40 Gallon Breeder

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FishyFiend19

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I am planning on setting up a low light 40gal breeder tank and I was wondering how this stocking is:

2 cockatoo apistos
3 platy
3 male guppy
6 otos
1 Bristlenose pleco
8 false juli corys
6 amano shrimp
1 nerite snail
1 pearl gourami
20 chili rasbora
1 mts
 
First, can you give us the parameters of your source water? GH (general or total hardness) and pH particularly. You have fish listed that need very different water. There are also a couple other things I'll leave until we know the parameters.

As plants/light was mentioned, can you provide data on the light?

I assume 40g breeder is the basic 40g with 36 inch length, 18 inch width, and 14 inch height.
 
I'm actually not sure of the parameters yet. I have not set up the tank. The light I am looking at is the Beamswork DA 6500k LED.

Aqadvisor didn't bring up compatibility issues. Could you please elaborate?
 
We need to know the GH of the water in the tank - presumably your tap water - because you have fish on your list that come from hard water (guppies and platies) and fish that come from soft water (everything else). Guppies and platies will suffer if your water is soft while the other fish will suffer if your water is hard. Presumably Aqadvisor does not ask for hardness.
Byron is better explaining the reasons why fish need to be kept in the type of water they evolved in.

Hardness is the first thing to find out when compiling a fish wish list, then pH. Your water provider should give your hardness on their website; we need both the number and the unit as they could use any one of half a dozen different units. And ignore words like slightly hard or moderately soft as they mean different things to different people (or companies)

You will need to cycle the tank before you can get any fish http://www.fishforums.net/threads/cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first.421488/ and you will need a test kit to do this. Liquid testers are more reliable than strip testers and a set of testers will include pH. Once you have the pH tester, you can tell us the value of both a freshly run sample of water, and water that has been allowed to stand overnight - they will probably be different.

Cycling takes a few weeks so there is plenty time to finalise your fish list :)
 
Agree. GH (especially) and pH is very important to fish. These values for your source water (tap water) will give us the data we/you need.

Aqadvisor is sometimes useful as a general guide but once we combine more than one species in an aquarium we are faced with so many factors, some of which require individual human thought so that no automated program can really consider all of them.

BTW, is the "mts" a Malaysian trumpet snail, or something else?

And, I forgot previously...welcome to TFF. :hi:
 
Here is what I was able to find:

pH- avg: 8.0, low: 7.8, high: 8.1

Hardness as CaC03-
Measured in ppm- avg: 102, low: 54, high: 220
Measured in grain/gallon- avg: 6.0, low: 3.2, high: 13

Not sure if either of those are gH, but that is all it had listed.

Also, yes Malaysian Trumpet Snail.
 
When the GH is measured as calcium carbonate (CaCO3) it usually includes thee magnesium as calcium. Calcium is the prime mineral. So we can consider this as the GH. A GH of 102 ppm (equivalent to 5.6 dGH) is soft water. If the actual GH is closer to the higher end of the range they give, say 200 ppm or thereabouts, it is moderately hard (equivalent to 11 dGH). This may not seem like much of a difference, but to fish it is considerable.

If this were facing me, I would want to pin down the GH of the water coming out of my tap to be more certain. Though it is always possible that this could vary, depending upon their water source(s). The fact that they give such a wide range suggests the water may either come from different sources or environmental conditions at the source vary.

Livebearers (the platy and guppy mentioned) must have sufficient mineral in their water for their physiology to be able to function properly without additional stress to the fish. A GH of 10 dGH (179 ppm) is minimum, so I would not consider livebearers here as the GH wold seem to be lower than this most of the time, or perhaps all the time, again depending upon the reason for this range.

The cories, pleco, otos and gourami would be OK from the water parameter aspect if the GH remains in the low and average range. Boraras species being wild caught and such small fish are consequently more sensitive and need very soft to soft water, so the GH should be at the lower end of the given range permanently. The dwarf cichlid (Apistogramma cacatuoides) depends upon the source; wild caught fish need very soft and acidic water, but tank raised fish which will likely be the case will be fine if the GH is in thee low to mid range here.

Aside from parameters now...I would not combine cichlids and gourami. And of the two species mentioned, the cichlids would probably be better. The Pearl Gourami is a fairly peaceful gourami, but their colouration is almost always les brilliant when they are not in a small group of male/female (two males to three females, or three males to four or five females for example), and I would want a larger and deeper tank for this species.

With the dwarf cichlids, upper-level fish are always advisable to settle the cichlids; dither fish is the term often used. So I would look at possible species that will remain closer to the surface...hatchetfish and some (but not all) of the pencilfish are often housed with dwarf cichlids. Something else to keep in mind...if you intend spawning of the cichlids and raising fry, the cories will probably make this impossible, as they are nocturnal (when the cichlids are not) and the eggs or shoal of fry are very vulnerable to predation.

Otos and bristlenose both need algae, or algae-based foods once they are acclimated to accepting prepared foods (which can be tricky for otos if no algae is initially present).
 
Thank you for the very detailed response. Can you suggest some other bright centerpiece fish (or fish is general) that would do well in this water, and that are commonly available?
 
Thank you for the very detailed response. Can you suggest some other bright centerpiece fish (or fish is general) that would do well in this water, and that are commonly available?

"Centerpiece" fish are often asked about, but the truth is that in most tanks this is very difficult. The larger the fish the less likely it is going to work. Sometimes having a group of less large fish can still create a "centerpiece" look.

For example, in this 40g tank a group of say 60 cardinal tetras would be very colourful and they would be "centrepiece" fish. I'm not especially suggesting this, but using it as an example of what "centrepiece" can mean.

I have a 40g tank among those in my fish room, and it is a blackwater Amazon tank (water is not tinted, but the parameters are blackwater and the fish species come from those waters). I'll add a photo. There is nothing really "centrepiece" here, but the groups of different compatible species interacting within the species and slowly cruising around the space does make for me a very interesting display. The tank has evolved a bit in the three years it has been running.
 

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Beautiful tank. Would doing a 40 gallon tank with just nano fish be feasible under these water conditions and with this tank size?
 
Do any of the nano corys even primarily stay on the bottom of the tank? I know my pygmy corys did not.
 
Beautiful tank. Would doing a 40 gallon tank with just nano fish be feasible under these water conditions and with this tank size?

Thank you. Yes, provided you can get the GH pinned down a bit so you are fairly certain just where it lies in that range. Ember Tetras for example are OK in very soft to soft water, up to 8 dGH or so. Your "average" GH of 102 ppm (5.6 dGH) is fine for this.

Do any of the nano corys even primarily stay on the bottom of the tank? I know my pygmy corys did not.

I have a 10g which is occupied only by my pygmy cories, and while they do swim all over the place they are mainly on or close to the substrate. My C. habrosus were substrate. The C. hastatus which is much rarer tends to shoal more in the upper levels, often joining in groups of small fish like tetras.
 
How would shrimp and snails do? Specifically nerite, mgs, amano, ghost, and cherry reds?
 
How would shrimp and snails do? Specifically nerite, mgs, amano, ghost, and cherry reds?

I will leave this for others with experience in invertebrates, except to say that some need harder water but there are some species of shrimp that are fine in what you have (other members will know which). I only have the small snails, Malaysian Livebearing and pond or bladder, and the MLS are certainly fine in any GH, and my pond or bladder whichever they are have lasted well over the past decade.
 

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