20 g high

[evil wizard]

well I was trying to lower the bio load in my 29 gallon tank. It has a bunch of fish that are not in schools anymore. Because of some mysterious disease that came one day and went the next day. It killed a lot of fish. I used to have schools of fish that all had 6 fish in the school. I now have 3 white cloud, 3 serpae tetras, and 2 black phantom tetras. Plus the fish that were not killed. So I was trying to move some of the fish that lost most of their schools into this tank and get a proper school.
I just went "fishing" and came back with 6 neon tetra, 6 cherry barbs, 2 platy.
The cherry barbs are for another stock. What if I move the glo lights and neons to another tank? not the tank with the cherry barbs. That would leave the tank with 6 black phantom tetras, and 6 serpae tetras.

 

[Duckie]

Everything you do with your fish and which tank to stick them in is, of course, up to you. How did it go last time in the 29 with the schools of each only 6 fish in it? The more you add to one school (with the same fish), the more interesting their behavior as a group will get. If you limit yourself to 6 each it is barely enough to keep them together. It would also not allow them to split up in two or more groups at times and join back later - that is what my black neon tetras do. Sometimes they are all together in one big cloud, sometimes in multiple groups, sometimes they are all separate for a while. My white clouds usually always stick together really closely, even though both schools are about the same size around 15. If you put too many different schooling fish in your tank, then you won't be able to increase one of the schools - I think that is part of the reason rufioman suggests to only get one school of 7-8 instead of multiple schools (or in his words several random ones). That is also my thinking of trying not to have too many different fish in my tank, it already got a lot and most like to be in a group.

 

[evil wizard]

Ok no glo light tetras and no neon tetras at all. How about just 2 schools of serpae tetras and black phantom tetras at 8-10 each? As for a center piece fish, how about a female blue gourami? She is 4 inches and is at max size.
I am thinking with 2 tanks on the mind trying to make the best decisions for both tanks.

 

[evil wizard]

Just out of curiosity, would a single female fire mouth could have worked?

 

[evil wizard]

I think I may just do it the way I like. You can't be happy if you don't do it the way you like.

 

[Duckie]

I think I may just do it the way I like. You can't be happy if you don't do it the way you like.

That is the only way to go. Remember your signature about buying the tank for the fish. You are doing it backwards and that is what makes it more complicated. Well, that is how I got in trouble too. We wanted a puffer to eventually go in our SW tank and we talked to a few people and each of them had no problems with having one together with peaceful fish in their reef. So we got us two F8 puffers and were going to keep them in the QT tank until the SW tank was ready. Well, we watched them for a while - and both our specimen are not going to work out in a community setting or any kind of cleanup crew. They got their own species tank now - the 29g that was supposed to become the sump for the SW tank. *sigh* What you don't do for your wet pets. Now we need a new 29g tank tobuild a sump out of ...

Alternative: give Mickey & Minnie back to the LFS? No way, not when they already got names.

 

[Anders247]

Just out of curiosity, would a single female fire mouth could have worked?

Imo, no.

 

[biondoa]

I have 2 20g high tanks. They are just not that big. I think if you add too many fish, you won't like the crowded appearance and the fish won't like it either. I'd go with one school of about 10 tetras, some cories and maybe a small colorful gourami for the centerpiece. I think you might feel that your 4" blue gourami was a little large in there, but you could try it and see if it works.

 

[Anders247]

Ok no glo light tetras and no neon tetras at all. How about just 2 schools of serpae tetras and black phantom tetras at 8-10 each? As for a center piece fish, how about a female blue gourami? She is 4 inches and is at max size.
I am thinking with 2 tanks on the mind trying to make the best decisions for both tanks.

Blue gouramis get 6 inches, and need at least a 40g, imo.

 

[Vincenia]

Stick with one schooling fish and a small center piece fish, Wizard. Do a small tetra likes neons or Glow Lights and a small decent size center piece like a Pearl Gourami or a Betta fish. Not both together. I could easily tell you my 20g's stock...