64L Stocking Suggestions For A Newbie

[LilyRose Tank]

Hi there, whilst waiting for my tank to cycle thought I'd ask what stock i should think of for my tank. I love tetras but understand they should only go into mature tanks, so my thinking was
4 male guppies
4 platys
4 mollies.... all of a variety of colour...so what you think?

 

[waterdrop]

For my two cents I'd say that male guppies and platys are always really nice fish both from the entertainment standpoint for children and also from the beginner standpoint. Mollies on the other hand always raise a bit of caution for me as most of them need really hard water (water with very high mineral content) and there are are individual types of mollies with different degrees of this need. If the right conditions aren't met, mollies can be disease prone. That's not to say that that they wouldn't be right for you if you happen to have the right water! After all the jet black ones make a nice contrast to bright orange platies and swordtails.

Honey gouramis, Rasbora Heteromorpha (Harlequins), neon/cardinal tetras, head&taillight tetras, cherry barbs are all fish that we discuss with beginners quite a bit. You are correct that neon/cards have the peculiarity of needing to wait for a 6-month old tank but once you've followed that they can be great.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[LilyRose Tank]

can honey gouramis live with platys and guppies

 

[LilyRose Tank]

and what about galaxy or fire rasboras and albino corys and banded rainbow fish?

 

[drobbyb]

The banded rainbowfish (Melanotaenia trifasciata) has a few special needs. While rainbows can be very resilient and hardy as long as their needs are met, they can also be very sensitive and prone to disease. They need at least 50% waterchanges every week. This is important. They also have special feeding needs as well. While they can certainly survive on just tropical flakes, it's not what's best for them. Bows need about 60% vegetable matter in their diet with the ocaisional frozen and live foods. This can be attained by feeding a staple of high quality spirulina flakes, cooked shelled peas, frozen brine shrimp or bloodworms (be careful here, bloodworms have a chitinous head that can get stuck in the digestive tract of rainbows), and live black or glassworms (mosquito larvae) when they are in season. Having a varied diet is important as the better they are fed, the more resistant to disease they are. Also, they like their water temperature a bit cooler than most tropical fish. They like their water between 72F (22C) and 77F (25C.) Keeping them above their optimal temperature shortens their lifespan (depending on species, they should live 10 to 15 years.)


As you can see, they are just a bit more complicated than your standard tropical fish, but can be very rewarding if you put forth the extra effort.

 

[Assaye]

4 guppies
4 platys
6 corys



Mollies, IMO, get a bit too big. I think they'd be happier in a larger tank.

Other good fish are - neon tetra (mature tank only), black neon tetra, harlequin rasbora, dwarf gouramis, honey gouramis, glowlight tetra, endlers (kinda like guppies), bulldog plecs, danios (cooler tanks), white cloud mountain minnows (cooler tanks), shrimp, snails . . .

A good stocking guide would be:

6 x small shoaling fish (tetras, rasboras, for example)
2 x something larger (gouramis, for example)
6 x small bottom feeder (corys, otos, for example)

or

2 x something larger (gouramis, etc)
1 x small plec (produce a lot of waste to count them as several fish)
6 x corys OR 6 x small shoaling fish

For example, in my two 65 litre tanks I have:

1) 7 neon tetra, 3 corys (should be 4-6), a shrimp (should be 4-6), a female betta and 2 african dwarf frogs

Ideally I would have 7 neons, 6 corys and my female betta, but I got the corys as a newbie and never added more.

2) male kribensis, yellow panchax, 2 bumblebee catfish

This is my semi-aggressive tank. The krib and panchax are too big and too aggressive to go in with my small fish so they get a lightly stocked, well planted 65 litre tank as a home. I would never put loads of small fish in with them. I will probably only add one or two more fish to the tank, if that.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

4 guppies
4 platys
6 corys



Mollies, IMO, get a bit too big. I think they'd be happier in a larger tank.

Other good fish are - neon tetra (mature tank only), black neon tetra, harlequin rasbora, dwarf gouramis, honey gouramis, glowlight tetra, endlers (kinda like guppies), bulldog plecs, danios (cooler tanks), white cloud mountain minnows (cooler tanks), shrimp, snails . . .

A good stocking guide would be:

6 x small shoaling fish (tetras, rasboras, for example)
2 x something larger (gouramis, for example)
6 x small bottom feeder (corys, otos, for example)

or

2 x something larger (gouramis, etc)
1 x small plec (produce a lot of waste to count them as several fish)
6 x corys OR 6 x small shoaling fish

For example, in my two 65 litre tanks I have:

1) 7 neon tetra, 3 corys (should be 4-6), a shrimp (should be 4-6), a female betta and 2 african dwarf frogs

Ideally I would have 7 neons, 6 corys and my female betta, but I got the corys as a newbie and never added more.

2) male kribensis, yellow panchax, 2 bumblebee catfish

This is my semi-aggressive tank. The krib and panchax are too big and too aggressive to go in with my small fish so they get a lightly stocked, well planted 65 litre tank as a home. I would never put loads of small fish in with them. I will probably only add one or two more fish to the tank, if that.

thankyou very much for your insight. there are so many that i love i'm finding it difficult to narrow down my list! haha.
think i may aim for 4 platys 4 guppies 2 honey gourami and 3 albino corys

 

[Assaye]

thankyou very much for your insight. there are so many that i love i'm finding it difficult to narrow down my list! haha.
think i may aim for 4 platys 4 guppies 2 honey gourami and 3 albino corys

No problems

How about 4 platys, 4 guppies, 2 honey gourami and 4-5 albino corys? They'd appreciate the bigger group.

