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alexdallimore

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Hi

My aquarium seems to stay in the bottom half. They do venture up but seem to like to hang nearer the bottom. The only time my fish seemed to want to come and swim in the top half was when one of the new rainbows was sick and swimming in the current. Am I right in thinking that bu having top swimmers that this will also encourage others to swim higher.

At the moment I have a 220 ltr (water content) 275ltr tank 4ft aquarium with

1 clown loach
3 golden barbs
3 blue rainbows
2 red rainbows
5 fake siamese algea eaters
2 tiger barbs
1 albino ruby shark

Everything seems happy with each other and I did manage to get rid of 3 chinese algea eaters.

I know the clown should be with more and so should the tigers but these are the fish I got from the previous owner who hadn't purchased them in the right amounts. I can't increase the tigers as the LFS only has large ones and mine are young small ones. If I buy any more clowns then the bottoms going to be even more packes.

I was thinking of some golden panchax but have read that they can be quite aggressive and arn't the best for community tanks so then I was thinking of giant danios. I really need something that will stay nearer the top though.

The other question was furniture. Does the layout and hight of plants and wood etc make a difference to swimming levels?

Cheers for any views
 
Hatchetfish are spiffy, but they are very sensitive. If you have a newer tank, this wouldn't be the best choice. A halfbeak would look nice, but only one as they fight. Try guppies or mollies or other livebearers. They aren't solely top dwellers, but they tend to stay at the top. It is easy to spot top dwellers because they have an upturned mouth. This means they eat at the top, so they tend to stay up there. :nod:
 
I was gonna suggest about 5 or 6 Hatchet fish, lovely little things, but as stated can be a hard fish to look after if its not in a mature tank.

Betta's are top swimmers, Butterfly Fish (although they would probably eat the rest of your tank :) )
 
I was in the same situation as you. I ended up getting golden zebra danios; fast moving so be careful if any of your tank is easily spooked. Guppies, though the amles can nip each others tails. Platies I had any way. They move all around the tank but tend do keep nearer the top. All good community fish for a newbie. Mollies do need salt so maybe not.
Good luck.
 
Cheers for the replies sp far. I can't go for betta's (i think you're talking about siamese fighting) or guppies as they will get there tails well and truely nipped by my barbs. Hatchet fish sound a bit too much hard work even though the tank is well mature. So I'm now back to danios or mollies. Don't know much about mollies and what they would be like with what I have. I have read that black mollies can be prone to desease.

" Like many popular aquarium fish however, the species has been over bred to the point that many specimens are weak and require specific conditions in order to remain healthy. Temperature fluctuations, especially cooler temperatures leave the Black Molly prone to disease. A symptom known as ‘shimmering’ where the fish swims on the spot with fins clamped in an awkward fashion is a common indicator. Skin based problems such as whitespot and velvet disease are also common."
 
I happen to have an article in this month's (Nov. 2006) Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine all about top-dwelling fish. There's quite a variety. Hatchetfish are probably the most fun and certainly among the weirdest, but marble hatchets especially are quite difficult to keep. Silver hatchets are relatively durable, but they still need good water quality and supplmental feedings of frozen or live foods rather than just flake, day-in, day-out. Once you have them settled and happy, silver hatchets are lively little fish that will bring you years of entertainment. They fight among themselves a lot of the time, and engage in harmless chases. They eat anything, and mine bite the hairs on my arm when I'm cleaning the tank! Great fun fish, sadly underrated by the hobby.

Butterflyfish are wonderful fish but they are for fairly dedicated aquarists because you need to "train" them to take dead food. Once settled, they will take flake and pellets, but to start with you need to either use live foods (such as insects) or drop bloodworms and the like very close to their head. They only snap at good within a certain distance and radius of the head. Everything else is ignored. They will eat very small fishes (like neons and zebra danios).

Asian killifish (Aplocheilus spp.) are perhaps easier and hardier but at up to 10 cm long these predatory fish can easily work their way through a community tank of neons and guppies. Choose deep-bodied tankmates. Angelfish, gouramis, bleeding heart tetras, and the like will be fine.

Mollies usually need brackish water. There are endless debates about whether or not this is 100% true, and some people keep them fine in hard, alkaline freshwater. But if you want to guarantee success with mollies then keeping them in brackish water is the easiest way. Otherwise, there is a fairly high percentage change (I'd say 50%) of having to deal with finrot, fungus, or "the shimmies" sooner or later.

Halfbeaks are another good choice. None of the common species needs brackish water despite what the books say (this myth seems to be based on misidentifications of species). Celebes halfbeaks in fact prefer soft, acid water though they are adaptable. Although large and potentially predatory, I've never had problems with mine eating smaller fish. Halfbeaks squabble, so keep one male per tank. Being livebearers, they are perfectly breedable even in a community tank, though breeding halfbeaks is a bit of a stuble art because they are prone to misacarriages.

Just a few ideas.

Cheers,

Neale
 
Yes, definitly buy the magazine. That was the best article in the entire magazine! I'm thinking about getting a male betta, but there's some dispute over whether your statement theat they are compatible with neon tetras is true.
 

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