120g ideas

Wippit Guud

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Sep 27, 2002
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PEI, Canada
The plan, once I've been returned officially to the single life, is to get a 120g or so tank. Problem is, I'm split between what to stock it with.

Choice 1) Piranha tank, amazon biotope, adding in some other fish that will hopefully survive

Choice 2) Cichlid tank, probably one of the African lakes.

Whoch should I go with? Or does anyone have an additional choice?

I'll still have a 29g to do, too, was thinking a smaller cichlid tank, or if I can pull it off, a cold marine tank with native fish (I live on an island, not hard to try to pull that off)
 
Yeah, I was going to mention tap water as well. Since it is a large tank I would try to pick the fish that closest matched what came from the tap so there is less messing around. High pH then go with the cichlids or acidic and go with the piranahs.

A cold water marine tank might not be easy to pull off cause it will get pretty warm in the summer. If you do I would stick with a local invert tank. When I go scuba diving I notice that the fish tend to hang out in the deeper waters where it is cooler but that many of the inverts do not mind getting a bit of sun.
 
We actually have quite a few native fish that hang out in the shallows... the strait between us and the mainland is about 100ft at it's deepest, and during the summer the water can get up close to 75... when the tide goes out, some of the pools on the tidal flats (we have huge tides) can get upwards of 90, and fish swarm in them.

You know, I've never checks my out-of-the-tap water, and I ran out of tester stuff, guess I'll hit the lfs on the way to work :) (mind you, since they have the same water system, I'll just ask them what they have)
 
That is pretty warm. When I go diving around these parts I tend to get water at 60F max. And that is on a good day. Just make sure not to get baby fish that will grow into monsters!!
 
piranhas are very reclusive and shy critters. you need a very large shoal (read hundreds) for them to get really brave. and the only way to get them to do the piranha movie rip stuff to shreds thing is to starve them for a few days and then throw in something live.

If you are looking for something mean then I would look at the neotropical cichlids. they are a whole lot prettier than Piranhas and much less reclusive. There are some awesome predators too

take a look at the parachromis/nandopsis line especially the managuense and motaguensis.


there is a forum dedicated to piranha at www.predatoryfish.net were you can find lots of info on how shy they are! :D
 
Ok... well water pH here ranges from 7 to 8.5
Tap water tests at 7.6. Theoretically, both tanks are possible with a little bit of help.

For the record, I don't want to get piranha to see them rip things up. And I wanted to try more than just them in the tank, was looking to try an amazon biotope, probably mainly tetra... I'd try mixing P's with discus (my LFS finally got some), but the fear of them turning into expensive food would probably inhibit that. :)

I suppose alternative 3 would be the "shark" tank.... bala's, iridescents, silvers... 120 I could probably get away with more than 1 rtbs, too...
 
P's dont mix well with other fish, they are after all predatory fish and are known to randomly decide a tank mate if food.

I didnt mean they just dont get vicious i mean they hide period. Most of the threads I see on the forum in Pfish are "how can I make my P's stop hiding??"
 
African it is... was thinking of trying Victoria, don't see many of those compared to Tang and Malawi
 
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