Community Tank Stocking Ideas, And Buying Fish For Purpose!

[KingKenny]

I'm currently in the midst of fishless cycling my tank, and am going through stocking ideas. The tank is 201cmx50cmx70cm. It holds about 640 useful litres of volume.

The emphasis will obviously be on buying fish to suit the water conditions where possible, and trying to create a stable community tank.

Ph of the water round here is about 7.7-7.9 at any given time, which is reasonably high. The water is moderate to hard too. Nitrates out of the tap are in the region of 10.

I would like to keep the following fish.

Neon Tetras - in a shoal of about 10
Glowlight Tetras - a shoal of 6-12
Clow Loaches - After six months or so four
Kribensis - At least a pair but are more better?
Bolivian Rams - At least a pair but are more better?
A small pair of Gourmais be they Honey or Dwarf Gouramis.
Harlequin Rasbora - A shoal of 6-12
A male siamese figher. Should I get a female or will there be trouble between them?
Some rummy nose Tetras.

1) I would also like a type of fish that eats Algae, but that ultimately doesn't grow too large. Any suggestions for this tank?

2) Can someone advise in the suitable number of Kribs and Rams to get. If there should be for instance two females per male I need to know about it!

3) Does Bogwood and Driftwood raise or lower tank PH? If it does this will a PH swing be caused by water changes? Does this depend on KH?

4) Are there any other suitable bottom dwellers or recommend fish for my tank? Or indeed any unusual or interesting fish to consider. Plecs all seem to grow to monstrous size!

5) Roughly how many inches of fish are advisable. Different internet calculators have given me wildly different results!

 

[dthoffsett]

Well, I'll help you where I can.

Neon Tetras - in a shoal of about 10

Glowlight Tetras - a shoal of 6-12
I'd go with at least 12

Clow Loaches - After six months or so four
That sounds fine, not sure if they'd eat you neons though.

Kribensis - At least a pair but are more better?
If I remember right kribs can pretty much kill off an entire tank when they are breeding.

Bolivian Rams - At least a pair but are more better?
I'd start off with several until they pair off, and then remove the extras.

A small pair of Gourmais be they Honey or Dwarf Gouramis.
You could try the gouramis, but their long ventral fish may get nipped by the tetras.

Harlequin Rasbora - A shoal of 6-12
I'd also go with 12 of these.

A male siamese figher. Should I get a female or will there be trouble between them?
I wouldn't recommend a betta (male or female) with those other fish. A male would get all of his fins nipped off and get very stressed out. Females need to be in groups and can be very aggressive in their own right.

Some rummy nose Tetras
A school of 12 would be nice, however from an aesthetic point of view IMO they would look kind of odd with the smaller neons, glowlights, and rasboras, and sometimes too many different species in one tank can be distracting.

1) I would also like a type of fish that eats Algae, but that ultimately doesn't grow too large. Any suggestions for this tank?
You could go with some ottos they get around 3 inches, bristlenose plecos get around 5, and bulldog or rubberlip plecos get around the same.


3) Does Bogwood and Driftwood raise or lower tank PH? If it does this will a PH swing be caused by water changes? Does this depend on KH?
Large amounts of bogwood/driftwood can lower your PH over time, but if you keep up with regular water changes you probably won't notice a change.

4) Are there any other suitable bottom dwellers or recommend fish for my tank? Or indeed any unusual or interesting fish to consider. Plecs all seem to grow to monstrous size!
Well, I mentioned some plecos above, and you should always add 6 or more cories.

5) Roughly how many inches of fish are advisable. Different internet calculators have given me wildly different results!
By my calculations your tank is around 180US gallons. The general rule of thumb is 1" of adult fish per 1 gallon of water. However that only applys to slim bodied fish such as tetras. I'd wait for more posts for stocking levels as I've never kept a tank that large.

Hope I helped, and good luck.

 

[Iron Man]

If I'm correct, I've read Bolivian Rams aren't very hospitable to the neons. I could be incorrect.

Other than that, your selection in a 180 gallon tank sounds really beautiful, but I would leave out the glowlight tetras if I were getting the neons and replace that number with more neons.

