55 Gallon Community Stockinh Help

[African Dick]

I have always had large aggressive fish and want to build a peaceful community. I have plenty of filtration, a ton of hiding places (driftwood), and the aquarium has been set-up for a year (with a very high bio-load). All of my fish are very small with the exception of the pleco. I also have a strong powerhead should I cut it down or remove it? Also I am looking for suggestions for more fish. The tank looks empty.

Currently I have:

2 Male Turquoise Guppies
4 Female Fancy Guppies
2 Male Sunburst Platy's
3 Female Sunburst Platy's
1 Glass Fish (small)
1 Large Pleco

[jm1212]

arent glassfish brackish fish? if you want "see through" fish like glass fish, lemon tetras or glass catfish are pretty cool.

is you pleco a common pleco? if so, hes not only going ot get to big for your tank, he is going to take up most of the bioload.

[fishcatch22]

more glassfish, lose the pleco. after you lose the pleco, you could add a school of tetras to liven things up.

[African Dick]

I have had the pleco for a long time? Will the guppies start breeding and kind of take over the tank? Also the glass fish is so small. What about a small group of corys or something like that?

[fishcatch22]

I have had the pleco for a long time? Will the guppies start breeding and kind of take over the tank? Also the glass fish is so small. What about a small group of cories or something like that.you really need to lose the pleco if you want anything at all one the bottom. glassfish look fantastic in large shoals.

[African Dick]

you really need to lose the pleco if you want anything at all one the bottom. glassfish look fantastic in large shoals.

Why is that exatly (about the pleco)?

[fishcatch22]

common plecos grow to be about 2 feet long, my dad has one that's about 2 1/2 feet long.

[jm1212]

it get so big and it makes so much waste, which is not good for glass fish as they are pretty fragile.

if you leave the baby guppies in the tank they should get picked off by the other fish in the tank

[African Dick]

What about bettas or are they too aggressive?

[fishcatch22]

What about bettas or are they too aggressive?nah, a betta would be fine.

[African Dick]

What would your suggestion be on getting some bredding bettas? A male and a couple of females?

[jm1212]

What about bettas or are they too aggressive? it depends on what else you want in the tank. they might get a bit aggressive with male livebearers because of their colors, and some bettas are just aggressive by nature.

im still pretty sure that glassfish are brackish, which is one reason that they are so disease prone, but i may just be thinking of another species of fish that looks a bit like glassfish.

[fishcatch22]

What would your suggestion be on getting some bredding bettas? A male and a couple of females?if you want to breed bettas, it's not going to happen in a 55G community tank. I reccomend trying a harem of 4-5 female bettas for your 55G.

[African Dick]

What about adding some mollies?

[fishcatch22]

What about adding some mollies?mollies might eat/kill your guppies. (note I said might, they may be fine with them.)

[jm1212]

you have enough livebearers for the time being, you are going to want to add to your glassfish school ASAP.

[African Dick]

you have enough livebearers for the time being, you are going to want to add to your glassfish school ASAP.

Explain why I have enough livebearers please.

[fishcatch22]

Explain why I have enough livebearers please.well you do have 11..... yeah, get about 8-9 more glassfish.

[African Dick]

Is a swordtail a type of molly?

[jm1212]

a swordtail is not a type of molly, but it is another type of livebearer.

[Kyohti]

Speaking with some experience, betta breeding would be next to impossible in a community tank. Bettas are labrynth fishes, which means they have a special organ in them that allows them to take oxygen from the air. They are also very aggressive when not mating. Females can be kept together when they can hide from one another, but if you keep a male in the tank, the females will constantly harass him. Either they will bully him and shred his fins, or they might try breeding with him, but once he has eggs and fry up in his bubble nest, he will kill ANY female and any fish that comes near it!!

As if that isn't bad enough, the bubble nest requires almost stagnant-still water to keep it's surface tension constantly when harboring the super-delicate betta fry. The male will maintain the nest, cleaning it, adding more bubbles, and keeping his brood suspended in the nest. Any ripple or vibration would cause many eggs/fry to tumble helplessly from the bubbles and the male would literally exhaust himself trying to keep them all contained in his nest.

