Getting my tanks in order! (I wanna hear your thoughts on my stocking and ideas)

[OliveFish05]

Hi! I have been thinking very hard lately about my tanks. I can only have two tanks, so I really want to like get the most of out them. Not fit the most fish in each one, I mean I want to LOVE the stocking of both my tanks. I want to really be enjoying my tanks (not that I'm not enjoying them now, I just feel like i need to reassess what's actually working and what I really want). I really love axolotls, guppies, shrimp, and pygmy cories hastatus.

Question 1
Through looking on SeriouslyFish (which I know is very commonly regarded as a reputable source here at TFF), it looks like the GH for Guppies and Cory Hastatus overlap! Guppies are 143-536 ppm, cory hastatus are 36-215 ppm. From what I can tell from other sources, cherry shrimp do well between 100 and 200 ppm. It sounds like all of them do well between the temps of 76 and 78. If I kept the hardness around 150 ppm, could I keep the guppies, shrimp and cories together?

My Plans

Tank 1 -
I am thinking a 55 (48x13x21), hand made 3d background. A little over half filled (30 gallons), sponge filters for filtration. Temp to stay around 64-68. Well planted with amazon swords, a water lily, some floating plants, pennywort, dwarf sag or something. Sand substrate, rock caves. Stocked with 1 or 2 axolotls. I figure I could get one or two dozen feeder rosy red minnows from my LFS, if they get eaten, that's what they were for, if they get along then great!


Tank 2
Not sure on tank size! Hand made 3d background. AquaClear 50 for filtration, temp around 76-78. Well planted with Amazon sword, pennywort, ludwigia, water sprite, water wisteria, italian vals, tiger lotus, floating plants. Sand substrate, manzanita driftwood branch, some indian almond leaves. Stock would be 2 pygmy cory hastatus (I already have them, I am hoping they breed), loads of cherry shrimp, and maybe 8 to 12 guppies.

My Questions

1. With the tank being very very very well planted, would the cory fry, guppy fry, and baby shrimps be likely to survive? @AdoraBelle Dearheart I know you have a few guppies in your pygmy cory tank and they did well right?

2. What tank size would work best for the stocking of tank 2? I was thinking a 20 long?

3. Do these sound like reasonable stockings that will allow my tanks and their inhabitants to thrive? (me doing my part in water changes, feeding, and maintenance of course)

4. Does anyone have any thoughts they'd like to share?

 

[Avel1896]

Be carefull Axolotl eat worms, insects, small fish like mini Cories, and just about anything else that can fit inside their mouth and swallow whole, including other axolotl..... better alone.

could I keep the guppies, shrimp and cories together?

Guppies and other livebearers want pH 7.5 to 8 and GH KH 15 to 30 definitely not suitable for Corydoras hastatus, not much with cherry shrimps.

With the tank being very very very well planted, would the cory fry, guppy fry, and baby shrimps

Not together.

Do these sound like reasonable stockings that will allow my tanks and their inhabitants to thrive?

Unfortunately, no.

 

[OliveFish05]

Be carefull Axolotl eat worms, insects, small fish like mini Cories, and just about anything else that can fit inside their mouth and swallow whole, including other axolotl..... better alone.

Oh I don’t plan to keep the Cories with the axolotl! I plan to put some feeder fish in with the axolotl. And (if I decided to do 2 axolotls) I would keep the axolotls separate until they were both 6 inches or larger, which is when they stop being so much of a threat to eat eachother.

Guppies and other livebearers want pH 7.5 to 8 and GH KH 15 to 30 definitely not suitable for Corydoras hastatus, not much with cherry shrimps.

Not together.

What, then, is the ideal GH, Kh, and PH range for the Cory hastatus?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

1. With the tank being very very very well planted, would the cory fry, guppy fry, and baby shrimps be likely to survive? @AdoraBelle Dearheart I know you have a few guppies in your pygmy cory tank and they did well right?

