New 55 gallon but no idea of what to put in it?

[Raechal]

Okay so I got a secondhand 55 gallon for $50.00 at a garage sale (actually my mom bought it) but anyways the picture of it is below:

It currently has 10 full grown tiger barbs and the largest one is about 2 inches, 6 full grown black skirt tetras that are about the same length at the tiger barbs and 1 common plec ( I think that is what he is) Once he gets larger he will go into my 120 gallon though. The tank was currently brackish from what the previous owner said and I couldn't figure out why since he had 2 clown loaches in it but who knows. So I added a small amount of salt as I didn't want to switch them from brackish to freshwater immediately. It will be changed back to freshwater slowly, but there still might be salt remaining in the gravel or filter or somewhere so anything I get has to be KIND of tolerant of salt.

It is my mom's tank and she wants something more colorful. Any suggestions? I may also be moving the black skirt tetras into my 120 gallon so it would make more room in the 55 gallon for my mom to add a fish she likes. Then she would just have the 10 tiger barbs and a pleco.

So what is colorful and would go well with tiger barbs? I know they can be fin nippers, but I heard if they are kept in large groups of like 10 they will be less agressive and less nippy.

Oh yea there is a 60 gallon penguin filter on it and another 30 gallon penguin biowheel filter so it has A LOT of filtration.

 

[Raechal]

One more thing, my mom likes the idea of the parrot fish. Would one be okay with 10 tiger barbs or would the parrot be too aggressive?

 

[GSD]

IMO id wait a while until you get the tank ready and the whole tank completly free of salt and wait andsee if the old fish are helathy and do any changes you might want to do first

http/www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Di...99&TopCatId=889
this is all i could find on red parrot good luck

 

[Raechal]

Well the new fish won't be added for awhile. The current fish are about 2 years old so obviously they have adapted to the brackish tank they were in before. I am just hoping they won't be badly affected by the change in water.

 

[sylvia]

I'd be patient and wait for the tank to be fully freshwater and everything stable too before thinking about fish.

As the barbs have been alone in the tank for so long, they are likely to attack new fish regardless of their shoal size. You can avoid this somewhat by a adding 3-4 new barbs as well when you get the first of the new inhabitants and add them at the same time to pre-occupy the barbs. This may not be necessary but I thought I'd warn you as this is from my experiences with them.

Other than that, the barbs shouldn't be a problem if they are in that size school. The black skirst, however, might be. They are also known fin-nippers and, unfortunately, a big school doesn't realy help. Just keep this in mind.

Anyway, once you've sorted that out, possible inhabitants would be (not all together as some are incompatible or should be kept singly or in pairs) pulcher/kribs, flying foxes, rainbow sharks, danios, other barbs, most tetras, cories, other catfish, rainbowfish, livebearers except male fancy guppies, apistos/rams (depending on how nippy your fish turn out to be), keyholes, several species of gourami (again depending on how nippy the fish turn out to be and depending on which species you choose), many of the larger, faster rasboras, most botias/loaches and many other species. There are probably quite a few more possible cichlid inhabitants to choose from too.

 

[Raechal]

Yea we will wait for the water thing to straighten out. The black skirts and the tiger barbs were kept with clown loaches and some smaller tetra. One of the von rio tetras had a chewed up tail but the rest were perfectly healthy. I put him in a hospital tank and treated him with melafix, but he died...The previous owner had a whole bottle of melafuix too, wonder why he never bothered to use it. Poor little guy looked so think and ill.

Anyways everyone else seems perfectly healthy and no torn or ripped fins at all. The tiger barbs were just mating a few minutes ago in the tank. Doing their little "dance" I don't want any fry so I guess I will leave them in with their eggs.

My mom wanted a parrot fish...do you think I would be better off asking in the cichlid section?

 

[sylvia]

I'd ask in the hybrids section.