Once they are free-swimming out of the bubble nest, the male (who would've been their caretaker until now) must be removed or he may start eating his own young. Their labrynth organs are so fragile for the first two months that even a cool breeze over the water surface (their source of oxygen) could wipe them out!!! So when I was breeding them, I had to keep saran wrap over the top of the aquarium and I could use no filtration at all until they were 3 weeks old. Also, the water can't be more than 4 inches deep. Anything deeper and they exhaust themselves rising from feeding at the bottom to get air from the top. Yes, the baby fry can literally DROWN! Then, when they are so tiny, they require zooplankton to feed on and then they eat baby brine shrimp after that. That gives you an idea of how tiny they are and how easily everything else (female bettas and occasionally even MALE betta included) would consider them a fine snack.

The most filtration you can give betta fry until they are roughly 1 inch long is very gentle... submersible sponge filtration is suggested. They swim very slowly and easily get slurped into anything stronger than that. So as you can see, the best way to breed bettas is to separate a single pair into a 10 gallon with 4 inches of water (I suggest adding a teaspoon of blackwater extract to condition it) and go from there. It'd be a disaster to breed them in a large communal tank and some or all of your bettas would end up damaged or killed trying to mate in there.

[ILOVEBETTAS]

I'd recommend:

Cory cats, lemon tetras, zebra danios, female bettas, and neons.

[African Dick]

Speaking with some experience, betta breeding would be next to impossible in a community tank. Bettas are labrynth fishes, which means they have a special organ in them that allows them to take oxygen from the air. They are also very aggressive when not mating. Females can be kept together when they can hide from one another, but if you keep a male in the tank, the females will constantly harass him. Either they will bully him and shred his fins, or they might try breeding with him, but once he has eggs and fry up in his bubble nest, he will kill ANY female and any fish that comes near it!!

As if that isn't bad enough, the bubble nest requires almost stagnant-still water to keep it's surface tension constantly when harboring the super-delicate betta fry. The male will maintain the nest, cleaning it, adding more bubbles, and keeping his brood suspended in the nest. Any ripple or vibration would cause many eggs/fry to tumble helplessly from the bubbles and the male would literally exhaust himself trying to keep them all contained in his nest.

Once they are free-swimming out of the bubble nest, the male (who would've been their caretaker until now) must be removed or he may start eating his own young. Their labrynth organs are so fragile for the first two months that even a cool breeze over the water surface (their source of oxygen) could wipe them out!!! So when I was breeding them, I had to keep saran wrap over the top of the aquarium and I could use no filtration at all until they were 3 weeks old. Also, the water can't be more than 4 inches deep. Anything deeper and they exhaust themselves rising from feeding at the bottom to get air from the top. Yes, the baby fry can literally DROWN! Then, when they are so tiny, they require zooplankton to feed on and then they eat baby brine shrimp after that. That gives you an idea of how tiny they are and how easily everything else (female bettas and occasionally even MALE betta included) would consider them a fine snack.

The most filtration you can give betta fry until they are roughly 1 inch long is very gentle... submersible sponge filtration is suggested. They swim very slowly and easily get slurped into anything stronger than that. So as you can see, the best way to breed bettas is to separate a single pair into a 10 gallon with 4 inches of water (I suggest adding a teaspoon of blackwater extract to condition it) and go from there. It'd be a disaster to breed them in a large communal tank and some or all of your bettas would end up damaged or killed trying to mate in there.


Good information! Thanks!

[African Dick]

I'd recommend:

Cory cats, lemon tetras, zebra danios, female bettas, and neons.

So female bettas are ok? How many cory cats for a 55? What about swordtails?

[jm1212]

swordtails are livebearers and you have enough of them in your tank.

[African Dick]

swordtails are livebearers and you have enough of them in your tank.

I do not have any swordtails though. The tank is almost empty looking the fish are so small. Would it hurt to add swordtails? Do guppies breed that fast? I will probably go with a tetra school also. Also I was examining the glass fish and he is pretty beat up and seems so fragile I am going to take him back to the store.

[NinjaPirate]

So female bettas are ok? How many cory cats for a 55? What about swordtails?

Female bettas are semi-aggressive fish. They tend to beat on eachother some, but if your tank has lots of activity/decor, it's usually not terrible. They do fine in peaceful community tanks so long as they are the sole semmi-aggro in the tank. So they don't usually do well with barbs or gourami's, but are fine with tetras, rasboras, cory's, ottos, guppies, etc. etc.

