New Tank Filling

[Thompson24]

Hi guys I've had tropical fish for a few years with just a two foot tank but have just ordered a 6ft x 2ft x2ft tank 0

My question is if you had this size tank what would you stock it with?(tropical)

I tend to stick to the same fish every time and want some inspiration. I normally end up with a fighter, Molly's, platys neons etc but would like some professional advise to be able to give my tank a great display of colour, different types of fish and also getting the balance of top middle and bottom fish right?

 

[fishprotector]

Nice tank size! I would rehome a common plec from someone with a ridiculously small tank and add a group of south American cichlids, possibly severum. Finally a shoal of 15 to 20 Odessa barbs.

 

[brian1]

I have always' wanted one species, I saw a tank with just 5 large angel fish in, and it looked spectacular, my tank is too small........ But your's isn't.........

 

[Thompson24]

I look after disabled children in my home so the more species and colours etc the better for them

 

[TekFish]

Before you do ANYTHING read on this forum about Cycling, if you haven't already, this is VERY important and I suggest you do Fishless cycling.

Now after my little warning this is what I would do:

I, personally would make it a biotope. Probably South American.
I'd stock it like this.

24 Cardinal Tetras
24 Rummynose Tetras
15 Otocinclus
and 2 species of Dwarf Cichlid, maybe A. Cacatuoides and A. Agassizi? [It would have to be a male of each species and about 3-4 females of each species.]
20 Diamond Tetras [Not very colourful in themselves, but they make the other fish look nicer by comparison.]

Heavily planted with a variety of Echinodorus Species [Amazon Sword plants.],
Cabomba species, Vallisneria species, Bacopa species and a mixture of Amazon Frogbit and Salvinia floating on top. Also some rocky caves for the cichlids, these can be made with slate and other rocks which DO NOT contain Calcium or Magnesium. It may sound a bit strange, but the more hiding places you provide the more you will see the shyer species of fish. It would be perfect if you could bring the pH down to around 5.5 - 6 and the kH to around 3-4, this can be done relatively easily with Peat Filtration, see this website for more details:
-> http/www.marksfish.me.uk/index.php/Tips/Peat-Filtering.html <-
But if you can't then that isn't a problem, the fish will adapt easily.

Hope this helped and hope the kids like it.

TekFish

 

[Thompson24]

Cool that sounds great ive never had chilards my Lfs always said they weren't good in community tanks but there stunning, I haven't calculated how many fish I can have but hadn't realised how many showing fish I could get, thanks so much for your advice