Stocking A 125 Litre Tank

[Ryandsimmons]

Red tailed black sharks do only grow to 15cm, but they need around a 50gal tank because they need the surface area of the 'average' 50gal tank so they can set up a suitable sized territory and not spend their whole time harrasing tank mates.

It isn't always the case, but more often than not when put in tanks below 50gal (3ft bare minimum length, and 15" depth), they are very agressive.

This tank is 18 inches deep and 32 inches long. It ould be pushing it.

Thanks for the advice on the shrimp betta_246, I was actually going to start with those and the barbs...

 

[arobinson1984]

Agree with curiousity on the red tailed sharks.

With certain fish you have to look at other aspects rather than just size to determine the size of tank it requires.

Technically red tailed sharks will fit in a 10-20 gal tank as they only reach around 6" in length but it would be disastorous.

Red tailed sharks have a very aggressive nature and they 'claim' large areas of a tank as their own territory meaning they will chase and attack any other fish that enter their territory. The smaller the tank, the higher the aggression as there isnt sufficient surface area for the sharks to claim a decent amount of territory. If you search on the forum you will find threads where people have put red tailed sharks in 30-40 gal tanks and had no problems until a few months after when the shark begins to mature and all hell breaks loose, quite often even after they were originally advised not to put it in there in the first place.

The recommended minimum tank for a red tailed shark is 55 gal, due to its nature not its size. Many websites you find that state 10 or 20 gal is only taking into account the fishes size and not its aggressive nature.

If you set on a shark of some sort you would be better with a black rainbow shark, they grow around the same size, they 'can' be aggressive but no where near the level of the red tailed shark and they look pretty much the same apart from the rainbow has red/orange fins as well as tail.

Andy

 

[nickjf20]

Hi, i am hopefully getting the same 125L tank as you.

could anybody reccomend anything better for the money, or is this the best

What fish did you end up putting in and how did it go ?

Thanks

 

[waterdrop]

I would advise against sparkling gouramis in your tank.

Although they're gorgeous little fish (not lacking in colour at all), they are also very very very timid.
If you give them a choice between open water and dense foliage then they will choose to stay in the dense foliage. This means you practically never see more than a glimpse. I had them in the exact tank you have...but would really only recommend them for species tanks of around 40-60l

Oh and just to demonstrate how they genuinely look when caught by the light, here is a picture of one from google that looks exactly like mine did...

^^That may be a male but the males are often more ornate than that.

And the best picture I ever got of mine in the 6 months I had them.

C101, just wanted to thank you for that nice little vignette! Sparklings were -not- one of the gouramis I ever had years ago when I kept a lot of gourami types (I don't think they were even available, at least where I was.) It sounds like their personalities are pretty different from Honey gouramis? In the time you kept them did you ever feel you saw colors like the colorful male you posted? (it can be so much harder to ever get a picture that expresses what you see live at times in your tank I feel..)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Hedges]

Okay, in that case how about...

4 Honey Gouramis
6 Ruby Barbs
15 Galaxy Rasboras
4 Zebra Loaches
Cherry Shrimp

And I need to find one largish fish (around 10-15cm) that doesn't eat everything else. Nothing swimming around there is very big. Maybe something black?

Going by everything else I'll have the tank at 25 degrees, so rams are not really appropriate, but thanks for the idea.

Edit: According to what I read Red Tailed Black sharks only need 10 gallons and are only 15cm?

Hi
did you set this up?
How did it work out, what else did you put in, plants etc

Thanks
Ian

 

[Hedges]

Hi
did you set this up?
How did it work out, what else did you put in, plants etc

I've the same tank, any other suggestions for fish combos please

Ian