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Tank Mates For Zebra Danios?

ZoddyZod

ZoddyZod

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Hello,

I've recently set up my first tank with 11 zebra danios. When the cycling is complete I was thinking of adding blue rams, but was advised on another thread that the rams would not like the same water temperature (around 23c currently).

my tank is 125L and I'd love some suggestions on which fish would be compatible. Ideally I'd like some dwarf cichlids if possible?

Ph is around 7 (cant be accurate as using strips to test whilst I await a proper test kit).

cheers!
 
Hi there and welcome to the forums!

I've never really paid attention to what temp German Blue Rams (GBRs (aka blue rams I'm assuming)) like. I don't actually know but I would have thought it couldn't be anything that wouldn't be fine for zebra danios. Danios are one of the universal common fish in the industry and fit in with almost any community tank. As such, and in a nice roomy tank like you have, your choices are still pretty wide open at this point.

I see from the other thread that Curiosity has talked to you and you're now waiting for a real test kit and then will be able to actively control your fish-in cycling situation. That should give you at least a month of testing, water changing and chatting on here to be figuring out your stocking plans and its great that you've already started!

The way the stocking planning usually works is that you just have to gather ideas of fish you think you'd like by ether seeing them in a shop or from internet pictures or books or local fish society meetings and then add those ideas here like you've begun doing. Suggesting specific fish will often result in them being "shot down" for one reason or another, but it seems to work much better than trying to get others to suggest them to you, although sometimes you luck into that too.

Some of the things to be covering in stocking plans are.. the overall stocking limits of your tank and situation, the limits on individual species that the tank volume and shape puts on you, the minimum shoal sizes for various fish, the compatibility of different members of the community, the best male/female ratios for some of the species sets you acquire.. and, even kind of outside that, the overall look of the aquatic scene you ultimately want to produce, because filling the tank up with the greatest possible loading is "particular" type of look and not necessarily the most desirable in all cases but rather, a thing that can be kind of fallen into.

~~waterdrop~~
 
you can add quite a lot of nice fish as the danios mind their own business :good:
in my tank i have 2 huge pearl gouramis, cardinal tetras, rosy tetras, golden panchax killifish, 2 gold nugget plecos, boesmani rainbowfish, bolivian rams ( but im sure other rams will be fine too ) , various mollies, guppies and a red tail black shark
so all of these fish will be fine and im sure that any variant of these species will be fine too

hope this helps :good:
regards
silky
 
waterdrop said:
Hi there and welcome to the forums!

I see from the other thread that Curiosity has talked to you and you're now waiting for a real test kit and then will be able to actively control your fish-in cycling situation. That should give you at least a month of testing, water changing and chatting on here to be figuring out your stocking plans and its great that you've already started!

~~waterdrop~~
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. I must admit that I am probably a bit too eager to get my tank community defined already (already planning years down the line to 'go marine' so cleary I need to calm down a bit). Obviously a sympton of the excitement I'm experiencing from my very fist tank!

Have read a lot on cichlids but know my tank size is probably unsuitable for most of them, hence the interest in dwarfs.
 
silky said:
you can add quite a lot of nice fish as the danios mind their own business :good:

hope this helps :good:
regards
silky
Click to expand...

yes it does! Thanks.

Very varied tank you have there. Hoping to get to something like that in the future. Interesting to see a red tail shark in there. Had heard they were a bit too agressive for a community setup.....will think agin now.
 
Nope they are too aggressive, just not until they begin to mature. You may well wake up one morning to find half your fish dead/missing if the RTBS really decided to turn.

And GBR's do apparently suffer from 'mysterious deaths' very often. It's almost always put down to the temp they are being kept at. 27 degrees is the minimum really, and I figured danios may struggle at that temp.
 
Curiosity101 said:
Nope they are too aggressive, just not until they begin to mature. You may well wake up one morning to find half your fish dead/missing if the RTBS really decided to turn.

And GBR's do apparently suffer from 'mysterious deaths' very often. It's almost always put down to the temp they are being kept at. 27 degrees is the minimum really, and I figured danios may struggle at that temp.
Click to expand...

cheers again for you input. It's very interesting to keep learning from everyone elses (often conflicting) experience and knowledge. I nievely thought that there would be a definitive 'yes/no' for fish compatibility and tank setup, but it's obviously very much open to debate - making it much more interesting :)
 
Thing is though...you may get conflicting advice, but that's because some is correct and some isn't.
I mean there is some room for movement as fish are living animals, so you do get exceptions to the rules every now n again.

But in response to Silky's advice, his/her tank is 125l (I read through past posts), it is grossly over-stocked. Unless they have a huge canister filter then they will run into water quality issues very soon. Also unless it's heavily planted the the nitrates will sky rocket between weekly water changes.
Alot of the fish will not be comfortable in that tank long term (particularly the rainbows + plecs) and are also not being kept in the numbers they should be kept in.

AND they have a post named 'My red tailed black shark is being aggressive again'....

So my point is, think twice before readily accepting someones advice. Make sure they are a knowledgeable person by looking at their own tanks.
 
Curiosity101 said:
So my point is, think twice before readily accepting someones advice. Make sure they are a knowledgeable person by looking at their own tanks.
Click to expand...

very fair and welcome advice.

I tried to research as much as I could from well established sites before joining the forums (and still do), hoping to have a good grasp of the basics before wading in here with no knowledge at all. One of my favourite sites is TTT which states that GBRs prefer 22-26c . Your experience is obviously different, so again it's a case of doing my homework and asking a lot of questions before I can be confident on the 'right' answer.
 
wow, thanks for the effort!

shame that it's pretty much extinguished my GBR hopes for now though.
 
It's not if the danios would be ok at around 27c.

But my thoughts are that the danios are more likely to survive at GBR temperatures than the GBR's are at danio temperatures.

And if you want to try GBR's are a lower temperature it's up to you. All I'm saying is, I wouldn't. But that's just me...
 
Curiosity101 said:
It's not if the danios would be ok at around 27c.

But my thoughts are that the danios are more likely to survive at GBR temperatures than the GBR's are at danio temperatures.

And if you want to try GBR's are a lower temperature it's up to you. All I'm saying is, I wouldn't. But that's just me...
Click to expand...

I'm not that keen on 'trying' or experimenting with any fish. I would hate to introduce fish to my tank and through my own lack of research, lead to their demise. Hence why I'm here and reading as much as I can to find out what are the most recommended practices for keeping any of the fish I have in mind.

thanks AGAIN for sharing your knowledge
 
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