Schooling Fish For My Tank.

[Smells a bit fishy]

Hi there.

I have 135litre tank with 25kg of sand substrate.

What I am looking for is a good schooling fish, preferably mid swimming.

In the tank I already have, 1 angel fish, a blue gourami a South American bumblebee catfish, a plec of some sort and 1 pregnant Molly.

Does anyone have any ideas? Your help would be great

 

[eaglesaquarium]

There are lots of options:

barbs - cherry, five banded
tetras - cardinal, neon, black or red phantom, black or white skirt
rasboras - harlequin (any color), phoenix (maybe, although they are smaller and could be food for the angel or gourami
danios - zebra, white cloud


This is just a quick list.

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

And 8-10 of these would be ok in my tank? I thought tetras may be a little small. Although my angel and gourami arent that big at the moment. A couple of inches each

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Well, your tank is ~35 US gallons, and according to the inch of fish rule leaves room for 35 inches of fish. The type of angelfish and gourami will determine how much space is left. Also, is the pleco a future monster, or a smaller variety?

You could get some bigger tetra varieties: congo, penguin, bleeding heart - these all grow to about 3"... black skirt as sizable, and 2.5".

You don't want nippers like serpae tetra or tiger barbs (both 3"). Figure out the adult size of your existing fish and then you will know how much space you have left. You might need to go with 6-8 rather than 8-10 though.

 

[r.w.girard]

Green neon tetras are lovely. And they are really small maxing out at 3/4-1 inch, so you can fit a larger school, almost twice as much as most other fish. Only issue is that they may get eaten by the angel since they are so small. But they are great. And school pretty tight.

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

I'm not sure what plec I have got. The angelfish I think is a marbled angelfish.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I'm not sure how big they become or how aggressive they are. You might want to try the cichlid section.

 

[Tizer]

Plecs can grow very big and you would be wise to find out what you have as 135 Litres wont be big enough for many of them, especially a common.

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

I'm not too sure. I think it's a leopard one. Do you suggest I try and give the plec to my LFS. This would also help my catfish out. However I am looking for a bigger tank. However I'm not sure if I will have enough space for a bigger one as well as this one.

 

[Gelt]

Cardinals , great shoaling fish nice bright colours , I have a shoal of 12 and they never cease to mesmerise me! Plus they are good little hoovers and love to swim against the current in my 125L tank.

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Cool. I may have a look and see what my LFS has. Thanks

 

[OldMan47]

In a small tank like that I would probably be looking at 8 or so rasboras. I also like the "black neons" which are a bit larger than regular neons and could survive in a tank with somewhat larger predators.

 

[Peggers]

Personally I like emperor tetras, black neon tetras and red phantom tetras. They should all be fine with angels as should be big enough not to get eaten although if you can only get small black neons there could be a problem.

The links are to the fish resource section.

 

[Cooper2085]

Harlequin Rasboras are great little shoalers but mine tend to stay nearer the top of the tank. Pygmy cories will actually shoal the mid levels of a tank aswell.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Harlequin Rasboras are great little shoalers but mine tend to stay nearer the top of the tank. Pygmy cories will actually shoal the mid levels of a tank aswell.

I thought the pygmies (pygmaeus) mostly stayed at the bottom, but it was the dwarf cories (habrosus) that spent a fair amount of time in mid-water. Am I wrong in that?