Planning A 40 Gallon Breeder

[jmiller]

I have been having a discussion in another section of this forum about the planning of a larger tank. Recently through some gentle prodding a 40 gallon breeder has become the front runner for the new tank. I plan on making a mainly tetra community tank. The plan now is for a mixture of sand and natural colored gravel, rocks, wood and a few live plants with 3 or 4 distinct "areas".

The problem is I'm kind of going back and forth between several small shoals or one/two much larger groups. I will be rehoming some cories and ember tertas and thinking about adding lemon, black widow & pristella tetras also. In the 40 gal if I stocked them all they would be in shoals of approximately 10 each, which I'm afraid might look to busy with all the different species and colors or the alternative could be to pick maybe two and up the shoals to approximately 25 each or finally just pick my favorite and have one larger group and cut the rest down to 6 or so.

So anyone have a tank like this?, or can offer any suggestions?

 

[drobbyb]

I've had mixed community tanks before, and in my opinion, 1 or 2 species looks best.

 

[Wills]

I agree with Robby, I prefer one or two big schools as opposed to 6 or 7 small ones. If I were to do a two school tank I would do one school of bigger round tetras like black widow or diamond with a school of the smaller streamlined ones like rummy noses. A good stocking of Rummy Noses and Flameback Bleeding Heart Tetras would look pretty good

 

[jmiller]

Thanks, that's the way I've been leaning toward. I'm sure that the black widows will be one of them but unsure of the rest. I've got a 10 gallon with neons and embers now so I've got the streamlined ones covered.