70 Gall Community. Fish Sugestions ?

[hamfist]

OK it's like this ..... Tommorow will be delivered my new 70 Gallon tank. As you can imagine I am seriously excited as I have never owned such a huge tank before !

Currently I have a 20 Gallon with one sm/med Angel, 5 x cory's, 6 x neons, 5 x red eye tetras and 2 oto's.

All these fish I plan to put in the 70 gallon once the filter is cycled, along with a pair of Stiphodon sp. gobies from a different tank.

My local water is slightly hard. Tank temp will be maintained at 77-78F. Substrate will be sand, with large lumps of bogwood, a few rocks, and a planted area too.

I plan to enlarge the cory, neon, and red eye shoals a bit, but would lke a few more fish to fill the new space.

To start with, I'll say that I really get pee'd off with much aggression in my tanks, and I also don't like fish that zoom around constantly (something like Danios for example). I also plan to stick with just Cory's as my main bottom feeders.

I was thinking of possibly adding a keyhole cichlid (or a pair), or a pair of Rams (although concerned about aggression during breeding .... not sure how the size of the tank will alleviate that).

Also possibly toying with getting a shoal of Australian rainbows.

Have pretty much decided against Gourami, as all my many previous experiences of them in the past always have ended up with aggression problems, whethyer I keep them singly or in pairs in a community tank. ALthough maybe I'm keeping too few ?

Anyway, I'd love to hear any thoughts on my suggestions, or any new ideas of fish I may not have considered.

THanks, Alan

 

[drobbyb]

Also possibly toying with getting a shoal of Australian rainbows.

Rainbows! Now this is my forte! Where should I start... Some information you should know about rainbows labeled "Australian Rainbows" is that they aren't a purebred strain. They are the result of fish farms crossing different species of rainbows. One of the biggest problems in the rainbow community is truing to keep the lines pure, and hybrids are bottom of the barrel. With that said, if you don't mind that they are hybrids and you like the look of them, by all means get some, but never ever breed them and never ever pass on the babies if you do.

Also, for the health of your rainbows, you will need to be doing 50% or larger waterchanges each week, and they need to be fed a varied diet with lots of vegetables. This can be achieved by feeding a staple of high quality spirulina algae flakes mixed with fresh vegetables like cucumber, squash, and blanched shelled peas. You can further enrich their diet by feeding the occasional frozen food like brine shrimp, or live food like chopped earthworm, mosquito larvae when they are in season, and live daphnia.

Have you seen what all the rainbows look like? Here's a website that has pictures and descriptions of all the known rainbow species: Rainbowfish Species. If you browse the rest of the site, you can find some very valuable information.

 

[hamfist]

Thanks for that drobbyb, I can cetainly provide the conditions for healthy rainbows. Not too bothered about hybrids either, and would be very unlikely to want to breed any of these fish at any time in the near future. I've researched a fair bit about rainbows and will look at the link you give. I really like the look of Bosemanis, but have read an awful lot of horror stories about aggression from them in a community situation. What's your take on this ?

 

[Wills]

With regard to the cichlids, you could do much bigger cichlids than rams and keyholes in a 70g for example Festivums, many other dwarf acaras, small eartheaters like redheads if you have a sand substrate you could maybe do g.sterendetchi (spelling) as long as you have sand for the latter two.

When you say disasters with bosmani what do you mean? Ive not heard any problems with them?

One thing I would do before you add any more species is to up your existing schools to about 10 of each - with the cories, neons and red eyes

 

[hamfist]

One thing I would do before you add any more species is to up your existing schools to about 10 of each - with the cories, neons and red eyes

Definately doing that.

As for the cichlids, I think I'm a bit restricted due to the desire to house with neons.

I'm also not really looking for "big" fish despite the tank size. I'm trying to create a community of small/med fish with my angel (once full sized) as the centrepiece fish.

And yes, Rams would not be the only option as far as dwarf cichlids are concerned, but I do like Rams (they are also reasonably priced). My main concern about getting dwarf cichlids (or in fact any cichlid pairs) is the aggression and territorial behaviour when spawning> I've never had a tank this size before, so don't know if it will be big enough for something like Rams to breed, and the other fish to be able to easily keep out of their way.

 

[drobbyb]

I really like the look of Bosemanis, but have read an awful lot of horror stories about aggression from them in a community situation. What's your take on this ?

I've never seen boesemani's being terribly aggressive, but it is possible, especially if they are kept in too small of a school. It's true that they work in a hierarchy with one dominant male and the rest subordinates though. The dominant fish can get a bit boisterous with the other males, but there usually isn't any damage done.

 

[hamfist]

I really like the look of Bosemanis, but have read an awful lot of horror stories about aggression from them in a community situation. What's your take on this ?

I've never seen boesemani's being terribly aggressive, but it is possible, especially if they are kept in too small of a school. It's true that they work in a hierarchy with one dominant male and the rest subordinates though. The dominant fish can get a bit boisterous with the other males, but there usually isn't any damage done.

OK, thanks for that Robby. I'm going to have to think on it. THere's no rush anyway, as I only set up the tank today.

 

[FWFishLover]

hmm..
if you plan on putting all the fish from other tank in there why not just put the other filters in there instead of cycling

 

[hamfist]

hmm..
if you plan on putting all the fish from other tank in there why not just put the other filters in there instead of cycling

I'll be doing something like that, taking half the media from the mature tank and starting off the filter in the new tank with it. But it will still take a while to fully mature I expect.