It's a good stocking plan, though!

 

[finalfantay85]

Just gonna throw my favourite into the hat, some harlequin rasboras. They make a lovely school and are fun to watch. Quite a hardy fish too for a newbie like me

 

[waterdrop]

Honeys will definately be fine with guppies and platies. Corys will want sand rather than gravel to keep their barbells from being cut, there are a few softer smaller gravels out there but most of the common stuff is larger and/or sharper edged. Keep in mind also that you might want to go for all male platies (as well as the guppies as you already said) as having babies can be one of the most difficult things for beginners because it throws off the bioload on the bacteria (babies put out more wasted than you'd think) and also the situation can make some feel compelled to get another tank, which can be stressful within the first year in the hobby.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[LilyRose Tank]

Thankyou all.
WATERDROP... I agree. I shall be having all males, male guppies are so beautiful and my lfs (ofwhich there are about 6 to choose from) all have different coloured ones.. can i mix shoals... what i mean is, get a nice male guppy from each stockist that i like. for example ( i dont know their real names but)
1 male guppy with black, yellow, orange striped rounded fantail
2 male guppy with yellow and white striped fantail
3 orange rounded fantail
4 black rounded fntail
5 white mickey mouse platy
6 yellow mickey mouse platy
7 sunset (yellow/orange) platy
8 red/orange platy
9,10, white albino corys ( I know my lfs only has 3 right now)
11,12, honey dwarf gourami
13,14 golden danio

what do you thi nk of this stock list? (THE NUMBERS CORRESPOND TO THE FISH NUMBER NOT THE AMOUNT..THEREFORE TOTAL FISH 14)

 

[waterdrop]

wow, you sure like to get specific! You must have a pretty good shop if you think you'll actually find those in stock on first stocking day for your tank!

I'm a terrible stocking advisor. They may give you a hard time about only having two cories and I suppose one thing would be to just drop them from the list. The danios too will wish they had more numbers, although they aren't shoalers in the same sense as the tetras, but danios also like a lot of tank length to dash about in, so they (the species police) might give you a hard time there too. The others all look good though. Note that I believe you want a true honey gourami, not an orange variation of a dwarf gourami which is a different gourami. Dwarves are pretty feisty, the males, whereas honeys are not. Both are among the smallest gouramis except the sparklings, which are a kind of different looking fish altogether and don't feel as much like a "gourami" to me, but I've never actually had a sparkling...

 

[LilyRose Tank]

hi waterdrop and everyone, sorry for the specificity, i like to be organised. ok, so how many corys minimum? and gouramis? I saw a pic of a dwarf honey gourami,.... so was it not a true guorami then? maybe expalin again as my brain doesnt get it ...! blonde moment!

 

[Assaye]

hi waterdrop and everyone, sorry for the specificity, i like to be organised. ok, so how many corys minimum? and gouramis? I saw a pic of a dwarf honey gourami,.... so was it not a true guorami then? maybe expalin again as my brain doesnt get it ...! blonde moment!

I'm not one to talk, due to my badly stocked tank (sorry corys) but I'd say 4 corys minimum (all same species) with 6 being ideal, and same for danios.

Gouramis will be fine in ones and twos. Not sure about the sexes you should go for or if they are peaceful enough for it not to matter. Ask someone else for advice on that one, as I don't keep them.

 

[waterdrop]

ok, actually I'm not on the computer I want to be on at the moment, so don't have some of my files to look at and can't remember (so somebody come behind and correct me please) but I'm pretty sure the Honey gourami is a different species than the Dwarf gourami (ie. a different scientific name) and yet there are red/orange color variations bred now of the Dwarf species that might be, confusingly, labeled Dwarf Honey Gourami in the LFS (not to mention a particular LFS might mislable an actual Honey as a Dwarf Honey!) What I'm saying is you want a real "Honey" and not a Dwarf gourami that happens to be orange! (and if I'm all washed up on this I'll go make a Manhattan (isn't that a red/orange drink?) and get further confused ..or a Pim's number... huh)

When I was little, everyone used to keep one or two cories in a tank and they sat quite still such that people would tell you they had a reputation for trying to blend in to the gravel and disappear. I've had no cories in my new life as a "Re-Beginner" but I've learned on TFF that in fact most cory species have a "break point" (certainly when they number, say, 10 or more) where they suddenly change personality completely and begin to roam all over the tank together in a playful clan. We've had descriptions of them finding a strong current and playfully riding it like an amusement ride for hours. Cories come in many types and the "break point" is probably different for each but anyway, that's the story. This is one of the reasons the 3 pygmy types have received more than usual attention here in the beginners section, its because since they're tiny, you can better hope to have your group reach the "break point" in a less than huge tank. I would love to say that 6 habrosus or one of the other pygmys would do it but I don't actually know.

~~waterdrop~~