Stocking Advice

[MoonStarRaven]

I have been researching different fish for over a week now and have gone to several LFS… and I need help deciding what to stock my tank with. I want a nice peaceful, balanced (hopefully occupying the different levels) community tank, with a couple of different types of fish as well as some type of center piece fish that is pretty and will be okay being the only one of his/her type in the tank.

The tank they will be in is, (unfortunately a tall tank) and well I was told by the person that gave me the tank that it was a 56 gallon, (The online calculators say it’s only a 53. 

 ) - It is 30" X 18" and 23" tall.

I don't know what my exact water parameters are as the test kit I ordered hasn't arrived yet. I do know that my city has hard water, according to my cities website the average hardness is 350 milligrams per liter of calcium (or 20 grains per gallon) and meets all state and federal regulations regarding nitrate, which really doesn’t tell me much. LOL

Anyway, the tank came with an Aqueon quiet flow 50 filter, which I will be using cut and fit Polyfiber Media Pad and Activated Carbon Media Pad as well as some type of bio media if I can fit it in there (still researching those), instead of the standard use and throw cartridges. I’m also going to be setting up a second cheap 10 gallon HOB filter with Pothos plants.

I am leaning towards sand instead of gravel and plan on doing fishless cycling for however long it takes to become stable and then add the fish a few at a time.

What I’m pretty firm on having in the tank is: (The number of each is flexible)
8-10 Zebra Danio
8-10 Skirt Tetra
5-6 Albino/Bronze Cory

This is the part that I’m unsure of as I want everyone to get along, (and is apparently dependent on whichever center piece fish I end up getting.)

I was thinking:
4-5+ (Male only) Guppies. (LFS already has them conveniently separated from the females.)
Or
4-5+ Female Betas (but only if I don’t get a male Beta)
Or
4-5+ Some other fish that will get along, has a nice selection of different colors, and won’t breed out of control.

1 Male Beta OR 1 Dwarf Gourami OR ???

(Was also contemplating a Nerite snail or two and a few Marimo Moss balls)

I originally wanted a male Beta as a center piece fish, but the advice on if they’ll be alright in a community tank is all over the place, and I understand that individual fish will very, but I really don’t have the resources or space to set up another tank if it doesn’t work out.
 
And then the research got complicated. LOL A search for a peaceful center piece fish turned up the Dwarf Gourami,(maybe, depending on the site I was reading.) but a general consensus in research says they can’t go with the guppies, so I had to research something else and came up with, they might be alright with female betas. (But female betas seem hit or miss with temperament and no other group of community fish I've so far researched has enough of a variety of colors to get 4 to 6 different colored ones, and I can’t get Female betas if I get a male beta….)
 
Ahhhh! Help I’ve been researching in circles. I've spent hours going through different sites researching fish at random hoping to get lucky and every possible center piece fish either needs a group, is to big, too aggressive, or a big gamble etcetera. Or doesn't go with the guppies and/or female beta's, 

 

[Akasha72]

Hi,
 
The main thing that jumps out here is the tetra's and cories and hard water. Tetra's and cories are soft water fish and won't survive in hard water. What we need to know is exactly how hard your water is. Often when we get the test results we find is not too hard and the soft water species are okay with it but sometimes it's really hard and we'd never recommend soft water species.
 
On the other hand the guppies you mention are hard water fish so if we find your water is indeed hard they will do really well for you
 
The betta and gourami again are soft water fish so you might have problems there too.
 
We'd normally only recommend that you stock your tank with fish that can live in the water you have coming from your tap. Unfortunately the choice of hard water fish is quite limiting compared to soft water but there's no reason why you can't still have a nice colourful display.
 
There are natural ways to soften hard water - such as adding peat, lots of bogwood can help too and so can leaf litter but it's making things complicated when you are a beginner so I won't elaborate further on that 
 
Hope that helps
 
Akasha

 

[MoonStarRaven]

Thanks, is there a list somewhere as to which fish are hard vs soft water species?
 
I was thinking my water was fairly hard as every other month I have to soak the cat and dogs water dishes with vinegar to get rid of the white ring that builds up at the water line. If the test kit I ordered doesn't show up tomorrow I think I'll just take a water sample to the LFS, they'll test it for free.
 
If the Tetras and Cories are soft water, maybe it's not as hard as I was thinking. I haven't had an aquarium in close to ten years, but am still living in the same house. (Wish I could remember for sure, but I don't remember having to do anything to the water except adding dechlorinator with the water changes.)
 
I had Danios, Tetras, a Cory, (I'm still upset to learn Cory are a schooling fish, was told back then I just needed the one to keep the tank clean.

) and a male beta. Throughout the 3 years I had the tank set up, they were the only ones I was able to keep alive, It was the guppies, neon tetras, mollies, and random Walmart fish of the week I was told was easy to keep, etcetera that I had trouble keeping. But then that could just be because this was way before I had access to the internet and followed the LFS advice that the water only needed changing once or twice a month and to frequently replace the filter cartridge, and was apparently throwing out all the good bacteria every week.

