225g aquarium stocking

Rafini · Mar 30, 2014

Hey Guys I figured this would be a better place than MFK to ask about tank stockings.
Firstly my Name is Rafini and I have a 225 gallon aquarium, it measures 5ft long, 3ft wide and 2ft tall. it is really quite enormous and I was tired of keeping monster fish in there. Over the years I have kept Malawi cichlids, Tanganyikans, marine, Brackish, central and south american cichlids, and assorted large monster fish (giant gourami, snakeheads, Pacú).

I really like the Idea of setting up a community. Lots of activity and colors, lots of things going on in the tank and interesting behaviours. I have never truly taken the time to set up a planted tank, and If I did they would have to be low light required species as I do not really want to go and get a really expensive to run lighting system.

I really love this huge tanks I see at the LFS with peaceful fish and lots of colors and I am thinking this might be the best direction for me to go, could I please have some suggestions?
I really like the elephant nose fish, and any interesting bottom dwellers. I currently have a 120 that has a bunch of aussie rainbows and congo tetras with some cichlids (severum, parrots, Guinacara)

Thanks in advance, Rafini

In terms of aquascaping, This is what I have so far.... only inhabitant is a 1.5" Synodontis Decorus to keep the system alive

ktrom13 · Mar 30, 2014

A nice shoal of 8-10 angels with a school of 6 elephant noses sounds like a good idea to me but i dont know how compatable they are. And a nice large shoal of 20 emperor teras( or other larger tetras so the angels dont eat them). A nice plant that would work great for the height of your tank would be vals, water sprite, or other taller plants.

Given the size of the tank theres just so many options. Have fun stocking it!

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Fishfriend1 · Mar 30, 2014

-promptly designs his own dream tank- Do you mind if I go a little wild here?

erv:

Fish:

20-30 rainbowfish -pretty much any species of peaceful rainbowfish will work, but I personally like Neon Rainbows (silver, blue & red) the best.
30-40 small schoolers - Neon Tetra(Black, Blue&Red, Gold), Harlequin Rasbora (orange&black), Danios (pearl or turquoise look nice), cherry barbs (red)
20-30 cories - I like peppered cories the best, but any would probably do well in a tank like that.
Porthole Catfish - Never kept these, always wanted to. They'd do well in a nice sized shoal (12-20) with plenty of cover.
Larger Mid-Level Fish - Angels (will eat small fish), Discus (demanding), 6-8 silver dollars (get large, eat plants), elephant noses (never kept 'em), maybe kribs(?).
School of Hatchets - Very interesting surface-dwelling fish, they'd do well in a tank with that much surface space!
Pleco - There are literally tons of pleco's that could be dropped into that tank, from common plecos to more attractive ones. Always a good addition.

Inverts:

Assassin Snails - for when you get hit with a ton of pest snails, because it ALWAYS happens to me.
Nerita Snails - Very pretty snails I think. They do a decent job of cleaning a tank too.
Trapdoor Snails - for the algae that will come. And for the awesome of seeing them on the side of the tank.
Shrimp... - eh, maybe not. They'd be lost in a tank this big, but it would be cool if a breeding pop formed and helped feed the fish haha.

Plants:

You could do just about any plants if you have the lighting for it. Fake ones are less fun, but real ones take more effort. I suggest at the very least including java moss and java fern, as they are hardy, low-effort plants that would help with appearance. Other good ideas are anubias of most types, they can be large and small and work great for any size planted tank. Maybe a hygrophila or 3, I have 3 and the two in my 75gal literally fill a solid 25% of the space on their own. Swords are also a good plant for any taller tank, as they will often reach the top.

Decor:

I'd suggest a sand substrate (1-3in), most bottom-dwelling fish prefer it and it works better for plants and appearance. Lots of driftwood, though the pieces will need to be fairly large so as to not be swallowed by the tank size haha (well, I like big wood, I cannot lie...

). Some larger pieces of rock and stone would also make a good addition, and help the fish find hiding places. This part is really in the eye of the beholder.

Sorry for going a little nutty on the stock, I just love large schools of fish... but yeah, that's my suggestion

Rafini · Mar 30, 2014

Don`t be sorry at all that was an amazing stocking selection!
The small schoolers you mentioned, would those fall under the category of being eaten by the angels? I can get small quarter sized silver dollars for $6 each, some even have spots on them, so that might be a cool addition to the tank. Would it be cool to add other peaceful SA fish like Severums or some earth eater species?

