Community tank stocking advice...

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jks

AC Members
Dec 19, 2004
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Well, my daughter's 30 gal tank is nearly cycled. I've been adding ammonia daily (about 50 drops since the original 5 ppm dropped to zero and has stayed there. The Nitrites have spiked and are finally dropping quickly...currently somewhere around 1-.5 ppm. Of course I will continue to feed the tank with ammonia until both nitite and ammonia are zero. I also intend to do a 24% water change before adding fish.

Here's my preliminary stocking list:

3 Silver Dollars
1 Red Tailed Shark
5 Glow Light tetras
1 comon pleco.

I know the silver dollars and pleco will eventually outgrow the 30 gallon tank. But we are realistically looking at 2-3 years befoe that happens. My brother happens to be in the retail pond business and has a few large 100 gallon tanks he keeps and often trades and sells "used" tropical fish. So finding a home for these fish when they grow up isn't problem.

Would appreciate any insight into compatability...the biggest fish are the silver dollars which are roughly 1.5 inches long. I don't think this will stress the bioload even as these fishe get bigger but again...any insight is appreciated.

Thanks!
 

gophersnake13

AC Members
Sep 9, 2004
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Depending on your daughter's age she may had a problem with giving up her freinds. So I would go with some Peacful Dwarf Cichilids combined with some tetras and maybe a smaller species of pleco. I am going to be starting up a biotope aquarium and the people on this great site told me this combo would work:

4 Cockatoo Dwarf Cichilids (1male 3females)
10 Lemon Tetras (or Neons)
5 Marbled Hatchet fish
 

blueturq

This hobby is addicting!
Jul 17, 2004
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Canada
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I would keep the glowlights.

Remove both the Red-tail and Bala Sharks, aswell as the silver dollars.

I know you are aware of the balas and silver dollars already, so I won't get into that.

The reason I say that the red-tail shark is also a bad idea is because he/she will more than likely eat your glowlights, may not now, but he/she will eventually.

Red-tail sharks are predatory of smaller fish, and are territorial.

There are some other smaller tetras you can have with your glowlights, such as neon, cardinal, black neon.

If you want to go with something a little different but very interesting, then I highly reccommend dwarf neon rainbowfish.

They are fairly small (about 2.5 to 3 inches max.) and are very colourful (especially the males), they eat anything, and they are very hardy, aswell as very peaceful. They are really cool because sometimes they hang out with other fish, even if they aren't related! :D, at least that's what mine did. They hung out with my white clouds and harlequin rasboras and created this big school LOL! I am actually starting to wonder if this is a natural trait with them, because I remember a while ago a friend of mine had some platies, and he went out and got some dwarf neon rainbowfish and he said that they hung out with his platies, so I went over and I had to see this just to see if it was true or not, and sure enough, there they were!

A small school of maybe 4 females and 2 males should be fine in your 30 gallon. It is very easy to sex them.

The females have yellowish fins and the males have reddish fins.
 

ambrosiamonkey

Doing the Community Thing
Dec 9, 2004
63
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Berkeley, California
blueturq said:
If you want to go with something a little different but very interesting, then I highly reccommend dwarf neon rainbowfish.

They are fairly small (about 2.5 to 3 inches max.) and are very colourful (especially the males), they eat anything, and they are very hardy, aswell as very peaceful. They are really cool because sometimes they hang out with other fish, even if they aren't related! :D, at least that's what mine did. They hung out with my white clouds and harlequin rasboras and created this big school LOL! I am actually starting to wonder if this is a natural trait with them, because I remember a while ago a friend of mine had some platies, and he went out and got some dwarf neon rainbowfish and he said that they hung out with his platies, so I went over and I had to see this just to see if it was true or not, and sure enough, there they were!

A small school of maybe 4 females and 2 males should be fine in your 30 gallon. It is very easy to sex them.

The females have yellowish fins and the males have reddish fins.
My dwarf neon rainbows do the same thing- they school with the emperor tetras that I have in the same tank, making one enormous school. And they aren't fussy about food- they eat well and have colored up really nicely. Sometimes some of the otos join them, which is really funny to watch.
 
Last edited:

Holly9937

AC Members
Jan 20, 2005
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Michigan
I had a red tailed shark and he was terrible!! He constantly harrassed everything in the tank!! However, the one I have in the other tank is pretty nice!! They can be very aggressive, and I cannot figure out why alot of the LFS label them as community!!

Also, even if you can get rid of the pleco later, you could go with a brislenose and just keep it!! They get to be about 6 inches I think?? Then again the tank might still be a little small for it, not sure :confused:
 
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