90 gallon stocked... for now.... input?

The only thing I can help you with is the Black Ghost Knife. I had one for a while.. Really cool fish to look at. He was shy at first, but slowly, he would end up showing up every so often.
If you have lots of hiding places, chances are he is alive, and just hiding out in the day. Do this.... At night, turn on a little lamp, and feed the ghost nife some frozen food.. (blood worms, whatever)... you should see him coming out in no time...


Good luck.

Anytime a pleco has acted like that, I've never seen one live. Sometimes they just don't adapt to the new tank. Sorry.

What are the water conditions?

The knife is probably hiding. They do that a lot during the day.

Watch out on the clown loaches. They will get really big and you really want em in at least a school of 3.

Those weather loaches will get really big too.

You have a lot of bottom feeders, not sure I would add clowns at this point.

The angels will have a heck of a time with the tettras when the time comes. :shake:

Its possible that the conditions the plecos are kept in at your LFS are different from yours. Do you know what the water condition at your LFS is? If it is radically different from your tank's water, you can always try drip acclimilation (or a variation of which) for any future plecos. Since the fish I get aren't exactly the most sensitive things, I usually just float the bag in the tank for 30 minutes, aftewards, I add 1/4 cup of water into the bag every 15 minutes, until the bag is full... then I empty half the bag, and add in 1/2 cup of water till the bag is full. After which, I dump as much water out of the bag as possible, and put the fish into the tank. I find this method reduces initial shock to the fish... and every fish I've tried this method on seem to get use to the tank much faster.

What is the footprint of your tank? If its like your standard 90 gallon tank, I'd hold off on the clown loaches. People suggest 3 loaches... but personally, I like seeing groups of at least 5. Though slow growers, they have the potential to grow to lengths of about 12 inches. Since you have other bottom dwellers in your tank, I personally don't think there's enough surface area for clowns.

Keep in mind this advice comes from a person who likes to stock lightly. More often than not, people look into my tanks and don't notice any of my fish because its so lightly stocked. Many new visitors who don't know much about aquaria always ask the same question... "Why do you keep a tank with nothing but plants and water?" As an aquarist, I think its my job to keep my fish in conditions that I would want to live in, if I was that fish. This usually translates to, larger schools (if the fish is a schooling fish), and lots of room for the fish (among other things like filtration, lights, etc.). I stock my tanks according to the potential maximum size a fish can reach. The possibility that the fish may not reach that size does not affect my judgement.

-Richer

awwww, weather loaches aren't that bad They are kinda cool once they grow on you. They will suck at the glass just above your water level to get whatever dried food you might have up there and make sucking noises. Mine would also suck on my finger.