Both of those tanks sound stunning! I hope you have or will have a journal thread so we can follow the whole process! I can't help with axolotls I'm afraid, I know nothing about their care. I couldn't even spell their name without looking it up...

I do have a tank with male guppies, corydoras pygmaeus breeding like bunnies, and otos in it, and it seems to be working, you've seen my thread Ideally, I would have preferred to keep the tank at a softer GH for the cories and otos, but tank space and having a single, lonely pygmy for months made me desperate to add some more fish of some sort, so he'd at least have some kind of company! The otos alone weren't cutting it, and he seemed 'depressed'. When I also found that their GH and temp preferences could overlap, I went for it, gradually adjusting the GH to around 150ppm. That's on the lower end of the GH range for guppies, and I'd prefer on the whole to keep species comfortably in the middle of their range - but it is still within range, and Seriously Fish is a trusted, respected resource, so why not?

I can't assure you that the guppies in particular will thrive and breed well at this GH, since I only have a few males in there, and they're a mix of elderly and some disabled fish, that have retired to live out their lives with me. The three young, healthy males I've kept haven't shown any outward ill effects so far. My other tanks from breeding guppies, and my current cherry shrimp tank have a GH of 253ppm.

I think cherry shrimp, given their generally recommended range would likely be fine and breed, if the tank is established and they're given enough cover for shrimplets to hide! Thinking of adding some to my pygmy tank too. I've even heard that they can be helpful with breeding cories, that they will eat the fungus from fungused eggs, thus helping reduce it spreading to healthy eggs, while leaving the healthy eggs alone. Some cory breeders put them in with their eggs and fry, specifically for this purpose and as clean up crew.

I have a shrimp colony in a different tank that used to have female guppies and fry. Right now, there is a greedy black molly female in with them who was clearing up some suspected planeria, and has hunted some shrimplets... but there's enough plant cover and dragonstone that there are still enough shrimplets surviving to keep the colony going, and the adults aren't at risk. So yes, you'll likely still have guppy fry and shrimplets surviving, but some will almost certainly be eaten by any fish you keep with them. If it's a brand new colony of shrimp, best to give them some time to really get their numbers up and add a lot of hiding spots and plants, before adding fish like guppies. If you want to keep as many alive as possible, or want to breed for sale, better to keep shrimp without fish, and raise guppy fry in a separate tank from the adults.

Personally, If I were putting together dwarf cories, shrimp and guppies, hoping to have them all colony breeding (and since I'm not breeding for profit, just want to enjoy my colony tanks) I would start with the cories. You say you want to get them breeding and established... are you sure your two are a male and female? While they can breed in pairs, cories are group spawners generally, and dwarf cories especially thrive in large groups of 12 plus -so I would get at least 4-6 more to try to get the colony started.

Most places recommend having several males per female - but obviously that's not always easy to select for, especially since it can hard to sex them when they're still juveniles in the store. Pre-spawning behaviour tends to start with several males chasing a female, hoping to be chosen to fertilise her eggs. This behaviour seems to help persuade the females to spawn. I have no idea the male/female ratio in the seven pygmies I started with, but I've also had bronzes spawn in a group of 2 males and 2 females, so I think it can work even if females outnumber males. But having a group of at least 6-8 will give you a better shot of a decent ratio, and getting them started and breeding! The two you have will also really appreciate having a larger group, they're a highly social species.

Once they were breeding, or in a large enough group, I'd add the shrimp. They need stable water parameters, so the tank should be pretty stable by the time you have loads of plants, and a group of corydoras hastatus hopefully breeding in there! Use lots of botanicals like IAL, alder cones, cholla wood etc. They provide both ground cover hiding spots, and biofilm and micro-organisms that both the cory fry and shrimp appreciate. Will give both a better chance of survival. The dwarf cories have tiny mouths, so only the smallest shrimplets would be at risk from the cories, and they're ninjas when it comes to hiding away while tiny, and leaping to safety when something is after them.

