I'm feeling confused/defeated...

[JiddleFish]

Hi everyone. Ugh.. okay, here goes my rant.

So as some of you know, I have set up a beautiful 55 gallon aquarium. Its almost done the cycling process (fishless cycle), so Im in the planning process for what to do with my tank.

I REALLLLLY wanted to buy a pair of discus that I found at my local aquarium store. They are beautiful, and smallish in size, so my friend that works there, said he would sell them to me for $25 each!! GREAT price! Ive been determined that those will be the center peice fish for my tank, and that I would add the ghost fish with them, as they are housed in the same tank at the store and they looked so pretty together. Those were my 2 must have fish. But then I hear from some people that those 2 fish can not go together, even though they are doing great together in the same tank at the store. I even bought a $50 peice of drift wood from that tank, to put in mine, to make it cozy for my new babies.
Ive also heard that discus are hard to take care of, and will require a lot of water changes, which I am more than willing to do.
Well, yesterday, I went to some other aquarium stores with omega, and came to realise that the options for compatible fish to go with discus is quite limited. So I started looking at some other types of fish, but nothing is catching my eye like the discus do.
What I dont want is a busy looking tank. I dont want a bunch of mollies or tetras or a variety of other fish. I want it to be quite simple.
People on this site have recommended angel fish, but Ive had those in the past, and really dont have much of a desire to get them again as my 'focal point of the tank' fish. Then I started looking at sharks, and catfish, and other bigger sized fish. I found some interesting looking gouramis, that had pretty coloring on them...

What im leaning towards is a calm type of fish.. I want a peaceful tank...or do I?? Maybe I want the hyper school of catfish.. perhaps I want some sharks??? See?? This is why Im so confused!! I had a vision in mind of my discus and my ghost fish and maybe a couple gouramis..
All I know is I paid a good thousand dollars or more to get this tank set up the way I want it, and Its hard to break from what my vision was when i set it up.. so now I dont know what to do.

I also have a 10 gallon that is almost finished cycling that I need to add fish to. Heres pics of the 55 gallon, and the 10 gallon.

 

[platytudes]

A 55 gallon is really just too small for a school of discus. They eat lots of meaty foods (and a lot of them) so as adults, 3+ discus (what I would consider a school) is going to be way too much bioload for that tank. You would need to do a couple of huge water changes a week more than likely. Also discus just aren't good to plop into a new tank, even if it is cycled it won't really be mature until a few months from now.

They need very warm water, so what you can keep with them is very limited. And they are slow eaters so you can't put them with fish like angelfish, which will devour everything before they can get to it. Besides angels don't like it quite that warm in the long run, 82+ is just too warm.

Cichlids have beautiful color, and some South or Central American cichlids would look very nice in your setup. Firemouths get a bit too big for 55 gallons. Jewel cichlids are beautiful but very aggressive, hard to keep anything except strictly top dwelling fish with them such as hatchet fish. Kribensis and Bolivian rams are great and can work in community setups with the right fish.

I think some gouramis would be your best bet (not dwarf though, there are long standing issues with the quality of the stock in this day and age in the hobby). Pearl gouramis I find especially pretty, but moonlight gouramis are nice too. Many kinds of rasboras, danios and tetras would school tightly. Tetras are generally the bigger of the three - some of my favorites are bleeding hearts, their colors are fantastic. Serpaes also look great but can be very nippy. Black neons would match the dark kind of look of your driftwood and plants.

You need to find tight schooling fish for the "calm" look you are looking for. Barbs are lovely hardy fish and some of them are gorgeous (Odessa, gold and black ruby are some of my faves) but they have more of an all around the middle up and down all over the place way of hanging out. If yiou decide you want "hyper" fish though, try some barbs and giant danios! LOL

Stay away from delicate fish for right now, I'd say...while your tank is so new.

 

[cobfreak]

What I've found is that, almost without fail, for every piece of advice you get about fish, you will get another piece of advice that conflicts with the first.

