100 gallon needs stocking

T

toothbrush86

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Oct 11, 2003
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my 100 gallon tank consist of about 10 tiger barbs (1.5"), a green severum, a firemouth, a gourami (all around 3" w/o tail) and a 4-5 inch african knifefish. its been running for about a year now.

what i am concerned about is that the tiger barbs are somehow "disappearing" and im pretty sure soon all of them are going to be picked off one by one. the tanks gonna look really plain and boring when it happens. what im looking for is another school of fish that wont get eaten by the other inhabitants (possibly a group of silver dollars or giant danios?). however, i think that the silvers and danios lack color and wont make the tank look as good as it is with the tiger barbs.

can anyone suggest some fish that would brighten up the tank, while avoid being eaten by the fish?
 
It is probably your knifefish eating them. they are predatory fish.

they also get to be about 3 feet long and need a much larger tank than 100gallon.

I would get rid of him and then your tiger barbs should stop disapeering.
 
While demon_surfer is probably correct in the assumption that your knife fish is the culprit, I think he might have misread your post. Asian knife fish of the chitala genus get to 3 feet in lenght, which are probably what demon_surfer was refering to. But you said that you had an African knife (I'm assuming Xenomystus nigri) which usually only grow to about 12" (which should be fine in a 100gal). They are predators and are certainly capable of disposing of a few tiger barbs. The problem is also that they are nocturnal predators so even speedy fish such as zebra danios can become victims. Giant danios and silver dollars would probably be fine. Since you're looking for more colour you could check out red hook silver dollars - they're not as pretty as tiger barbs but are at lease more colourful than normal silver dollars). Pink tailed chalceus and bala sharks would probably also work - both are fairly slow growers but end up pretty large.
 
Why not look into getting some bottom feeders for the tank instead of more midlevel fish? If you bought some older clown loaches they would look nice and should be big enough to survive, especially in a group of three. Or the ever cool red tailed shark - about 4-5 inches bt mean enough to stand his own. Plus if you make some caves for the bottom feeders then they will be able to hide, especially at night.
 
take a look at some Rosey barbs, they're a bit bigger than the tigers, im far from an expert in any field of fish, im still on my first tank, but my dad has some rosey barbs downstairs in his tank, and they look really nice!! theyre really lively too, so your tank wont be boring, like i sed tho, im a fishy n00b, so i'd check wiv some of the more knowlagable people around to see if they'd be ok, just an idea really :D
 
yea its an african kinfe, not a clown or anything like that. i forgot to mention my 2 pictus cats thats around 3-4". clown loaches cost too much, espeically for anything over 3+". its hard to imagine the knife doing it, seeing it has an extremely small mouth compared to his other relatives in asia. if it had killed it, it probably would have ate it during its hunt, but when i see the dead barb its being slowly picked on by the other fish.

thnx for your replies, i'll probably go with the red hooks. hopefully yhey wont be too skittish
 
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