I'd wait until the cherry shrimp had been breeding for a while and had a lot of them, before adding any guppies (and shrimp can take a while before deciding to breed - again, starting with a larger group helps. I started with only five or so shrimp at a time, being cheap, and it took five months before I saw a berried female. I'm sure if I'd started with 20 odd, they'd have been producing shrimplets sooner!).

The cories and shrimp don't pose a risk to the guppies, and heavy planting/ground cover, as said, will give tiny cory and shrimplets the best chances of survival.

This reply is getting insanely long! So going to post now, and make a different response with the potential pitfalls I see, based on my own experiences.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

The three biggest problems I foresee with tank two are overfeeding, maintenance, and overstocking - and I can't see a way to avoid the guppy problem if you really want to breed them either...

Feeding - you need to feed enough tiny food for the dwarf cories, and potentially their fry. Guppies are greedy, so it's easy to overfeed the tank, trying to make sure there's enough for everyone. Well fed guppies are inclined to be lazy and less inclined to go hunting after tiny, fast foodstuffs in the tank, like cory fry and shrimplets, however, so that's a plus. But that also means an increased need to do W/C's and cleaning of the substrate, and believe me, it's impossible to clean the substrate with a gravel vac and avoid sucking up shrimplets and cory fry.

So you need to use buckets for water changes, and carefully go through those buckets to rescue any tiny babies in there. Newly born(?) hatched(?) shrimplets are almost totally transparent, and newly hatched dwarf cory fry are so tiny, they're like insects. They also blend perfectly into the detritus at the bottom of the bucket, and you'll have a lot of that from all the feeding, plants and from botanicals like almond leaves breaking down.

I seriously cannot emphasis enough how tiny and perfectly camoflaged they are;

Credit to this youtube channel channel for the pic

And that dark head marking isn't so obvious on the first day of hatching either, so can't rely on that for help.

@Essjay can testify to the hassle of sorting through buckets jug by jug, to avoid throwing out shrimplets! I find pygmy fry even harder to spot. Needs good eyesight, a good light, and a great deal of patience.

Now, breeding guppies - I wouldn't recommend it, if you can't have more than two tanks, and the other has axolotls in it. Guppies will produce more fry than the tank can handle, even if you only started with a male/female pair. One female churning out an average of 20-40 fry every month, with those fry being able to breed themselves at about three months of age... it will get out of hand very quickly, and with no other tank to put them in or separate by sex, you're in trouble.

Do you plan to use the fry as feeders for the axolotls?

You can't rely on the adult guppies to keep the fry numbers in check. Not all adults eat fry, and since you'll be feeding the tank in a way to keep the cory fry and shrimp fed, and will have it well planted - most of the guppy fry will survive. Then the tank will be overstocked within three -six months.

So I'd stick to males only there, either guppies or endlers.

 

[OliveFish05]

Both of those tanks sound stunning! I hope you have or will have a journal thread so we can follow the whole process! I can't help with axolotls I'm afraid, I know nothing about their care. I couldn't even spell their name without looking it up...

Thanks! I definitely would do a build thread and journal for both tanks!

I do have a tank with male guppies, corydoras pygmaeus breeding like bunnies, and otos in it, and it seems to be working, you've seen my thread Ideally, I would have preferred to keep the tank at a softer GH for the cories and otos, but tank space and having a single, lonely pygmy for months made me desperate to add some more fish of some sort, so he'd at least have some kind of company! The otos alone weren't cutting it, and he seemed 'depressed'. When I also found that their GH and temp preferences could overlap, I went for it, gradually adjusting the GH to around 150ppm. That's on the lower end of the GH range for guppies, and I'd prefer on the whole to keep species comfortably in the middle of their range - but it is still within range, and Seriously Fish is a trusted, respected resource, so why not?

That was what I figured. Seriously Fish seems to be a very reputable source, and 150 doesn't seem to be at the extreme of either species. Sure it is closer to the low end or the higher end, but not it is a reasonable amount within their range.