I think the hardest thing about what you have going on there is that both of those types of fish are very sensitive and would be better introduced to an established tank. Perhaps there is a third kind of fish, somewhat more hardy, that you could start with? At any rate, my advice (which will contradict other advice, for certain,) is that you should try the thing you're talking about. Try ghost fish and discus in the same tank. But like I said, maybe put some other fish in there first, for a while, so the tank can stabilize (I believe even after fishless cycling it is good to give a tank time to become established with fish. Could be wrong, though.)

I've never kept either type of fish. I have always wanted ghost catfish. Is that what type of fish you are talking about?

Good luck. Remember, very often the advice you get comes from people who have been there and done that. But even then, no matter what advice you get, things don't always work for person A the same way they will for person B.

*EDIT: I wrote this before seeing platytude's advice, which now landed ahead of this. So just to be clear, I'm not trying to disagree with that advice. Like I said, I've never kept Discus, or even looked into it; her advice about the size of a tank required for discuss is probably good advice. Just keep looking, there are PLENTY of pretty and interesting fish to try here. And I agree with her about Bleeding Heart Tetras. Very nice fish *

 

[RhondaAnn]

You can rant all you want, it's perfectly normal! You aren't the first person to be going through this... It's just confusing sometimes when you aren't sure which way to go. You'll get it figured out, don't stress over it. AND I didn't think in your post you were complaining... LOL You are just excited and unsure of what you want to do.

 

[JiddleFish]

A 55 gallon is really just too small for a school of discus. They eat lots of meaty foods (and a lot of them) so as adults, 3+ discus (what I would consider a school) is going to be way too much bioload for that tank. You would need to do a couple of huge water changes a week more than likely. Also discus just aren't good to plop into a new tank, even if it is cycled it won't really be mature until a few months from now.

They need very warm water, so what you can keep with them is very limited. And they are slow eaters so you can't put them with fish like angelfish, which will devour everything before they can get to it. Besides angels don't like it quite that warm in the long run, 82+ is just too warm.

Cichlids have beautiful color, and some South or Central American cichlids would look very nice in your setup. Firemouths get a bit too big for 55 gallons. Jewel cichlids are beautiful but very aggressive, hard to keep anything except strictly top dwelling fish with them such as hatchet fish. Kribensis and Bolivian rams are great and can work in community setups with the right fish.

I think some gouramis would be your best bet (not dwarf though, there are long standing issues with the quality of the stock in this day and age in the hobby). Pearl gouramis I find especially pretty, but moonlight gouramis are nice too. Many kinds of rasboras, danios and tetras would school tightly. Tetras are generally the bigger of the three - some of my favorites are bleeding hearts, their colors are fantastic. Serpaes also look great but can be very nippy. Black neons would match the dark kind of look of your driftwood and plants.

You need to find tight schooling fish for the "calm" look you are looking for. Barbs are lovely hardy fish and some of them are gorgeous (Odessa, gold and black ruby are some of my faves) but they have more of an all around the middle up and down all over the place way of hanging out. If yiou decide you want "hyper" fish though, try some barbs and giant danios! LOL

Stay away from delicate fish for right now, I'd say...while your tank is so new.

Funny you mention the pearl gourami, and the moonlight gouramis. Those are the types that I saw in one of the stores, and thought they would be a great calm focal fish for the tank. I was going to get one pearl and 2 moonlight. Perhaps that is what I should do for now... they were cute, and seemed to be somewhat calm.

Thanks for your feedback.... im so new to this, and all the conflicting information out there is really confusing to someone that is just starting out with their first bigger sized aquarium.

 

[JiddleFish]

What I've found is that, almost without fail, for every piece of advice you get about fish, you will get another piece of advice that conflicts with the first.

