1St Post! 55Gal New Tank Help

[mc_horse13]

#41#### they were bad impulse buys on your part - those severums are going to get huge like 10-12 inches and need bigger tank than you have usually the minimum size for one severum is 75 gallons. And also as said above the monos are brackish fish which means they need a certain amount of salt in their tank but not as much as marine but your other fish wont be able to tollerate that level of salt so they really are not compatable and I would try and address this situation asap - though its a bit of an awkward situation for you as I would not reccomend taking them back to the LFS as they will obviously sell them to other fresh water tanks and that will mean these fish will inevitably die very young. And again these are big big fish sometimes getting to a foot long and 16-18 inches tall so they need very big tanks, they are very active and are a shoaling fish as well which means that 2 isnt really going to cut it. They are actually a popular public aquarium fish for their marine displays as when they are adults they can live very well in full marine water but not freshwater.

Sorry for the bad news but in a way it proves a lesson you need to learn which is to read up on fish before you buy them. And I wont say dont trust your LFS as there are a lot of good ones out there but this is an occasion that they have let you down so I really would consider a stock list of fish before you go into a shop so you know what your buying and what your getting into.

Wills

well i wasnt sure about the mono's the guy at the lfs said that the severums grow pretty slow so i dont think that is a pressing issue at the moment cant i just make my tank slightly brackish to just accommodate the mono??
and yes impluse buy i kinda just saw them and they had to be mine

 

[Wills]

Severums grow at about half an inch a month so thats pretty fast really. And no unfortunately you cant just make it a bit brackish as it will affect the health of the other fish like the severums.

Im not going to lecture on the impulse buys as we all do it but do read up on a few species even if its just learning names to pictures, sizes and tank needs and you will be able to walk into a shop and think oh yeah thats gorgeous but it needs salt and I cant do that so I better find an alternative. In the hobby today there are so many alternatives to the commonly sold fish that have either special needs or that grow but and they are now quite easy to find compared to a few years ago. But again its just a case of learning names and realising the compromises that you need to make for your tank compared to the bigger tanks so as an example a few years ago if you wanted a plec in your tank irrespective of size you had to get a common plec that grows over a foot long but now there are over 600 species of plec in the hobby and easy to find ones that stay under 5 inches like the bristlenoses - other comparisons go on, most tanks are suitable for clown loaches as they do get very big but are commonly sold to any size tank but there are tons of other loaches that will suit any tank so if you wanted loaches I would say go for yoyo loaches if someone with a 2 foot tank wanted loaches I would say dwarf chain loaches if someone with a 10 gallon tank wanted loaches I would say rosy loaches and its pretty much the same for a lot of species.

Slightly ironic to the above statement with Severums there isnt really any comparitive fish, some rare strains of severum are suitable for 55/65g tanks but hard to come by and that really is a minimum. However the monos are possibly replaceable for a similar freshwater disk like fish - namely the silver dollar however these do still get big and will take up a substantial amount of stocking for you.... You do get whats called a silver dollar characin - which to people who know a bit about scientific/latin names for fish will think is a crazy common name for a fish but thats what it usually goes by its actually a large silver disk tetra but not too big to be in the same league as the true dollars or monos as these only get to about 3-4 inches. An other alternative I guess could perhaps be glass fish but again some of these are brackish so be careful where you get them from and also avoid any coloured ones as they are dyed or tattooed and it is a cruel practice that needs to be avoided at all costs.

Wills

*edit sorry for grammar, quite late and tiered....

 

[TheHolding]

Atleast it was a Mono Sebae and not an Angelus.

I think from research a 55 gallon is ok for one Sebae but as I said it's brackish - you will have to decide whether you now want a brackish tank or fresh and take some of the fish back.

I have a 55 gallon brackish tank with 2 green spotted puffers, brackish fish are different but require more maintenance than a freshwater tank.