I think cherry shrimp, given their generally recommended range would likely be fine and breed, if the tank is established and they're given enough cover for shrimplets to hide! Thinking of adding some to my pygmy tank too. I've even heard that they can be helpful with breeding cories, that they will eat the fungus from fungused eggs, thus helping reduce it spreading to healthy eggs, while leaving the healthy eggs alone. Some cory breeders put them in with their eggs and fry, specifically for this purpose and as clean up crew.

I have heard that! I figured lots and lots of hiding places and a variety of plants and natural hideouts.

I have a shrimp colony in a different tank that used to have female guppies and fry. Right now, there is a greedy black molly female in with them who was clearing up some suspected planeria, and has hunted some shrimplets... but there's enough plant cover and dragonstone that there are still enough shrimplets surviving to keep the colony going, and the adults aren't at risk. So yes, you'll likely still have guppy fry and shrimplets surviving, but some will almost certainly be eaten by any fish you keep with them. If it's a brand new colony of shrimp, best to give them some time to really get their numbers up and add a lot of hiding spots and plants, before adding fish like guppies. If you want to keep as many alive as possible, or want to breed for sale, better to keep shrimp without fish, and raise guppy fry in a separate tank from the adults.

Ah ok. I do not plan to breed for profit, the cories and shrimp really just so there is a decent number, and guppies I will likely thin out to all males over time.

Personally, If I were putting together dwarf cories, shrimp and guppies, hoping to have them all colony breeding (and since I'm not breeding for profit, just want to enjoy my colony tanks) I would start with the cories. You say you want to get them breeding and established... are you sure your two are a male and female? While they can breed in pairs, cories are group spawners generally, and dwarf cories especially thrive in large groups of 12 plus -so I would get at least 4-6 more to try to get the colony started.

Sooooo it is kinda a long story, but here is the simplest version. When I was a new fishkeeper I got 3 cory hastatus, not knowing they needed a larger group. As I learned more I moved them to a well planted 10 gallon all to themselves and they had over 40 fry! I was pretty sure I had a male and 2 females. None of the fry made it to very big (my tank just wasn't setup with babies in mind, I think I didn't keep it clean enough), and eventually I decided to move the cories over to my 55 gallon tank where they've been for a few months. One died a few days ago (I don't know what happened, all parameters were fine, nothing visibly wrong), so I only have two left now. I think it was one of the females that died though, and am hoping to get them setup and maybe get a few fry. I saved up over $50 to buy more if I could find them anywhere, but nobody here sells them anymore! That is one of the reasons I am hoping for fry again, I want a nice school of them because they are my favorite!

Once they were breeding, or in a large enough group, I'd add the shrimp. They need stable water parameters, so the tank should be pretty stable by the time you have loads of plants, and a group of corydoras hastatus hopefully breeding in there! Use lots of botanicals like IAL, alder cones, cholla wood etc. They provide both ground cover hiding spots, and biofilm and micro-organisms that both the cory fry and shrimp appreciate. Will give both a better chance of survival. The dwarf cories have tiny mouths, so only the smallest shrimplets would be at risk from the cories, and they're ninjas when it comes to hiding away while tiny, and leaping to safety when something is after

I plan to have tons of plants, dragonstone, driftwood, indian almond leaves, and I can definitely do cholla wood and alder cones too!

I'd wait until the cherry shrimp had been breeding for a while and had a lot of them, before adding any guppies (and shrimp can take a while before deciding to breed - again, starting with a larger group helps. I started with only five or so shrimp at a time, being cheap, and it took five months before I saw a berried female. I'm sure if I'd started with 20 odd, they'd have been producing shrimplets sooner!).

I plan to buy a pack of 20 cherry shrimp from a seller on AquaBid. With the guppies, would it make any difference as to when I could add them if i started with fry?

 

[OliveFish05]

Feeding - you need to feed enough tiny food for the dwarf cories, and potentially their fry. Guppies are greedy, so it's easy to overfeed the tank, trying to make sure there's enough for everyone. Well fed guppies are inclined to be lazy and less inclined to go hunting after tiny, fast foodstuffs in the tank, like cory fry and shrimplets, however, so that's a plus. But that also means an increased need to do W/C's and cleaning of the substrate, and believe me, it's impossible to clean the substrate with a gravel vac and avoid sucking up shrimplets and cory fry.

