Best fish for 42 gallon tank?

[Ehteculo]

There is currently no fish, so base it off that, and the size of the tank.

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the forum. One more question before we come up with ideas do you have hard or soft water? Along with tank size, thats the best place to start from

Wills

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

What are the tank dimensions (length x width x height)?

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What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.

Angelfish, most tetras, barbs, Bettas, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm) and a pH below 7.0.

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), rainbowfish and goldfish occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm and a pH above 7.0.

If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids, or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.

 

[I Like Rare Fish]

I want to add some other easy fish - Rosy Barbs, Flagfish, Bumblebee Catfish, you can get most barbs in any PH.

 

[GaryE]

It's kind of lake asking what a good piece of music is. My idea of fish for a 42 and your could be very different. I like tiny fish in large tanks. Every small fish I'd like to have would thrive in a tank that size.