Do People Think Im Mad?

[george4]

Hi I currently have a Rio 400 litre tank set up with the following

8" oscar
2 x 6" parrot fish
3 x 4" clown loach
1 x 12" common plec

I have had this set up for a few years and im kind of bored now and fancy a change. I am toying with the idea of taking the oscar and parrots back to fish shop in order to purchase :

10 x torpedo barb and approximately 100 cardinal tetra.

I really fancy some stunning shouling fish and I think this would fit the bill.

What to people think . Is this a waste of money? My big concern is that the fish will look too small for the size of the tank . What do you think ? Any better options ?

Thanks in Advance ..

 

[rob1284]

Hi I currently have a Rio 400 litre tank set up with the following

8" oscar
2 x 6" parrot fish
3 x 4" clown loach
1 x 12" common plec

I have had this set up for a few years and im kind of bored now and fancy a change. I am toying with the idea of taking the oscar and parrots back to fish shop in order to purchase :

10 x torpedo barb and approximately 100 cardinal tetra.

I really fancy some stunning shouling fish and I think this would fit the bill.

What to people think . Is this a waste of money? My big concern is that the fish will look too small for the size of the tank . What do you think ? Any better options ?

Thanks in Advance ..

That many cardinals would look amazing imo. maybe mixing them with the glow ones too

 

[micko]

I'd be more interested in increasing the number of clown loach as its suggested they be in groups of 6 minimum.

 

[george4]

Thank you for replys, yes this would enable me to increase clown loach numbers too. What do people think about torpedo barb . I hear very mixed comments , some say easy to keep , some say hard. I dont want to lay out 100 pounds to find them dead if my temperature raises a degree or two lol Also how quickly do they reach their full size of 6" ?

Does anyone have a torpedo / cardinal combination ? Pictures would be great


Many thanks

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I have had this set up for a few years and im kind of bored now and fancy a change. I am toying with the idea of taking the oscar and parrots back to fish shop in order to purchase :

10 x torpedo barb and approximately 100 cardinal tetra.

Though a rio400 is a large tank having that many Cardinal Tetra's would cause too much of a strain on the bioload and create over crowding. I would personally have no more than 30-40 Cardinals and 8 Torpedo Barbs. Torpedo Barbs are skittish fish and so do best in tanks situated in a quiet calm area of the house and the tank has some good planting in it and a background.

Personally i think you would get quite bored of Cardinals if you just had them and the barbs. As a shoaling fish they look very pretty but don't have a lot of personality- as shoaling fish, the best ones i've ever kept are Golden Barbs.

Golden Barbs are often over-looked in pet shops as when stressed they do not appear that gold, but when settled in a good habitat their golden colours come out loads (they truly are golden fish) and they all have individual markings/patterns which are unique to each fish. In terms of personality they are intelligent fish which despite being a shoaling fish are confident around people and like to interact with people, coming to the front of the tank to greet you etc. They also have very good activity levels and are very active inquisitive fish and so would suit Torpedo Barbs very well. They grow quite large (and are quite deep bodied)- 8-10 golden barbs would fill the shoaling spaces of a rio400 very well (i used to keep my 8 golden barbs in a rio400 up until quite recently) .

But either way, i would personally keep the Common Pleco as a bottom dwelling fish whichever fish stocking you decide to go for (and probably keep some sociable bottom dwelling loaches in the tank too like Yoyo Loaches or the Clown loaches) .

 

[kevinjames]

have to agree with above really. denisonii barbs are the most skittish fish ive ever owned and have even lost one once when vacuming near tank and it killing itself when it became startled. i just rehomed mine because i got a bit bored of them tbh. as for ease of keeping them id say they were no harder to keep than 90% of tropicals.

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Sometimes people do feel that a big tank equals big fish, but i dobt fin this the case, smaller fish in a big tank can make for a much more interesting tank, with them all going about their business.

I have a rio 300 and probably wouldnt have more than 30 or so cardinals, so in the 400 you would be better off with say 50, otherwise they wont tend to swim much as they will feel secure due to the fact there is so many, with a lesser schoal like 50, they will still have space to move around

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

I can definitely empathesize with the desire for change! During the course of last year, I ended up with a mix of riverine fish and oddballs, mainly from Asia and Africa. However, over the course of the last six months I've become increasingly fascinated with African river species and would love to concentrate on them in my 5-footer. By then moving fish out of my 130l, I could then do a miniture Tangiyikan theme in my 620T. But that means trying to find new homes for...

• 3 species of Barilius (canarensis; dogarsinghi; hukaungensis)
• Redline Torpedo Barbs
• Panda Garra
• A group of eight Weather Loaches

Redline Torpedo Barbs seem to vary enormously in price, in the last twelve months I've seen 5cm specimens vary locally from £5 (Aquajradin had ~200 at this price) to £30 (Copnor Tropicals, but then they overprice all their fish) each! My group of six have given my no health scares whatsoever, when I acclimitised them to my Rio240 and later moved them to my 560l, I drip acclimitised them over the course of ~3 hours because of their sensitivity to water changes. Lovely looking fish (especially in a group like you are talking about), but mine seem to be quite slow growers, roughly doubling to 10cm in a year.

One of the biggest points of contraversy with Puntius denisonii is what temperature is suitable for them, as many online profiles talk of 15-25C ranges. For wild caught specimens, I personally think keeping them at a constant temp above 20C is a bad idea, as they naturally come from water that is cool most of the year. A "summer season" of warm water approaching 25C would be fine, but keeping their metabolic rate so high all year round will drastically shorten their lifespan, so I would personally not consider Clown Loaches (who need 25C + I believe) or Cardinal Tetras suitable tankmates. Tank bred specimens may be more tolerant of regular temps in the mid-20s, must admit I found my ones constantly lost their red stripe whenever I tried to slowly reduce the temp below 22C.

The Golden Barbs suggested by Tokis-Phoenix, however, have similar temperature needs and will enjoy the water flow needs of the Torpedos too. Other fish that spring to mind are Danios; Odessa Barbs; Black Ruby Barbs; Weather Loaches; Barilius; Shiners; Garra; "hillstream loaches"; Bearded Corydoras etc.