I would reccommend getting atleast 4 so they don't pick on any one fish too much. All females ONLY. Not a group of males, and not a mix of females/males. Doing so will generally result in dead fish. Personally I'd suggest female crowntails if you can find any. Their finnage tends to be almost as long as the male's.

Kyohti pretty much hit the nail on the head with the whole breeding process for bettas. And that just covers the part before the fish start showing territorial nature. It takes alot of space and work to properly raise bettas.

[ILOVEBETTAS]

Ooooh! Get dwarf gouramis too!

[jessicar613]

I do not have any swordtails though. The tank is almost empty looking the fish are so small. Would it hurt to add swordtails? Do guppies breed that fast?

Yes they do; I had two guppies once in a 20, and my tank was badly overstocked in a just a few months. They multiply exponentially. My females didn't even produce, usually, more than 10 fry at a time. The smallest females only had a few. Still, each female produced faithfully every three weeks or so. I had stubborn fish that wouldn't eat fry. Your tank is almost three times that size, but you have over five times that many live bearers. So unless you have some fish that eat the fry, you'll end up with a problem.

[African Dick]

That is the thing I do have fish to eat the fry and such. That was part of this set-up that I would have occasional feeders. For some reason all the activity is on the left side of the tank and the tank almost looks empty. I am thinking I need some schooling activity on bottom and the center. Does it matter the sex of dwarf gourami's? Will they eat the guppy fry?

[African Dick]

Also what about a single male betta?

[Kyohti]

Kyohti pretty much hit the nail on the head with the whole breeding process for bettas. And that just covers the part before the fish start showing territorial nature. It takes alot of space and work to properly raise bettas.

Indeed, it does!! I tried for two years with my 5 males and 3 females for a successful batch. I finally got one and of the 300+ eggs, I ended up with only six survivors. But unfortunately, when I had to leave to visit my stepdad that summer, my mother simply dumped them all into my 20 gallon community aquarium when they were barely a half-inch long... to dwell with my 3 females. None of them survived the ordeal and I came home to my teal female having severe fin damage. It was a disaster and I cried for days over it.

Yeah... betta breeding is NOT for the faint of heart!!!

[Kyohti]

Also what about a single male betta?

A single male with swordtails might be bad news. My friend's mother had her betta, Mr. Bubbles, with a green sword and three platies. His fins didn't last long because he was fairly lazy. She suspects it had to do with the fact that he was red and it attracted them to peck out of curiosity or something. O__o;;

I've had a male betta (my first, 'Rocko') in with danios, mickey-mouse platies, a kuhli loach, cories, a pleco, and a trio of neons. He never suffered a scratch..... until my brother brought a red-tailed shark home. >.<

Big dummy...

[African Dick]

Here is what I have:

8 Red Tetras??
8 Neons
3 Female Fancy Guppies
2 Male Turquoise Guppies
1 Pleco
1 Spotted Raphael
5 Platy's

How many more neons could I go with?

I have two Emp. 400's.

[k3vinliu]

you can put way more fish in there. maybe a couple clown loaches or a shoal of cories. and there is a bunch of room mid-top for more fish. just dont have that many live bearers and go with schooling fish or gouramis :)

[H3D]

you can put way more fish in there. maybe a couple clown loaches or a shoal of cories. and there is a bunch of room mid-top for more fish. just dont have that many live bearers and go with schooling fish or gouramis :) No clown loaches! They get way to big!

[k3vinliu]

yea, but it takes years... there's plenty of time to decide where it ends up

[African Dick]

How about 10 more neons and 10 more red tetras or whatever they are and about 4 corys??

[H3D]

yea, but it takes years... there's plenty of time to decide where it ends up This a myth! :mad: I started mine in a 55 gallon and they reached 4-5 inches in a years time. A group of 5 clown loaches that large produce quite a bio-load and once they are about 5-6 inches they will need moved to a larger tank.

[k3vinliu]

well from what i read, it takes along time for them to be fully grown. didn't know it would be 4-5 in. in a year or so... do they slow their growth rate after that time?

[African Dick]

Who gives a sh@t? I am not getting any clown loaches.

[Yoemen]

If you want something to replace the pleco get a featherfin syno, 2 if you have lots of caves. They can be rather terretorial. But are very cool active fish to watch.

I have 2 that run my Jack dempsey off when he tries to eat their food. The rest of the time they chase each other out of their ends of the tank. They ignore my spotted raphael, but practically swim to the top of the tank anytime my 5 inch striped raph comes out to eat.