Tropical Fish Tank

[botia]

hi I've got a 300L freshwater aquarium, what fish would be good to put in it? personally I like catfish, loaches and hatchet fish

 

[Wills]

All would do very nicely What kind of catfish do you like? A big school of Hatchet fish with some hoplo catfish maybe some dwarf chain loach would be a nice start

I love American cichlids much calmer than the Africans and can work in a community like this. A Rotkiel Severum and/or Rainbow cichlids are nice and can work well together. I prefer to go for a community of singletons rather than pairs as it cuts down complications surrounding breeding.

Wills

 

[Duz]

If you like catfish and loaches you may want to look into different types of cory. Lovely bottom dweller fish which are always active and peaceful, although sand is recommended for them they don't need it and gravel is perfectly fine for them.

 

[hanny93]

If you like catfish and loaches you may want to look into different types of cory. Lovely bottom dweller fish which are always active and peaceful, although sand is recommended for them they don't need it and gravel is perfectly fine for them.

The reason sand is recommended is because they burrow a lot in the sand headfirst, and gravel can wear down their barbels and sometimes they can get infected.

Barbels of cories kept on sand are a lot longer and thicker than of those kept on gravel.

If you must have gravel, althugh i cant see why youd want it with the amount of rubbish and gunk that gets caught up in it, get small, well rounded gravel, no sharp jaggedy pieces.

 

[fluttermoth]

If you like catfish and loaches you may want to look into different types of cory. Lovely bottom dweller fish which are always active and peaceful, although sand is recommended for them they don't need it and gravel is perfectly fine for them.

With the greatest of respect, I think they do need it.

 

[Duz]

I would highly recommend sand for corys, I myself use sand in my aquarium and I have corys. Although it can wear down their barbels and lead to infection, this isn't always true. Cories can live perfectly fine in gravel aquariums so long as the gravel is kept clean, of a small size and isn't sharp like hanny93 said. Saying that cories do prefer sand and of course I would completely agree if cories were to be kept in a tank with medium/large gravel with sharp edges.

Maybe I should of rephased my first comment a little better

 

[eaglesaquarium]

For me, watching the corys sift through the sand and have it shoot out the gills is just amazingly cool to watch! I couldn't believe that mine started doing that about 2 minutes after they got into my tank. I was expecting that they would hide out for a while first. But once they realized that they were basically the only fish in the tank, they started checking out the sand, post-haste! It is awesome to see.


If you like hatchetfish, loaches and catfish (like corys) you will have a vast empty space in the middle. Hatchets stay in the very top of the tank, and the loaches and corys will stay in the bottom third. I would recommend you look at some sort of mid-water schooling fish (maybe two schools in a tank that size) to round out the tank.

 

[james_fish]

I love American cichlids much calmer than the Africans and can work in a community like this. A Rotkiel Severum and/or Rainbow cichlids are nice and can work well together. I prefer to go for a community of singletons rather than pairs as it cuts down complications surrounding breeding.

Wills cheeky attempt at weening a member onto NW Cichlids

In all seriousness, 300 litres is a nice size! Whats that just short of 80usGal? Got the potential to be a nice tank, with a very healthy sized stocking! Plenty of room for many Catfish speices! Here's just a good few dozen of species on our forum Catfish Species Link... There are many! As said Loaches and Hatchetfish will be a fine choice aswell.

Would be a great idea to build up a stocking where the fish come from the same parts of the world e.g. South America or Asia. Catfish and Hatchetfish both originate from South America, along with NW Cichlids and many types of Characin (Tetra's)

Just a potential stocking would be:

15 Corydoras Catfish
2 Bristlenose Pleco's (or any other Pleco that stays under 8")
20 Tetra's (many species to choose from)
10 Hatchetfish
A pair or small group of community Cichlids

Be sure to check out the journal's around the forum.

Happy Fishkeeping

James.

 

[fluttermoth]

I've got a 240l in my bedroom that's got; 18 marbled hatchets, 42 green neons, a female ram, a royal whiptail and a pair of bristlenoses. It's well planted with fine black gravel and is one of my favourite tanks.

Or, if you had sand instead, you could have a smaller shoal and add some cories, that would work as well.