I think the hardest thing about what you have going on there is that both of those types of fish are very sensitive and would be better introduced to an established tank. Perhaps there is a third kind of fish, somewhat more hardy, that you could start with? At any rate, my advice (which will contradict other advice, for certain,) is that you should try the thing you're talking about. Try ghost fish and discus in the same tank. But like I said, maybe put some other fish in there first, for a while, so the tank can stabilize (I believe even after fishless cycling it is good to give a tank time to become established with fish. Could be wrong, though.)

I've never kept either type of fish. I have always wanted ghost catfish. Is that what type of fish you are talking about?

Good luck. Remember, very often the advice you get comes from people who have been there and done that. But even then, no matter what advice you get, things don't always work for person A the same way they will for person B.

Yes, its the ghost catfish that Im speaking of. They are so neat. They dont even really swim that much eh? They just sort of houver together. I think they are really cool

 

[platytudes]

Ghost (aka glass) catfish and gouramis would look great together, I think! Try an Asian themed tank, would be my advice. Start with harlequin rasboras (pearl danios are also very pretty, but kind of hyper) add the gouramis, then the ghost catfish last. You could probably get a few loaches for the bottom, but not clown loaches or skunk loaches (too big, too aggressive, respectively). Unfortunately those are some of the most common loaches. Zebra or YoYo loaches would be preferable.

You could try some cories instead, even though they are South American. Peppered cories are extremely hardy and pretty, great first fish. You could put a dozen in a 55 gallon tank and they'd be just like puppies

BTW Cob, don't worry - I wasn't thinking you were trying to contradict me.

 

[fishycat]

Small word of caution... Males can be very aggressive. Mixing the two species may or may not work, but I'd be worried about two males fighting.

Edit: Whoops - I'm referring to the pearl & moonlight gouramis. Late post

 

[Arkangel77]

Simplydiscus.com is a great place to go for Discus info. IMO 2 discus in a lightly stocked tank would be OK. DONT overfead and keep up with water changes. For that price I say go for it! It might work - you just dont know??????? I think it is possible! BUT I am no expert so???

 

[JiddleFish]

A 55 gallon is really just too small for a school of discus. They eat lots of meaty foods (and a lot of them) so as adults, 3+ discus (what I would consider a school) is going to be way too much bioload for that tank. You would need to do a couple of huge water changes a week more than likely. Also discus just aren't good to plop into a new tank, even if it is cycled it won't really be mature until a few months from now.

They need very warm water, so what you can keep with them is very limited. And they are slow eaters so you can't put them with fish like angelfish, which will devour everything before they can get to it. Besides angels don't like it quite that warm in the long run, 82+ is just too warm.

Cichlids have beautiful color, and some South or Central American cichlids would look very nice in your setup. Firemouths get a bit too big for 55 gallons. Jewel cichlids are beautiful but very aggressive, hard to keep anything except strictly top dwelling fish with them such as hatchet fish. Kribensis and Bolivian rams are great and can work in community setups with the right fish.

I think some gouramis would be your best bet (not dwarf though, there are long standing issues with the quality of the stock in this day and age in the hobby). Pearl gouramis I find especially pretty, but moonlight gouramis are nice too. Many kinds of rasboras, danios and tetras would school tightly. Tetras are generally the bigger of the three - some of my favorites are bleeding hearts, their colors are fantastic. Serpaes also look great but can be very nippy. Black neons would match the dark kind of look of your driftwood and plants.



You need to find tight schooling fish for the "calm" look you are looking for. Barbs are lovely hardy fish and some of them are gorgeous (Odessa, gold and black ruby are some of my faves) but they have more of an all around the middle up and down all over the place way of hanging out. If yiou decide you want "hyper" fish though, try some barbs and giant danios! LOL

Stay away from delicate fish for right now, I'd say...while your tank is so new.

This is what the gourami looked like that I was thinking of getting. I believe this is a moonlight gourami???? They had 2 of them swimming together at the store. Its the same colors as the discus that I was going to get .... so it seems like a great substitute....