So you need to use buckets for water changes, and carefully go through those buckets to rescue any tiny babies in there. Newly born(?) hatched(?) shrimplets are almost totally transparent, and newly hatched dwarf cory fry are so tiny, they're like insects. They also blend perfectly into the detritus at the bottom of the bucket, and you'll have a lot of that from all the feeding, plants and from botanicals like almond leaves breaking down.

Ah ok. I have these clear jugs that I would hold up to the light, and I could see the pygmy cory in there. The only time I ever sucked one up was one who was clearly deformed slightly. He didn't swim right, and it wasn't because he had been sucked up.

Now, breeding guppies - I wouldn't recommend it, if you can't have more than two tanks, and the other has axolotls in it. Guppies will produce more fry than the tank can handle, even if you only started with a male/female pair. One female churning out an average of 20-40 fry every month, with those fry being able to breed themselves at about three months of age... it will get out of hand very quickly, and with no other tank to put them in or separate by sex, you're in trouble.

Do you plan to use the fry as feeders for the axolotls?

You can't rely on the adult guppies to keep the fry numbers in check. Not all adults eat fry, and since you'll be feeding the tank in a way to keep the cory fry and shrimp fed, and will have it well planted - most of the guppy fry will survive. Then the tank will be overstocked within three -six months.

So I'd stick to males only there, either guppies or endlers.

My LFS will take the guppy fry. Their guppies always sell the fastest! They sometimes offer store credit too, depending on how nice looking and how healthy the fish are.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

My LFS will take the guppy fry. Their guppies always sell the fastest! They sometimes offer store credit too, depending on how nice looking and how healthy the fish are.

While it's good that you have somewhere that will take the offspring, remember that you still have to raise them to a good size (3-4 months old) before most stores will take them. They want to be able to sell them immediately (or after a short quarantine), not to have to feed and raise tiny fry, since that takes up their tank space and costs them money and time to raise them).

If you want around 12 adult guppies in a 20 gallon, how many of those do you plan to be females? Bearing in mind that females need to outnumber males.

 

[OliveFish05]

While it's good that you have somewhere that will take the offspring, remember that you still have to raise them to a good size (3-4 months old) before most stores will take them. They want to be able to sell them immediately (or after a short quarantine), not to have to feed and raise tiny fry, since that takes up their tank space and costs them money and time to raise them).

Thinking about it now, I will probably try to start off with 12 fry, and try to keep two trios. I Will think about it overnight, and maybe my mom will let me put a third tank somewhere for growing out guppies. I will talk to her about it and may decide to skip guppies for now

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Thinking about it now, I will probably try to start off with 12 fry, and try to keep two trios. I Will think about it overnight, and maybe my mom will let me put a third tank somewhere for growing out guppies. I will talk to her about it and may decide to skip guppies for now

Definitely wise to think on it! But there's nothing wrong with having the idea, considering it and getting advice. That's doing exactly the right thing, rather than rushing in head first and buying fish, then regretting it later! You're being smart about it.

Just remember that the total number of guppies grows exponentially... Say you have one female, and she's producing around 20 fry every month. Going with a conservative estimate here as well, just to illustrate the example. 30-40 fry isn't unusual, and batches of 200 have even been recorded. So your one adult female had 20 fry, and you have to raise that many fry to pretty much adult size before the store will take them, in that same tank. If it's a 20 gallon, it can handle that many guppies. But while that first batch was growing up, she's had three more batches of 20 fry - so you now have 80 guppies of varying ages in there, not even counting the adults you started with. You're already overstocked, and desperately trying to catch the first batch of fry to take to the store before those female offspring begin popping out batches of fry! They can start breeding at around three months of age after all.

