Help Me To Decide What To Do With Large Tank

[demonmagus]

Hi, basically I maybe getting a 6ft by 2ft by 2ft tank.

atm I am completely torn between 2 'options'

number 1: high brackish set up with 3 shark cats, an archerfish (love that), monos and scats. Estuary biotope basically

number 2: low tech planted set up with south american whitewater set up

http/fish.mongabay.com/biotope_whitewater_amazon.htm

so angels, maybe an oscar, severums, stuff like that

unfourtunately, this will probably be the only large tank I get, so that may be an important factor, I just want to know what you would do in my situation.

Please help me otherwise the stress will make my arterys burst

thanks

 

[killifish1]

id personally go with brakish but its up to you
also if u had brakish id get puffer fish

 

[Miss Wiggle]

well I'd be wary about putting an Oscar in with angels, don't even know how they'd cope with severum's to be honest. You say this will be your only large tank, well what are you counting as small then? As you could have angels or do a biotope in a smaller tank then have the big as brakish.

Also what other tanks have you got/are planning? I always think it's nice to have a good variety across your tanks, so maybe go with whatever is least similar to what you already have.

 

[demonmagus]

that is what I ws thinking, about the big/small business, I can easily do angels in a smaller tank, 55g for example, but I could have a lot more in the bigger tank


atm I have a hi tech planted tank which I will start soon, this is 30 gallons


I could do cichlids as well. If only I was decisive . Damn!

 

[CFC]

One thing i will warn you about brackish is that it is very very limiting. If you are happy with just stocking the tank with your chosen species and then leaving it pretty much unchanged for the next 10 years its great, but if you enjoy finding new fish and adding them to your tank then forget brackish because it just doesnt happen.

Your basic brackish fish that you can find for a larger community set up are

Mono's (sebae and argenteus)
Scats (green and red)
shark cats
archers
moray eels
a few gobies
nandus
silver datnoids (tiger fish)
some puffers

occasionally the odd different fish will turn up but for the most part that is what you will be stuck with until you make the tank not brackish.

 

[demonmagus]

I would be limited in the angel set up as well because I'm making a biotope

edit: spelling

 

[CFC]

Yes, but if you after a while decide that an angel biotope isnt for you there is the option to add other compatable freshwater fish, with brackish you are limited only to the ones that can live in salted water, also you often cant even take brackish fish back to shops because they have no actually brackish tanks to put them into.

 

[CAC]

I though you were into oddballs demonmagus, as well as the others youve stated?
You could get some nice bichirs and eels etc.

If you want one of the two though, id go cichlids, mainly cos of water/salt costs

Mikey

 

[Mako Man111]

I though you were into oddballs demonmagus, as well as the others youve stated?
You could get some nice bichirs and eels etc.

If you want one of the two though, id go cichlids, mainly cos of water/salt costs

Mikey

If you go cichlids, then don't plant it. They probably will tear them up.

 

[demonmagus]

I though you were into oddballs demonmagus, as well as the others youve stated?
You could get some nice bichirs and eels etc.

If you want one of the two though, id go cichlids, mainly cos of water/salt costs

Mikey

any ideas for a bunch of oddballs?

 

[jarcher1390]

ive got the same size tank i was thinking of brakish but i decided to do a monster fish tank ie tiger shovel nose catfish, arowana, redtail tinfoil barbs stuff like that

 

[SamUK]

I though you were into oddballs demonmagus, as well as the others youve stated?
You could get some nice bichirs and eels etc.

If you want one of the two though, id go cichlids, mainly cos of water/salt costs

Mikey

any ideas for a bunch of oddballs?

well you could have your oscar and sevs and still have room for a few oddballs. thats what ive done anyway.

 

[jayjay]

TSN's get too big.

 

[CAC]

Well you could PROBABLY do:
Top: Asian or black aro
Middle: 1 or 5 false siamese tiger/s or an oscar or some sevs etc.
Bottom: Big eel (fire or tire track), ornate bichir, couple of lima shovelnose cats.
I think that if you had the aro, 1 tiger, then you could have all the other bottom dwelling fish, or if you got 5, then maybe only 2...
Im not sure though, but i presume that would be OK stocking? Ask in the oddball section.

 

[demonmagus]

I asked about arros before, and it appears that I need at least a 30 inch deep tank