Large Fish For Community Tank

[strttndrrn]

i have a 4foot community tank set up for about a year now.
iam geting bored of the fish i have
.and was wondering if there are any larger fish i could put in my tank that wont eat my fish. i have a mixture of fish includig

2 dollers medium
1 angel small
1 orange gurami
5 black widow tetras
2 neons
3 sharks {all different species}
1 platy
1 large sucker
2 tiny type of sucker
1 clown loach
2 cat fish {i think they are a bluey black colour and like to stay hidden
1 hatchet fish
5

any help would be appreciated if there is no large fish i can put in i may well get rid of all my fish to get new larger ones any ideas of large fish i could by that woul not cost much and be easy to look after

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the forum! What are the other dimensions of the tank? How much water does it hold?

Just off the list I can see a few fish that need a bigger tank than a 4 foot tank eventually. And also some fish that are in numbers less than ideal. Some of the names you give are too vague to know what they are so a bit of further ID would be good for us. But as for the fish you have at the moment -

2 dollers medium - Silver Dollars are usually okay in a 4 foot tank depends on which species they are as the size varies between 5-8 inches and as a shoaling fish they will take up a lot of your stocking. Ideally you want at least 5.
1 angel small - Okay good fish so long as the tank is reasonably tall, size at this point is pretty much irrelevant you want to focus on adult size when considering tank stocking.
1 orange gurami - is this the gold gourami, honey gourami or orange thick lipped gourami? All of them are okay in your tank just need to work out which one it is.
5 black widow tetras - Good fish for the tank and good number - though maybe you could add to this at some point?
2 neons - Need to up the numbers of these to at least 5 or 6 but if your after larger fish in the long run they could end up as food
3 sharks {all different species} - What kinds? What do they look like?
1 platy - good fish for the tank, could consider getting some friends for them if you want but depends what direction you want to take the tank.
1 large sucker - guessing a common plec? If so they do get really big and are really messy fish with regards poop and ideally need a 6 foot tank with big filters. But there are over 400 species of plec and they vary in size from 2 inches to 3 foot so there are just about situations where there are plenty of plecs suitable for small tanks. In your 4 foot tank there are a decent amount of plecs for you to consider.
2 tiny type of sucker - Ottos? or if they are just small plecs they will get as big as the one above
1 clown loach - Again will grow to a little over a foot, very slow growing though. They also like to be in groups of 5. A good alternative for these in your size tank are things like yoyo loaches and polka dot loaches etc
2 cat fish {i think they are a bluey black colour and like to stay hidden) - To vague but Ill take a guess at either some kind of humbug catfish or a synodontis maybe synodontis eupterus
1 hatchet fish - Again same as the neons.

Hope thats helped a bit if there are some names on there you dont know what they are put them in google and you will see what I mean.

Im not being mean just honest, its best if we get your tank balanced before you start adding anything else. Depending on the actual capacity of the tank in liters we can work out how much more you can add. I think there is possibly room for a few more after juggling around things like the suckers and loach etc.

Hope thats helped

Wills

 

[strttndrrn]

thanks for the reply.

the tank is a clear seal lenght 48ins by height 15 ins by width 12 inches. its a 30 gallon tank

i checked google the gurami is a honey gurami the three sharks are a silver bala shark, a red tail black shark and an albino red tail.i couldnt find the small sukers but the shop said they dont grow much and are the beast tank cleaners. i couldnt find the two cat fish names but they look like sharks are dark blue and have wiskers. as for the neons ive always found it hard to keep them in my tank i have bought loads of them but they never last.

 

[Wills]

Ah right yeah that is the smallest 4ft tank going I think. With the sharks, the bala shark will get to about a foot and are really really active they are also a shoaling fish so they need a really really big tank but are far too often sold to medium sized tanks. With the black and alibno sharks these fish are extremely intollorent of more than one per tank, do you notice that there is a dominiant and a sub fish? This is really stressful for the fish and I would recommend keeping just one of these.

With the smalle suckers are have a google of sucking loach are they them?

With the unknown catfish are they these? http/www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=172 just look at the pictures and let me know if they look anything like these at all. If it is these, do you have any public aquaria near you?