 No wonder I got discouraged and decided to stop keeping fish, I'm determined to do this right this time hence all the research and wanting to plan out what's going in.
 
Anyway the original black skirt tetras and cory out lived everyone else even the danios by quite a bit, the albino Cory was the second fish I bought and  after I decided to stop restocking was the last, he ended up by himself in a ten gallon for a good six or so months. So yeah, I'll update tomorrow after taking a sample to the LFS.

 
(Edited: to fix typo.)

 

[Akasha72]

Hi again
our water can change here in the U.K, unsure if it can be the same in the U.S. When I was a kid my parents had to de-scale the kettle on a regular basis but then all of a sudden it stopped scaling up. Now we have water that is very soft, so it's gone to the opposite side of the scale.
Limescale (that's the white stuff) is a sure sign your water is hard. If you having to de-scale your dogs bowls every 8 weeks I'd guess that it's very hard.
 
Now, on to the query about fish. Many people keep soft water fish in hard water and say 'oh they're fine, they're eating and swimming about normally, all is fine' and just dismiss it. 
The damage that is being done is being done internally. So whilst they may seen 'okay' or 'fine' we can't actually see the damage. Kept in the right conditions cories should live up to 10 years. Most of the tetra's are the same provided disease doesn't take them. If your cory lived for significantly less than that you can pretty much say your hard water did internal damage which shortened it's lifespan.
 
I grew up as a child with my Dad keeping fish. It was how I got hooked on them myself. Once I got settled in my current home I jumped at the chance to have a fish tank. Over the years though fish keeping has changed in leaps and bounds. My Dad had a pictus catfish in a 2ft tank. We also had swordtails and a silver shark in that 2ft tank. He never changed any water or did anything special. Knowing what I know now I'm horrified at what we did and the conditions we kept those fish in. 
We now know so much more about our aquatic friends and animal welfare is far more important these days than it was 30 years ago. On this forum we take the welfare of the fish very seriously - there is no such thing as 'just a fish'. 
We can certainly advise you on the right fish for your water if you want to use your tap water. If you want to go with fish not compatable with your tap water then consider using water from another source - RO being one to consider.
There are also some members who can help you with other ways to soften things such as using peat but that's not something I know anything about so I won't go into it.
 
What we need first though is some accurate readings rather than guessing

 

[Jeremy180]

According to one chart I found online, 350 ppm is right at the borderline between water considered hard and water considered very hard.
While there are many fish that will do well in this water, most fish from the amazon are not on that list.
I'll see if I can put a list together.
It may take a couple of days though.

 

[MoonStarRaven]

I took a sample of my tap water to the LFS so they could test it... and now I'm depressed.

 
According to their test my tap water has: (In parentheses is what the test they used listed as the ideal numbers.)
 
High Alkalinity - 300 (Ideal 120 - 180)
High PH - 8.4 (Ideal 6.8 - 7.2)
Very Hard Water - 300 (Soft water 75)
 
Either then it being chlorinated, everything else was good. The LFS employee did mention that since I live only about eight blocks away, the fish are already acclimated to the same tap water.

 But if it's harming them long term and shortens their life...
 
I'm guessing there's probably not many, very hard water, high PH fish.

 

[Jeremy180]

There are actually several, but not many from the amazon river.
Most livebearers, including guppies for example, would love this kind of water, as would the nerite snails you mentioned earlier.
 
Just to be sure you know about how to properly cycle a tank, I would highly recommend reading this article before putting anything in your tank.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/421488-cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first/
An optional, and more technical article.
https/edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa031

 

[Akasha72]

perfect for african cichlids, livebearers and snails too. There's no reason why you can't have a lovely colourful display. If you go down the route of african cichlids though you might end up with a species only tank as some of them can be quite aggressive

 

[FishCat_16]

Hi MoonStarRaven-
 
I was like you and hugely disappointed when I found out I have rather hard water (my first post was titled "Return my New Tank?") but I got some good advice from people here, one being Akasha.  I took some of their species or group recommendations and looked them up on the seriously fish website.  That website had pictures as well as descriptions of their native habitats and what their aquarium requirements would be.  I also looked on one of the online retail sites (mods, can I list which one?) so I could look up groups such as "livebearers" to get the names of different fish to take back to seriously fish.
 
I too thought I was going to have a tank full of cories and tetras but that is not to be.  Akasha is right, you can still have a really colorful tank even if they aren't necessarily the fish you thought you would be keeping.  I mean, rainbowfish didn't get their name for no reason.

 

[Akasha72]

all the pictures I've seen of rainbow fish are really beautiful. 
 
It's just a case of doing your research and seriously fish are really good for that. I use them a lot too if I want to research a certain fish.