Stocking Feedback

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Jun 4, 2006
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Mesa, AZ
We're in the process of setting up a 140gal community tank. Footprint is
72" x 18" x 25". It'll be fairly heavily planted with lots of wood and rock hiding places and about 20% open substrate areas.

So far this is what I've come up with to balance what my partner and I each want in this tank. :) Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

8 Zebra Danio
6 Tetra (type as yet undecided, any colorful suggestions?)
6 Glass Fish
9 Sterba Cory
1 Rubberlip Pleco
1 Angel
2 Dwarf Gouarmi (one each powder blue and flame male-no females avail) :(
10 Shrimp (a mix of Ghost, Amano and yet undecided red variety)
10 Otocinclus
5 Fancy Guppy OR Molly (variety undecided...)

and the one I haven't been able to budge my partner on:
1 bala (yes, I know they're better in schools, he's insistant one's okay)

That gives me approx 112" of adult fish. I know, using inches of fish doesn't accurately show what the bioload really is, but it gives a rough measurement
for comparison purposes.
 
That would be fine. But maybe lose the bala. Also, you should keep angels in a group. Get 3 or so. You may need to be careful with 2 male dwarf gouramis. they may fight. Guppies could be a bad idea with danios - I had a male guppy which was constantly chased and killed by them. But in that sized tank they may be ok.
 
Yeah Danio and even some tetra will bother the male guppies ... When I introduced my male guppy to the tank there was already a school of around 10 cardinals in my tank .. I had no problems.. I added 3 more cardinals and I guess one of the new guys thought the Guppy tail would be an excellent snack because one morning I woke up and there was a chunk missing out of muh guppies tail ...

Hasn't happend since but the problem is the male can't catch the danios so they'll continue to harrase him ....
 
i would also loose the bala and replace it with 2 or 3 angels..... that way you eliminate the lack of a neccessary school for two fish....
 
I'll probably nix the guppies in favor of another easy-live bearer then. I was aiming towards a smallish live-bearer that would add a bit of color as well as potential fry to provide food/hunting enrichment for the bigger fish like the angel.

The bala is a sore point that we're still trying to hash out. My partner keeps pointing to sites stating one does fine, I keep arguing "fine" isn't the quality that I'm aiming to provide for our fish.

I think the two male gourami's should do okay given a heavily planted tank with lots of wood and rock caves and 7' of space. Ideally I'll find a source for a couple females instead.

Any suggestions on tetra's? I keep thinking I must have overlooked an option that would help round out the variety in the tank. The other option I was looking at were cherry barbs--but I haven't found any definitive answers on whether they might be nippy towards angel(s).
 
I have found that while Balas like to live in shoals, A single Bala will shoal with various types of rasboras. Scissor Tails, Brillant and Red Tail Rasboras are all perfect shoaling friends for a Bala Shark. I cant say wether it will hold true when the Bala gets much larger than the Rasboras. I suggest trading the Glass Fish or the Tetras or even both for some of those Rasboras I mentioned. I also suggest doing your best to get some females for the Dwarf Gouramis to hang out with.
 
ditch the bala and go with one large school of one kind of fish, rather than several small schools of several types of fish. the fish will be happier and the tank will look so much better with just one massive school of little fish with a few larger ones floating around. you really need about 15-20 of one species of fish to really get the nice schooling behavior.

a great schooling tetra are rummynose. they are gorgeous and make a beautiful tight school if you get enough of them. i would ditch the glass fish, guppies, and danios and just get all one kind of tetra. but that's just me.

in a 140g tank, the gouramis would have enough room that they would be able to establish their own territory and would probably leave each other alone.

balas get VERY large (easily up to 15 inches) and are schooling fish. they are hyper and very spaztic and will flip out of they don't feel safe, and they feel safe in schools. One will NOT be alright on its own.

and a tip on otos, wait until the tank is fully cycled and you have a head start on some good algae (brown diatom algae is their favorite) before adding the otos. most otos are half starved to death in the pet stores and can be very delicate when introduced to a new tank. they may not want to take processed food so you should have lots of algae in the tank for them to eat when you first add them or they can starve to death.
 
While I can appreciate the beauty of a species tank, it's not where I'm going with this one. I'll be stocking it in pieces, so there's still plenty of time/room for change, but I already know it'll have the danios, at least one gourami, my sterba cory, a rubbernose pleco, and otos because I already have those and they'll be getting moved.

When I set up the big tank, I'll be transferring over all the plants from the current tank, as well as (at least temporarily) the hardscape pieces. So there will be algae for my current oto's--and they're all eating veggies nicely as well. I'll probably add more otos down the road, but not until the tank is reasonably well established.

Option number three--resolving the angel/bala issues--is to go with a large school of rainbow fish instead. Our LFS carries a pretty reasonable selection of them.

I ran the budget on this again tonight. We're up to an expected 4k in total outlay in buy the tank, lights, substrate, wood and rock pieces, build the stand, filter and chiller systems, fish and plants, and misc. gear. including
a range of foods stuffs, backup equipment, tools, standard meds etc.
 
Okay, much wrangling and I have a possible new plan....again, feedback appreciated.

140 gallon 72x18x25 tank, * marks the fish I already have in current tanks

* 12 Sterbaii Cory
* 5 Otocinclus
* 8 Zebra Danio
* 1 Dwarf Gourami (male)
3 Angelfish
2 SAE
6 Cherry Barb
2-3 Black Molly
6 Sparkling Gourami

That should still me a little play room to adapt if I find I want more of any particular fish (like females for the dwarf gourami) and/or swap out one species down the road for more of another.
 
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