Stocking A 55 Gal.

[Zafirah]

This should be fun, my dad has a 55 gallon bowfront, that he wants to set up as a FRESHWATER fish tank. He wants maainly schooling fish. So far, we are definatly goingto have a school of corys, but, how many, and what else can we put in a how many

 

[lawrie]

there are LOADS of schooling fish to choose from! but you cant add too many fish to a tank at the same time. im not sure about starting with too many bottom feeders, unless you feed them pellets? the reason being is that these fish feed of the scraps at the bottom of the tank.

it depends how big the fish are that you want. heres my idea of a nice setup for a 55gallon:

6 black skirt tetras (the best fish ever)!
10 neon tetras (or other tetra)
2 corys (i would get bronz or pandas) although they recomend that you keep 6+

theres danios, barbs, live breeeders, clown loaches, silver sharks, the list goes on.

most fish get on with corys, so there ok in community tanks. the rest is upto you!

have fun!

 

[rdd1952]

If you mainly want schooling fish, you could easily have 6 or 8 corys, and a very nice school of tetras, whether it be one large school of the same species or a couple smaller schools of 2 different species. Just keep in mind that the corys prefer snd for a substrate as gravel will damage their barbels.

 

[Zafirah]

My dad doesnt wanna deal with sand, could he just use extra fine gravel or smooth gravel

 

[Danno]

You could always go with 40 Cardail fish and have a giant school.

 

[rdd1952]

As long as the gravel is smooth it would be ok. I'm not really sure what you mean when you say he doesn't want to deal with sand though. Sand is much easier to work with as the waste sits right on top to be vacuumed up. With gravel, the waste gets down in the gravel and you have to really work the gravel vacuum to get it out.

 

[Zafirah]

Becuase it looks messier when you have it, because of the fact that the dirt and stuff sits right on top

 

[rdd1952]

I guess it's a matter of personal preference. As I mentioned, that's what I like about it. It is so much easier to clean. If you do water changes and gravel vacs every week, there won't ever be that much waste on top of the sand to be seen. Just try to find gravel that has more rounded edges.