I need fish advice...

Right :)


Although, a few people have had fry from basically liquid rock though :)
 
Back when I had the SA biotope, my rams bred about once a week. But, the water was wrong, so no eggs ever hatched.
 
Well, I don't want to breed them... I don't want to breed any fish. I don't want to deal with the young.

Will discus be healthy and show their true colors at that ph??
 
What about a large school of colourful fish that are smaller? A huge school of rummy nose tetras is great to watch.

Do you want to avoid plants or are they potentially okay to add in?

A school of rosey barbs is nice as well, though their colours are a bit more drab than a yellow lab.
 
If it were strictly for my benefit, it'd be a heavily planted tank with 20-30 neons or cardinals and some amazing driftwood.. However, it isn't.
 
Will discus be healthy and show their true colors at that ph??

Absolutely :). Just be sure to get them from a reputable place :)
 
since you are considering dealing with discus, take a look at the angelfish from http://www.angelsplus.com/galry-koi.htm site. colorful, and they have good quality examples of other lines as well.

I would caution that they say if you stress the koi angels to badly the orange coloring fades and you might end up with a silver fish. But they do have the best.
 
Who is going to be keeping this tank? Are you setting it up for a relative with small children or is it going to be at your house where you can maintain it? For some reason, I'm getting the feeling that it will be at someone else's house where they have small kids and they will be taking care of the tank. Please correct me if I am wrong...but I will cast my vote for a couple of fancy goldfish. They won't need a heater, only a good large filter, and I'll say I've been very happy with how clean my tank stays with a reverse flow UG plate and a big powerhead. Goldfish are hardy, beautiful and not fussy. Yeah, they might start out small, but they will grow big quickly and they can live for a really long time in good conditions such as that. Not to mention they are just suuuuuper cuuuuute! :rolleyes:

Can you tell what my favorite kind of fish is?
 
After further disscussion, the tank is indeed going to be a planted community tank with a Fluorite substrate..

Fish I'm considering are as follows:
Gold Rams
Apistogramma caucautoides
cardinal tetras
angelfish
various cories
some sort of 6" ish pleco.. I'd like to do a gold nugget, but they get too big.. suggestions?
I'm open to other fish ideas, preferrably in keeping with the South American theme. I don't think the pleco is SA, but ohwell.. Puma's list from earlier is a good place to start, and I'm looking in to all of the ones he listed.

As for plants, I've always been a fan of the Amano style tanks. C02 is not going to be used though, nor is any sort of hi wattage lighting. Simple NO lighting, POSSIBLEY some CF or VHO.. So I need some medium-low light plant suggestions. Nothing ornate or difficult to keep, just simple, hardy, bright green foliage to contrast well with the dark brown Fluorite and the fish... The fish are the focus, not the plants. For now at least.

Filtration will be either a Fluval or another canister filter.. I've been away from fish keeping for awhile now, and I'm not familiar with current hardware.. Whatever I get, it will have a surface skimmer.. I have several powerheads, but I don't know if they'll work with a planted tank. Rather powerful, so they might blow things around too much. For a heater, I've got a couple 100w Ebo-Jagers to use. I'm also planning to use a sand filter, for supplemental biological filtration. Sand filters are bad for building up nitrates, which should actually be good for the plants..
 
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