Fish for new tank

[Squirrelbuddies]

So, I'm patiently waiting (not an easy thing for me) for my 55 gallon to cycle (fishless). With all this time available it's making it more difficult to chose my little tank buddies. (So many choices!)

I was originally thinking mollies, platys and swordtails -- but may just keep mollies in the current 20 gallon and go for something a little bigger for the 55 gal tank-- something which wouldn't get bigger than 4 inches or so. And oh, yes, would like them to be peaceful. I have a pleco who will be going in the big tank, too - he's only 2 inches right now.

Tapwater PH is just over 8.0 . Any suggestions??

 

[WILDER]

A shoal of these my favourites.
http/species.fishindex.com/species_1794p...ongo_tetra.html

 

[Squirrelbuddies]

They are beautiful! What is the minimum number to keep? Do you think they would be ok with 8.0 PH?

Any other suggestions?

 

[sylvia]

GOURAMIES!!!

You said peaceful right? And big? And any gouramies bought from your area (similar water) should be fine...

I reccomend pearls - absolutely beautiful fish! Or you can try moonlights. There's many others like colisa fasciata and colisa labiosa too. Last, there's three-spots (including their color morphs - cosby, opaline, gold, blue, lavender, etc).

With the first 4 species I mentioned, you could probably keep around 5 (due to size mostly - the colisa species are smaller so you could theoreticaly manage more but keep the numbers low as it IS a community and you'll want room for other fish ) of them (1-2 males and the rest females) without any problems in your large community. The three-spots could be trickier - as long as you only get one male though, it should be ok in a 55 gallon . You can mix some of these species but I would stick to just one as gouramies can be temperamental with each other.

 

[Squirrelbuddies]

Wow, I just checked out pix of the pearl gouramis and they are indeed beautiful!!! So I could get 5 of these....what else for tank mates??

 

[Squirrelbuddies]

So, any ideas what to add with the pearl gouramis? I checked them out at the lfs today and I think this is what I want. Lfs, though, wasn't very helpful when I asked what I could keep with them. Their only recommendation was a red tail shark....

 

[Fishy411]

Neon Dwarf Gouramis are awesome

 

[StarOrbs]

Sylvia is addicted to pearl gouramis. She suggests them in very thread and they really are pretty fish my mom has two of them.

 

[Vip]

2 firemouths and 2 blue acaras, couple of catfish and about 3 silver dollars