape nicely.
 
On the other hand, forget the barbs and you have some of the larger gourami like the Pearl, angelfish, or the larger colourful rainbowfish as centrepiece (not together these three) with some peaceful rasbora (larger species) and/or tetra (depending which centre fish) and substrate fish.
 
What are your water parameters?  Meaning GH (hardness) primarily, also pH.  Just so we don't have possible issues.
 
Byron.

Hi Byron, Thanks for replying. I have never had any experience with most of the fish you have mentioned like, loaches, gouramis and rainbowfish. I will research them over the week and see if I like them.
 
My ph was 7.5 last time I checked and I have to admit it was a long long time ago. I don't know my GH as I don't have anything to test it with but I will check my water suppliers website after work to see if they have the info there.
 
Thanks

 

[attibones]

I've seen red tiger barbs (the shop called them "strawberries", but these looked suspicious), and they also come in the fluorescent colors, which I suggest you avoid. The red ones looked like they had been dyed but I'm not sure. There seems to be a dyed red tiger barb and a regularly bred morph, so you have to be careful. There's also an albino strain, if I rember correctly.

 

[Ch4rlie]

I have seen the normal tiger barbs as well as the green variety, also have seen large green tiger barbs too.
 
Though personally, I like the normal gold / black ones best.
 
The other coloured variations, reds, strawberries etc are not to my taste and like you, am unsure if dyed or genetically modified, stay away from both is probably the best option in my opinion and stick with naturally bred tigers.

 

[Mothi]

Hi Byron, accordinv to our water supplier's website the total hardness of the water is 293 mg/l. I'm guessing this is the GH?

 

[Mothi]

Hi Attibones and Ch4rlie, I found a video of red and albino tiger barbs on Youtube and I don't think I quite them. I will just stick to green and maybe normal tiger barbs.

From doing more google search on tiger barb's compatibility, it seems that it's best kept in species only tank. If I can convince the family then I will just go for species only tank maybe with some snails. If not, I will go with angels and some tetras.

Thanks for all your help

 

[Byron]

Hi Byron, accordinv to our water supplier's website the total hardness of the water is 293 mg/l. I'm guessing this is the GH?

 
Yes, and that is hard.  The Tigers will probably be OK alone.  The larger rainbowfish would work (without the Tigers), livebearers would work.  These all do better with the hard water.

 

[Tsheets]

Likewise.  The Tiger Barb (green or regular) cannot be combined with any sedate fish, so having these will limit options right off.  But that is not to say they can't form the centrepiece, but you just have to select tankmates carefully.  Unfortunately, most "large" fish will be sedate, and the two do not mix.
 
With the tiger barbs, other barbs and substrate fish from the smaller loaches could form a nice SE Asian geographic tank.  Some branches, sand or fine gravel substrate, plants.  Barbs also are known to eat plants, especially fine-leaf ones, but Java Fern attached to some of the branches will not be eaten, and some floating plants will complete the authentic aquascape nicely.
 
On the other hand, forget the barbs and you have some of the larger gourami like the Pearl, angelfish, or the larger colourful rainbowfish as centrepiece (not together these three) with some peaceful rasbora (larger species) and/or tetra (depending which centre fish) and substrate fish.
 
What are your water parameters?  Meaning GH (hardness) primarily, also pH.  Just so we don't have possible issues.
 
Byron.

I've got Gouromis with Angels and tank life is good. I've also got a school (13) neon tetras, a Placostomus and a red finned shark. There are two other species in the tank I think one is a high back tetra (silver with black vertical stripes and an gold colored fish I cannot remember for the life of me. They're shown in the 4th image if anyone can ID them for me I'd appreciate it. The Angels are still young and the 35 gallon tank is tall.

 

[Ch4rlie]

4th image is  Koi Angelfish.
 
Well, thats the 2nd down, 2nd row....gold, black and white markings.

 

[Tsheets]

Make that the 6th picture. They seemed to have re-ordered when posting or I didn't see the whole page.

The Angels are the newest residents in the tank and I too was worried about them. They're doing great with everyone. The Gouromis will reach out and touch them with their long tentacles once in awhile, but no aggressive behavior.
The koi angel has grown about 10%-15% in the last 3 months