Hope everything works out.

 

[mark7616]

Not trying to put you down but i cant really understand why you have such a nice big tank and want such a weird selection of fish you have scope there to have some really nice fish but you seem to be going for fish that you can keep in a 25g tank you are in the position to do what alot of people on here only dream of and you want to stock with such an odd selection for that tank size. Sorry wasnt trying to put you down just couldnt get my head around it in my opinion i wouldnt get a pair of rams and kribs you will have problems and a breeding pair of either will cause you dramas in the future.
Have you thought about housing mbuna cichlids you have a great tank size for this and your water is a great leval for these fish as the strive in water of 7.5-8.0ph there are such great colurs and choices. Also for your size tank you cold be looking at roughly 40 fish if you look at the types that grow to around 5".

 

[KingKenny]

Not trying to put you down but i cant really understand why you have such a nice big tank and want such a weird selection of fish you have scope there to have some really nice fish but you seem to be going for fish that you can keep in a 25g tank you are in the position to do what alot of people on here only dream of and you want to stock with such an odd selection for that tank size. Sorry wasnt trying to put you down just couldnt get my head around it in my opinion i wouldnt get a pair of rams and kribs you will have problems and a breeding pair of either will cause you dramas in the future.
Have you thought about housing mbuna cichlids you have a great tank size for this and your water is a great leval for these fish as the strive in water of 7.5-8.0ph there are such great colurs and choices. Also for your size tank you cold be looking at roughly 40 fish if you look at the types that grow to around 5".

It's something to consider I suppose. The reason for wishing to keep the above fish is from never really having had a good size setup to create a community tank. I like shoaling fish and to be honest don't know a great deal about Mbuna Cichlids. I've had a look at a few websites and seen a few pictures and they are great looking fish, but does anyone have a site where I can look at the various species?

 

[Nim]

If you like schooling fish the mbunas are probably not for you. However, you could investigate into Tanganyikans... have a breeding group of some brichardis, lelupies or shellies and a school of Cyprinochromis (slightly more expensive fish).

If you need to add a bit of colour then you can add things like Tiger barbs and rosy barbs in with tanganyikan cichlids but you cannot add these with malawi.. DO some reasearch on tangs.. they are cichlids with one of the most prominent personalities.

Apart from this, if I had that tank, I would probably keep a school of 50-60 cardinal tetras in there and a couple of pairs of Angels (start with small as large angels will eat small cardinals) and a school of 10-15 corydoras amidst a heavily planted tank.. if you have a secure lid and no jumping space then probably a small school of Hatchets or a school of Danios.

It all depends what kind of look do you want for the tank.. you have to decide that and then you can get some more precise suggestions.

Nim

 

[vrs999]

I say get millions of neons, 50+ atleast. 10 neons in a tank the size of yours will look lost. Got some Harlequins recently, they are lovely little fish too, infact pretty much agree with everything Nim has said above. Corydora's are lovely little fish. An obvious one is platies in some really interesting colours. You cant beat angels, great fun to watch

 

[dwarfgourami]

Well, KingKenny, if I had that tank, I would go for just that sort of fish, not mbuna (don't like them much), not big monsters, but big shoals of small South American fish- spectacular! But I would stick to a few species and have really big shoals. A massive school of neons. Or if you like bigger tetras, something like bleeding hearts would look good. Or black phantoms- not so colourful, but their behaviour is fun to watch.

And clown loaches for once would be in tank big enough for them. I don't personally know if they would eat your neons, but they wouldn't eat the bigger tetras.

If I did have gouramis, I would probably go for pearl gouramis instead of dwarfs- a little bigger, a little hardier. A trio at least, if not whole harem (1 male, lots of females). Though not if you get any of the real fin-nipping tetras.

Bristlenoses- again, you could have one male with maybe a couple of females. Or there are loricariids that don't grow quite as big as a common plec, but a bit bigger than the bristlies.

I would definitely pass on the bettas, they might struggle in a tank like this. Would also pass on the kribs, and maybe on the rams too, particularly if your water is hard.