I Need Fish For My Planted 65 Gal Tank.

[Dave Pauls]

ok so my tank is 4'x18"x18" = 65 US Gal, it is fully planted and set up as a high light, high tech tank. The tank is fully cycled, and currently has 3 ottos, 2 bristle nose plecos, 5 bandid corys. my water is REALLY hard with a GH of 21. I have the PH at about 7.4 with the use of CO2 injection. the temp wit the heater flucuates a bit between 72 and 78 (it gets hot during the days here, and colder at night) right now I have an aquaclear 500 filter, but a canister filter is in the works.

this is a pic when I first set it up... it has had 2 and a half weeks of solid growth since then, and looks a lot better. I will be moving all that rotalla from the middle to make more swimming area. any ways, I am now looking to start adding my comunity fish to this tank. I am fully open to suggestions here. it is a big tank, so I figure I have a bunch of options.
I am a fan of tiger barbs, escecially the green ones, but I hear they are fin nippers. I was thinking about geting like 12 of those, some kind of smaller torpedo shaped fish to contrast that, and something that will hang around the top. I'm not a big fan of live barers. my girlfriend wants me to get neon tetras and angle fish. I was afraid of the angles eating the neons though, and i figure the barbs are a definite no in that tank. hmm. any ways, all suggestions are welcome. thanks
DAVE

 

[matt295]

well being that your water is very hard, you cant put the neons, barbs, or angels in there. they all need soft water with a mazimum of 8 kh. barbs and angels are a no no and only until the angels get large will the neons be eaten. the first thing i would try to do though is bring the gh way down and the ph down to like 6.5-7. for guy sin the top, i would suggest any kind of danio. other than this, your tank looks amazing love the piece of bogwood on the right

 

[Dave Pauls]

hmm. well thats not good. bringing the gh down is going to be REALLY hard/ impossible. I am doing 50% water chainges weekly for my EI doseing, and geting enough RO water to make a difference is really not practical at all. I used to have neons in my old tank, and they did fine. it was a much smaller tank, and I was diluteing the water to make it a bit softer... not a lot though. I think they will get used to it over time... what if I got some locally bred barbs... would that work? the fish store I get my fish from has a GH of 17 in most of their tanks, so I thought if they were aclimated to that, the extra 4 points would be ok? maybe... I hope.... hmm. sooo other than danios, what am i looking at?

my KH is 11

 

[matt295]

well, african cichlids would do fine in that tank im sure but you already have that planted which would mean tearing it apart when it is so nice. i would also think that you could have a nice dwarf cichlid tank. their kh ranges from 2-15. i would reccomend cocatoo cichlids, umbrella dwarfs, etc. i still dont think that localy bred barbs would work. rainbowfish would also work if there is 11 kh, but im still worried about the gh. rasboras may be able to take the kh 11.

 

[Dave Pauls]

how much would adding peat to the filter soften the water? Is there anything else I can do to bring the hardness down in my tank?

 

[Dave Pauls]

okay, so I got the peat in there, and after several hours, I took the levels again. I now have a GH of 17, a KH of 10, and a PH of 7.5. This looks maybe a bit better? oh man. why is my water sooo hard? hmm.
sooo..... I know you said a max of 8 kh for the tiger barbs. would they maybe do alright at 10? what will happen if the water is too hard for them? will they die? or just not be quite as happy as at a lower kh? is there anything else I can do to soften my water a bit more?
thanks
DAVE

 

[Biulu]

They might not die, but you shorten their lifespan, and yes, they will be less happy. Another thing you could do, is to put Azoo substrate in. Azoo guarantees that it keeps your water at fixed (low) pH and hardness.

 

[BigC]

A nice large shoal of Congo Tetra would look stunning in that tank.