Now work out the numbers if you start off with three or more adult females... it gets out of hand very fast! Especially since you have a lot of plant cover and you're feeding heavily for the cories and shrimp, so most of the guppy fry will be able to evade the adults and most will survive.

Also consider that with 80 guppies in there, the cory fry and shrimplets stand much less chance of avoiding being eaten, and the cories may even feel threatened enough to stop spawning.

Guppies are also called "The million fish" for a reason I'm afraid! Male only tanks can be beautiful, and you can always breed guppies at a later date. It's certainly much easier when you can separate males from females, and fry into separate tanks. Watch a few youtube videos on guppy breeding, and you'll see whole rack systems set up and lots of tanks! Especially if you want to line breed and select for certain colours and fin shapes.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Oh oh oh! Also think about whether you might want to keep a different species other than livebearers in there! Aquarium Co op has many videos about breeding tanks colony style, and different species that can work together in nano tanks (I personally consider nano tanks to be 20 gallons or less).

I have a yen to have a small softer water species like CPD's, kubotai rasbora, chili rasbora - not sure which yet, but some midwater nano fish species like that with my pygmies once the guppies pass on, or I move them to another tank. That might not work out, but looking into it, researching it, and may try it with the knowledge that the cory fry might not make it, and I'd need to move the new species out and keep that tank pygmies and otos only if I want to keep breeding them. Also means I don't need to compromise on the GH and can make the water softer again, and consider caridina shrimp instead of cherries. Lots of options out there, and you have a lifetime to keep all the different species on your dream list. So no need to keep them all at once

 

[Avel1896]

Oh I don’t plan to keep the Cories with the axolotl! I plan to put some feeder fish in with the axolotl. And (if I decided to do 2 axolotls) I would keep the axolotls separate until they were both 6 inches or larger, which is when they stop being so much of a threat to eat eachother

Keep in mind they won't hesitate to eat each other !
Best parameters for Corydoras hastatus :
pH 6 to 7
GH KH below 9
Very fine sand
Spider roots, mopani roots
Densely planted including floatings
Temp. 25°C/77°F

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Axies do not mature til they are around 12 months old and its only then that you will be able to sex them. Not a good plan to have two unsexed Axies together......they regenerate limbs etc but having them fight and bite each other's legs or feet off is not a good way to keep them, and they do get very tetchy and territorial. They are most active at night, no artificial lighting or heating whatsoever. Nothing that is smaller than their head in the aquarium cos they will eat it...or try to....and if they eat it, they get a blockage and you then need to place them into a sandwich box of water in the fridge for a week to slow their metabolism right down so they can pass the offending item....not always successful but the only way to unblock them internally.

Do not...PLEASE...do not place any fish in the same aquarium as an Axie...resist that urge from the get-go.

And as I stated in another thread, please ensure you have a well fitting lid on the Axie aquarium. They have lungs as well as gill feathers. They come up for air to exercise their lungs quite a lot and can be very forceful...my lad would often headbutt the lid right off the top when he misjudged things or got excited at meal times. So lid on and secure it.

 

[OliveFish05]

Ok, so I will wait on a second axie then. The tank he is going into is 55 gallons and will be half filled so there is about a foot between the water and the top of the tank, plus about half the surface of the water will have floating plants. How high are they capable of jumping? A lot of things I read seemed to suggest that a 3 or 4 inch axie shouldn't be able to jump out of even a half filled 20 long.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Ok, so I will wait on a second axie then. The tank he is going into is 55 gallons and will be half filled so there is about a foot between the water and the top of the tank, plus about half the surface of the water will have floating plants. How high are they capable of jumping? A lot of things I read seemed to suggest that a 3 or 4 inch axie shouldn't be able to jump out of even a half filled 20 long.

He or she will grow quite quickly, mine went from 4 inches to 12 inches in around 6 months...eventually stopped growing at a year old

Deeper water is ideal as they are prolific swimmers and it wears them out (which is a real benefit at night when you keep hearing splashes from their aquarium.) One thing I learnt is never underestimate your Axie....