Need New Fish For 55 Gallon Tank

[fish-r-fancy]

Hi everybody I've had my goldie tank up for about a month and they'vebeen nothing but problems (getting ick, always getting sick). It's obvious that I can't give them the best home possible so I'm going to give them back to the lfs next weekend. Now I'm going to have a spare 55 gallon tank. What should I put in the tank. I only get $8 a week in allowance so the fish can't be to expensive but I want interesting fish. How many neon tetras could I keep in a 55 gallon? What other low maintenence, and pretty cheap fish could go in a 55 gallon. I was thinking of either doing a speciees tank with all neon tetras or a tropical community tank. For filters i have an aquaclear 70 and an aquatech 10-20 power filter. The tank is a standard 55 gallon. 1 more question if I bought all neon tetras and put them in their would they breed and if so how often and how many babies would I get? Thanks everybody for alll of the help.

I was thinking that a shark tank would be pretty cool buy don't all sharks like balas need at least a 6 foot tank? Are their any other sharks that i could put in their that woulden't be overcrowded and woulden't be agressive towards other fish?

 

[three-fingers]

I dont think you would get any baby neons at all unless you provided lots and lots of java moss or something similar because they would eat the eggs and the fry.
For neons to breed you should have soft acidic water. My black neons and red eye tetras breed all the time in my soft acidic water, but the eggs get eaten immediately by the parents and other fish.
Baby tetras also need to eat infusoria, and your tank will only have any proper amount when its been running for at least 6 months. Even then there probably wouldn't be enough for much of the fry to survive on.
After the infusoria they need to eat things like small daphnia and baby bring shrimp.

Try to provide acidic water by adding bog wood to the tank, but if you have hard water i dont know what will soften it. Alot of tetras can breed in harder water but it is unlikely.

I would probably put about 40 neons in there, provided the tank was over filtered. Adding them in lots of 10 every month would be a good idea, and provide genetic variation if you want to breed them-since they wont all be from the same batch.

With a tank full of neons, you should watch very carefully for neon tetra disease.

I would personally try a different type of tetra instead .

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Okay thank you. I didn't know that certain types of decoration would affect the water. I do havea piece of bogwood in their but it is fake, I'll try to get some real bogwood(that will be easy because I live near all woods). I have several rocks in their that form a cave. I have a fake skull and pool filter sand for a substrate. I have a spare 20 gallon that I could use to put the eggs in so that they won'y get eaten. What would be the chances of them hatching? I have 2 bubble curtains on both side of the tank if that is any help.

How about cardinal tetras or black tetras?

 

[three-fingers]

Cardinal and black neons(or black widow-whatever you are referring to) require the same as the neons i think.
You will find it neigh impossible to remove the eggs from the tank, so if you want to breed them just choose a couple of pairs from the main tank that looks like they frequently spawn and put them in the 20gal(with java moss, or a net for the eggs to fall through) until they do their thing, then remove them immediately after spawning.
You should make sure the two tanks have the same water. If you breed them in the 20gal it will be easier to feed them too.

Check what type of rocks they are, you wouldn't want any that would harden the water .

 

[fish-r-fancy]

How do I check if the rocks will harden the water? Breeding them might be a little hard actually so I won't do that. Thank you for all of the help.