How's this 150 gallon stock?

[legendaryfrog]

hi everyone. ill be going to the LFS tuesday to buy fish for my 150 gallon.

its a freshwater community tank with good filtration.

15 blue danios
15 guppies
7 dwarf gourami's (all females, 1 male)
7 rainbow fish

do you think i can put in 1 or 2 plecos? the tank is 8'*1.25'*2' and has lots of plants and rocks

[ILOVEBETTAS]

You can put in the plecos. You can put in a lot more fish... try 10-15 cories. They'll be happier

Get bristlenose plecos. The others are mean and will tear up tanks.

[legendaryfrog]

yay more fish

[Evan214]

Yeah, you could put quite a bit more fish in there. If I were you, I would add a school of Rummy Nose Tetra Hemigrammus bleheri. They are a beautiful middle to bottom swimming tetra. They are a little harder to care for than other tetras, but I have a few myself and my, they are gorgeous schooling around together. I would put, in that tank, anywhere from 8-12 of those in. You could always put in some plecos as you stated above too. Or you could also add a larger school of cories. Really, you have a lot of options before you with a tank of that size.
Good Luck! (MAN AM I JEALOUS...)
-Evan

[legendaryfrog]

***revised list***

15 blue danios
15 guppies
7 dwarf gourami's (all females, 1 male)
7 rainbow fish
8 bristlenose cory's
10 rummy nose tetras (maybe)
4 dalmation mollies (male&female)
2 plecos

[Mgamer20o0]

i would just make sure to stay away from the common plecos. they get to be 26 inch long. there are many plecos that will end up getting really big. i would try out bristlenose plecos as ILOVEBETTAS said. its great to see someone wanting to under stock a tank then overstocking it. nothing wrong with a under stocked tank.

[legendaryfrog]

nah. ill stick to common plecos. when they get pretty large, they'll be transferred to my main pleco tank, which has some farily long plecos.

[daayda3]

very good! just make sure you dont have alot of male gouramis:) you really can tell the difference (IMO/E)

[legendaryfrog]

darn, i wont be getting mollies. they prefer water on the alkaline side, but all the other fish are acclimated to acidic waters.

[dorkfish]

darn, i wont be getting mollies. they prefer water on the alkaline side, but all the other fish are acclimated to acidic waters.

Almost every fish available to you, including mollies, will adapt just fine to whatever water comes out of your tap, actually messing with your water parameters could end up doing more harm then good.

[legendaryfrog]

oh cool. then they're back!

how are fish at adapting to temperature? example: if i take a fish thats suited to 74-80* waters, and i slowly move it to 72* water, it'll be fine?


oh yeah, and should i get a heater for this aquarium? the temperature without fish, everything on, is 70*. do you think the fish's body temperature would make up for the slihtly lowered temperature?

[dorkfish]

Fish are coldbloded animals, eg. they have no body temperture, it is about the same temp. as the water. As for adapting to lower temp. I actually don't even know that ideal temps. for any of my fish, I just set all my tropical tanks to 75-78, so they probably can deal with small changes from the "ideal". But, I would like to know why exactly that this is important to you, eg. Is there a temp. compatibility issue? If so, what are the "ideal" temps. for the 'clashing' species?

You need the heater. At night, when the lights are off, less heat is being added to the tank and the house usually gets colder and if somebody were to leave a window open during the winter, your going to get a drastic temp. drop and the changes in temp. lead to stress, stress to disease, etc.

[legendaryfrog]

ok then. ill be getting a heater. think 250 watts is enough to get the water at 73 degrees?

[Aussie_hippie_2]

at full blast probably. Though if you can afford it, I'd go bigger. I think I have a 250 on my 29g. Plus, the closer to 78 degrees the better IMO.

[legendaryfrog]

what temperature do you think the water should be?

i averaged all the fish's "ideal" temperture and it was 73.5 degrees, with water hardness at 10, and the PH at 6.7

[legendaryfrog]

are these values suitable?

[legendaryfrog]

im forced to do this................bump.

[dorkfish]

Don't mess with your water chemistry. It's extra, unnesisary work, and very often the water parameters tend to bounce around a lot when your trying to adjust them, again, instablity leads to stress, stress to disease...

Whatever comes out of your tap is prefectly fine.

Round the temp. off to 73 or 74, and it should be fine.

Usually for heaters you need 5 watts per gallon, so, I don't think one 250 watt will cut it, two might, though.

[Marinemom]

I would get two heaters if at all possible. If one fails and stays in the on position as it often happens then the tank will not overheat and if the heater decides to go haywire and not work at all then you will at least have one heater and your fish will not be left out in the cold so to speak. I would also try to keep the temps at arounf 78 degrees on the farenheight scale for most tropical fish.

Marinemom

[legendaryfrog]

im going to get two 250 watt heaters. the temperature will be set at 74 degrees.

[legendaryfrog]

is that fine?

and by the way, what should these fish be fed?

[eyeman]

That should be fine for your heaters.

I would feed a good quality flake food with occasional (weekly) frozen blood worm or brine shrimp etc.

A note on water chemistry:

Most people on this board tell people not to mess with your water chemistry telling you that the fish will adjust to most tapwater. The fish will adjust but do not assume your tapwater is stable. It would be fine telling most people not to mess with their PH, KH etc. but for some, it is definetly necessary. Test your tap water KH!! Mine tests at a PH of 6.8 but with 0-1 for both GH and KH so I must add some Bi-Carb to increase my KH or I could be in trouble with PH swings. My nephew took this advice a few years ago and after a few months, he ended up with a PH of about 5 in a little over a week. Most of his fish died and he had to start over.

For a community tank, Shoot for a KH of 4 or more just to keep things stable. Others may disagree. If you are going to do at least two water changes a week, you may get away without adding anything but that would be a bit too much work for me with a 150 galloon tank. You could try a small amount of crushed coral in your filter to bring the KH up.

Again...most people don't need to worry about this since most tap water has some KH...... but just in case. If you don't need to adjust anything...DON'T

[legendaryfrog]

yeah, i guess ill go with the flake food.

occasional ill feed blanched vegetables and brine shrimp.

my KH is fine, but im sorta worries about PH. last time i checked, the PH was 8.4!!!!!
how can i lower it?

[eyeman]

Since your parents water has such a high PH / Hardness, I would mix some RO/DI water with it if I had to lower it BUT you will likely be fine with 8.4 as long as acclimation is done SLOWLY.

An alternative is to stock lake Malawi African Cichlids. They would thrive in that water and no additives would be needed.

[legendaryfrog]

before i stock the fish, il use proper ph.