Stocking ..... I Know Im Sory.......

[Miss Wiggle]

I will add that the hillstream loach is a bad idea as they are actually coldwater fish and do not do well in tropical communities.

mmmm i thought that but wasn't sure about it. i know naff all about coldwater fish

i wouldn't foresee any probs with a gourami with barbs.

however i can see you going down a path which i think a lot of people go down and then regret later.

you go to the store and see all these different varieties of fish and want some of all of them, understandable, that's exactly why lots of us have several tanks. However for the general look of the tank you'll find it looks much more unified and a billion times better if you stick to just a couple of species, get all the same colour varieties and get larger groups of them. Like if you'd got 6 pearl danios.... that looks much better in the tank and the fish are happier, than getting 2 zebra, 2 pearl and 2 golden.

As such if it was me I'd look at choosing 1 colour of each species, re-homing the others and increasing your schools.

IMHO it would look a hell of a lot better.

 

[newtotropical]

Right then how does this sound?

2 x Green Tiger Barbs
2 x Albino Tiger Barbs
2 x Tiger Barbs
3 x Red Platys 1 m & 2 f
4 x Cory Julii
6 x Danios ( 2 pearl, 2 zebra, 2 golden )
1 Hillstream Loach (yea i know!)
1 Pair Blue Rams OR 1 x Blue Gourami OR pair Dwarf Gourami

Any comments would be great
Thanks
Simon

 

[timmystood]

The hillstream loaches aren't coldwater at all.. sub-tropical is where they fall. However, keeping them with other tropical is a bad idea, not really because of the temperature but because of the flow. Hillstream loaches live in some of the fastest waters in the world. Adding powerheads can achieve this flow but the other tropicals will hate a flow that fast. With hillstream loaches it's best to keep them in speices only or with other fast-flow loaches!

Simon that stocking list sounds fine (with obviously the hillstream loach exception). I would go with the dwarf gouramis to be honest... the blood red dwarfs are beautiful fish.

Any way you can rehome the loach to a LFS?

 

[newtotropical]

Thanks for that!! I have a bubble wall at the rear of the tank which is where he spends most of his time! I will see what i can do about rehoming him!

Simon

 

[chishnfips]

I had considered putting in rams with my barbs, but decided against it as they are cichlids and will get viscious if they start to breed, they may give the barbs a hard time.

I dont know about gouramis with tiger barbs, I would have thought the barbs would fin nip the gouramis, I have had both fish but never together so I dont know about that.

 

[newtotropical]

I dont know about gouramis with tiger barbs, I would have thought the barbs would fin nip the gouramis, I have had both fish but never together so I dont know about that.
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Hi that is the concern i have ............

 

[arabballin]

I have had gouramis with barbs, both opaline(same as blue just a different color morph) and dwarf. The dwarf were too timid so i took them out and added the opalines and they did great. Just make sure u get the gouramis as big as u can because that way the tiger barbs will learn to be hesitant about bothering them. The reason blue and opalines work is because they are bigger and are considered some of the more aggressive gouramis.

 

[newtotropical]

Good advice , thanks!