Now knowing the size of your tank I think your going to have to do some rehoming as your tank can not accomodate all these fish for life, nor can your tank meet the requirements needed for some of them either so what I would look to do is start trying to find new homes, either through the classifieds section here or your LFS and reconsider what fish you want to keep in there. Ive made a list of fish that need rehoming the ones at the top are the more urgent than the ones at the bottom. (I hate doing this but trust me it saves stress on you and the fish in the long run)


Bala Shark - above reasons
Red tail black shark or albino - not fair to keep them both there will always be one that is stressed
Large Sucker - is this a common plec? If so yeah needs a bigger tank
Silver Dollars - similar reasons to bala shark though they will only grow to half the size your pushing the limits in your tank with them.
Clown Loach - slow growing but same reason as bala shark
Angel - tank is not tall enough for them long term they need height as they get tall as well as long and in some cases taller rather than longer.

Wills

 

[strttndrrn]

the small suckers are the suking loach and the cat fish are the ones in the pic how long will it take to get that big. i also have a 2ft by 1ft by 1ft tank in my house with no fish in it do u think i could move sum of my smaller fish in to that instead of geting rid of my fish. so the idea of me getingany new big fish is a bad idea then.

 

[Wills]

Mate you have to get rid of those catfish as soon as possible they are serious monsters how big are they now? Im guessing its probably 3 years to about 2 foot maybe sooner not 100%. The sucking loaches are known to get some aggression problems as they get older which could be about now if they are a year old so start to look out for that. But just have a google of otocinclus to check if its them as they are really small and known to be good cleaners I would think it unusual for them to tell you they wont grow much as the sucking loaches will get to about 5/6 inches at least. In all honesty I do think you need to rehome a serious amount of your fish. Im not blaming you but the fish shop should not have been sold to you.

I would move the orange gurami, black widow tetras, neons, platy, hatchet fish into the 2x1x1. And rehome the Bala Shark, Red tail black shark or albino, Large Sucker, Silver Dollars, Clown Loach and Angel they we can start to advise you on what kinds of fish will do well in your tank you could have a fantastic community with some medium sized cichlids. I know at present that would leave you with just the small suckers and one of the red tail sharks but if you want a bigger community and are moving the other fish over to the small tank thats kind of where you need to be.

Wills

 

[strttndrrn]

the cat fish are abot 3 inches an ive had them a few months i wont be going back to my local pet shop any more.the cat fish is exaclty the same size as the juvenile picture in the link u sent me. iam going to start moving my fish to the smaller tank and put the others in the classifieds will people actually buy them. what about the cat fish who would want them i havent got the heart to kill them. iam going to keep the albino shark as ive had it a few years from other tanks and its not asgressive as the smaller redtail. is my tank no good i was looking on the web at oscars i if my tank was emptied could it be big enough to keep an oscor or 2 or is that a stupid question

 

[Wills]

Cool your on the right track now! The catfish I dont know what to suggest sometimes some LFS will take them in believe it or not there are people with fish tanks big enough to house them all over the world and its sometimes suprising just how close to you they are lol. People will buy the fish, sometimes you have to give them away as they are just so common or you could take them to a different LFS and they might give you store credit so you could effectivly swap your fish for new ones better suited to life in your tank. When I say life I dont mean just day to day stuff I mean the full life span of the fish and in some cases thats 25 years.

Oscar gets too big for a 30g they need more like a 75g just for one. But some nice fish you could consider in your tanks cichlid wise are things like convicts or honduran red points, firemouths, sajica, ellioti, blue acara. Because the tank is long you could probably go for 2 of those fish with some non cichlid fish if you wanted to go for bigger fish rather than the small ones you could consider bigger tetras like congo and columbian your shark would mix well with these as well.

 

[strttndrrn]

thanks for ur help mate you have give me a lot to think about.

 

[strttndrrn]

thanks again for the help i have just rehomed the 2 cat fish the large pleco and the large redtail shark. i sold all 4 for 15 pounds

 

[Wills]

Ah fantastic! Well on your way to a sorted tank now then