Fish Suggestions?

[waterdrop]

Thanks Bob! Was thinking it was something like that but couldn't remember.

Was very interested recently to realize my assumption that Honey's were color variations off of Dwarves was dead wrong and that they are in with the big Blues and others. Makes it even more interesting that they are small and much less aggressive than the other gouramis...

Its funny, I tend to put the Golds, Blues, Opalines and Kissings all in the "most aggressive" category.
Then the Pearls and Dwarves are in a category below that but somewhat unpredictable.
And now the Honeys occupy the bottom, least aggressive category, a little below Dwarves, in my mind.
Of course a lot probably depends on ones personal experience and that can vary greatly with the factors of how many individuals you had in together and the individual personalities of your particular fish, so makes all our generalizations less reliable I guess...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[arobinson1984]

Yes honey gouramis are a good choice as they dont tend to get too big and they aren't in the same 'group' as the dwarf gouramis which seem to be notorious for dying at fairly young ages

Andy

 

[Bobtastic]

Of course a lot probably depends on ones personal experience and that can vary greatly with the factors of how many individuals you had in together and the individual personalities of your particular fish, so makes all our generalizations less reliable I guess...

~~waterdrop~~

Yeah, there are lots of factors that can vary greatly, from tank size to water type to tank mates and not forgetting the unpredictability of fish personality.

All I have to do is convince the misses that they are the right choice. She really had her heart set on Angelfish but I'm not convinced that the tank is deep enough... Maybe we could be both and re-home to angels if they get too big. Might be a good excuse to get a 400litre tank.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Bob,

This is the same tank that's 40cm high (15.7 inches) right? And I believe it works out to 30 US Gallons (for us USA thinking handicapped ), right?

I'm not at all convinced you wouldn't be ok with a nice pair of angels. Am I getting the correct impression that you are the primary hobbyist but that either she's enjoying the hobby right along with you or is semi-interested enough to know she likes angels? When the missus expresses a desire, its not a good thing to not make it happen, lol.

The little dividing lines we choose here on the forum tend to settle into short, easy, simplistic little formulas so that we can remember them and keep some accuracy when repeatedly retelling them to newcomers. But they rarely have started out long ago as being such a sharp dividing line. It's hard to see that 16" tank height is somehow suddenly worse than 17" and that its time to forget about angels.

Really I think your idea is perfect that perhaps the final maturing of your two angels, perhaps several years from now might encourage the two of you to finally put that bigger tank together. And even better, you will have had all this time to perfect the plans for it! Because its a 30g I just think there will be enough space for a young pair of angels to glide around and be happy in.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[WhiteDevil]

I got cories, and angels, and kuhlis, and neons, and guppies together, Its the perfect community, My angels dont even notice the neons in the tank.

 

[Bobtastic]

Wicked thank for that pep-talk ~wd~. I guess most things with fish keeping is trial and error.

I personnally really like Angels too, and if I can trade them off against either a pair of Honey Gourami or Boliv/GB Rams then it's a win win!

 

[Bobtastic]

Added 4 Albino Cory catfish on friday night, and they are mental! Right from the off they were flying round all over the tank and they pretty much haven't stopped!

Added another female Platy as it appears that one of the orange/yellow micky mouse ones that I thought were both female is a male... So we now have 2 males and 2 females, hopefully they shall be happy with that split.

 

[arobinson1984]

Yep, the albino corys are fun to watch. Most cory's tend to stay in one place on the tank bottom for long periods of time, but not the albinos, they are mental lol

Andy

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, corys are fun!

I really think platies are not too big a deal to figure out with respect to optimal numbers since they are a generally easy-going fish. But I guess what I'd do, since you'll be observing them for pleasure anyway, is to watch them closely and see if the individual personalities seem to just work out with the 4 number, but consider getting one more female to make it five total if there seems to be too much male harassment of either the females or of the males towards each othter. I would think the one additional female would be the way to solve that if it were to be observed.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Bobtastic]

Well the reason that we got an extra female is cos the larger Micky Mouse platy seems to chase off the smaller Calico Blue male if he strays too close to the Micky Mouse female. Hopefully they all should mix together better now.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, its really down to your own observation. When I recommend two females per one male for platies, its not from my own careful experience, its just repeating advice I've seen on here from experienced members. I did have many platies over many years, but that was back years ago when I was not nearly so careful an observer!

The part I find interesting is that TFF seems to be a big help for people like me (and yourself I'm guessing) because the very few out there who have had an unusually large amount of experience with some small aspect of a topic and post about it and then others like us can refine our observations and feed them back in to the forum and eventually we all get a sense of a new bit of guideline material for ourselves. Its still very slow to muddle towards the larger truths but it sure is one heck of a lot better than just having yourself and maybe a book and your one lonely LFS as we did years ago, lol.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Bobtastic]

Oh yeah, I'm thankful that I found TFF. It has given me a lot better understanding of the hobby as a whole. It makes me wonder how ppl learnt about these sorts of things b4 the internet... I mean... they'd have to leave their homes and places of work and go to... Libraries! *cold shiver*