Stocking Advice

[BobbyBray]

So I thought I had my stocking list all made up and ready to go, till I went to the LFS and looked at some of their new stock... They had some rams in the store that I had never seen before, and looked beautiful, so I'd like to see if there's anyway I could incorporate them into the tank I'm building up. I was hoping they were bolivian rams, which seem to be easier to keep and a little less rowdy (please correct me if I'm wrong), but the person I asked the last time I was in there said they were "red finned german rams." I thought that was odd, I'd never heard of that species, and couldn't find them online anywhere, just the German Blue Ram. Unfortunately the card on the tank didn't have a scientific name, otherwise I would have written that down to remember. Visually they all looked like the photos I've seen of juvenile bolivian and GBR's. So assuming they were GBR (since I specifically asked if they ever get the bolivian species and she said no), would two work in my tank setup?

I've got a 29 gallon tank, of which I'll include a photo of so you can see how I've decorated it so far. No life plants, just plastic plants, gravel substrate, few large rocks and a piece of bogwood.

Here's what I was planning on stocking in the tank:
Danio's: 6-8
Harlequin Rasboras: 6-8
Lemon Tetras: 6-8
Rainbowfish: 2 (I believe my LFS had the Melanotaenia Maccullochi and Melanotaenia Fluviatili if I remember correctly)
Assorted Cories: 4-6
Otos: 4-6

I'm thinking I'll remove the danios to lighten the bio load, and replace them with GBR's. The rams tend to stay towards the bottom right? So the tetras, rasboras and rainbows should be (for the most part) swimming above them closer to the top, and hopefully maintaining a nice balance.

Thanks for any input you guys can offer!

 

[BobbyBray]

Forgot to add a photo of the 29g setup

 

[silky]

thats a good stock
yeahhh rams will generally stay near the bottom, i have 2 bolivian rams but they all act in the same way
rainbowfish are also great fish, they do like to be fed disc shaped food such as tetra pro colour
you could put in a shark such as the red tail black shark, but these can be territorial towards other fish so a small territory is advised
hope this helps

 

[Phage]

Is this the ram you seen?

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...p;#entry2300852

 

[umlaut31]

by the way - that's a great looking tanks!

I've never really seen the attraction of fake plants, but you may have just changed my mind! I love the pieces of wood!

 

[BobbyBray]

I don't remember the rams being quite that red Phage. Their top (dorsal?) fin's had some red along the edges, but I don't think they had any in the back tail fin.

Thanks for the compliment umlaut. I'm a bit too lazy to keep live plants at the moment, but still wanted my tank to look fairly natural, so I got lots plastic plants and clumped them all together, haha.

 

[BobbyBray]

Anyone have input on an order to add the fish into the tank? At this point I'm going to add the otos and rams last since they seem to be the most sensitive to water conditions, and prefer established tanks. Any other advice?

 

[umlaut31]

Danios or Harlequins first.. I would say

 

[drobbyb]

Rainbows are like tetras in that they need to be in a group of at least 6 individuals with more females than males if mixing the sexes.