I really like the idea of having a large group of cory cats. I would have to probably try and get them from a breeder though as buying that many at LFS prices would cost a fortune I`m sure. I am interested in having a few more oddball type species though and i also do have access to Denisoni barbs. they are available fairly regularly around here, but they cost a fortune

Fishfriend1 · Mar 30, 2014

Regarding the small schools, most of them *technically* are within an adult angels "if it fits it's dinner" perspective, but I *think* that the adult sizes for most of them are such that an adult angel can't fit them in it's mouth. Don't quote me on that though, as I've never kept cherry barbs and haven't had an angel in years. As for the severums, I'm honestly not sure on that as I've never kept them. If they're peaceful fish except when breeding it *should* be fine, assuming they can't fit the smaller fish into their mouths of course.

Some oddball fish... you could try a large shoal of Glass Catfish in the place of the porthole cats, or in the place of one of the schooling fish. There are some medium/large catfish you could try out, but I don't know about them being hunters or not. Wiptail catfish are an interest species if you can find them, along with loricaria and Farlowella Cats are also peaceful and interesting. I've heard that Banjo Catfish are good, but they're omnivores so they may threaten smaller fish. You could also try some loaches, they are always fun from what I've heard.

ROYWS3 · Mar 30, 2014

I know you're debating the whole live plant thing so if your deciding to choose Severums and/ or geophagus then it would probably be a bad Idea. the severums will eat them and the earth eaters ill just continuously uproot them. You could do a really great SA tank with these two species as it's stars. You could add a big school of cories and some larger tetra species (bleeding hearts, black phantoms, etc) with lots off branchy driftwood and rocks. I would love to aquascape footprint!

SnakeIce · Mar 31, 2014

Just realize that with silver dollars the choice is them or plants, not both. Angels could eat anything Neon tetra or smaller especially if the angels are in the tank first. You might get away with it if you stock the neons first and grow them and some plants out before getting small Angels but it would be a risk to the neons. You could look at the dwarf cichlids. You could have some kribensis, apistoes(trifasciata or hongsloi for harder water tolerant ones), Laetacara dorsigera, rams, keyhole cichlids, checkerboard cichlid pairs in the tank. I've read that a pair of dwarf cichlids needs a square foot of space per pair, so plenty of room.

Plant friendly cichlids: discus*, festivum*, angelfish, and those small cichlids mentioned previously.

You could do a north america native tank with darters, bluefin killiefish, red bellied dace, topminnows, gambusia, madtom catfish, or alternately sunfish can be beautiful.

*warmer water.

Rafini · Mar 31, 2014

hey guys, so I picked up 12 Cory cats today after work, only paid 10 bucks for them because my LFS was doing a clear out so worked out pretty good for me.
I won't get geo's or severums if it means absolutely NO plants. I would like to have a some hardy resiliant plant species in there and I already have a 120 with a small severum and some other cichlids, so I will just confine the other fish I would like to keep to that tank... works out pretty good huh?

Added a load of driftwood, I have some branches coming down at one end like roots and the rest is just at the back of the tank providing some shelter for the corys. They are all patrolling around and exploring. It honestly looks really natural to see the cory cats having such a large area of space to forage.

In terms of Cichlid species would Guinacara stergiosi be okay? I have two in my other tank and they are basically little dwarf geophagus wannabe cichlids.
How about Uaru? Festivum have always been a love of mine so I would be happy to grab some of those along with Angels.
I am envisioning some smaller species of shoaling fish with maybe a few larger ones thrown in to mix things up with different shapes and sizes. I have seen tetras in just about every color at my LFS, red, green, blue, pink, orange etc so I should have no problem getting lots of color and movement in the tank.

I already have x6 Albino black skirts, 6x aussie rainbows and 5 congo tetra in my 120 so down the line I could move some of those into the big tank to get some more movement.

But mainly I am wondering if I should do SA only, or allow other species like loaches, Bala sharks etc

Fishfriend1 · Mar 31, 2014

If you move the skirts, rainbows, and tetra into the 225 you may want to like double or triple their school sizes, they get very awesome when in massive schools

Rafini · Mar 31, 2014

Yeah definately, I`m just really trying to decide if I want it to be an authentic biome or just a big awesome community tank


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225g aquarium stocking

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