New Tank, Looking For Comments And Advice On My Fish Selection.

I will take your list one by one


Cherry barb - fine for your water and tank size. At least 6 with equal numbers of males and females (males bright red, females dull washed out red)

Guppy - these are hard water fish which need a hardness of over 143 ppm

Platy - these are also hard water fish which need a hardness over 10 dH

Swordtail - need hardness over 179 ppm, and a tank at least 120 cm long

Kribensis - water and tank size fine. If you want a pair, they must choose their own mates. Just any male and any female may well not get along. They must be chosen carefully - if you definitely decide on these fish I can tell you how to choose the fish from the shop tank. If a pair bred, they will turn very territorial!

Orange chromide - need a larger tank, and hard water to brackish water

Neon tetra - fine for your tank and water. At least 6 with more being better.

Spotted headstander - I know little about these fish as I've never seen them in a shop. Apparently your water is fine for them, though they do need a slightly bigger tank.

Zebra loach - while your water is fine, they do need a tank with a bigger footprint at 120 x 30 cm

You are quite right in saying the tank is not big enough for angels or sharks, but I can't think of any similar fish that would fit I'm afraid.


The problem with the profiles on here is that they are rather old and our understanding of a fish's needs has increased in the last few years. I first joined the forum in 2006 (on a different host, all that forum has been lost when the site had to change hosts at very short notice) and the profiles were written before I joined. The best site for researching fish is http://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/ Unlike sites which are written by people who keep fish, this is written by ichthyiologists.



I suggest that your list falls into 2 parts - fish that are OK and fish that are not.
OK fish are cherry barb, kribs, neon tetras, spotted headstander if you can find any.
Fish that are not OK are those which need an bigger tank and /or harder water - guppy, platy, swordtail, orange chromide, zebra loach.


If you want yellow fish, you could change kribs for apistogrammas. All apistos have yellow females, but A. agassizii also has a yellow make, and these are commonly stocked fish. Your tank could house a 1 male 2 female trio of apistos. You would need a cave per female and one spare.

With your water you could keep the vast majority of fish from south America and Asia, though with a tank 81 cm long you need to stick with the smaller species which don't dash round the tank but pootle around.
Most small tetras would be fine; harlequin rasboras; rice fish; honey gouramis; peacock gudgeons/gobies (both name are used) though not with kribs or apistos are they are also bottom dwelling fish. If you didn't have any other bottom dwellers - that is no kribs, apistos or gudgeons - you could keep a species of cory. Cories have no concept of territory so never learn to keep out of other fish territories and get picked on.

ok, updated list:

Cherry Barb
Kribensis
Neon Tetra
Spotted Headstander
Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid
Harlequin Rasbora
Honey Gourami

1 warning: Honey Gourami's can be delicate and may not mix with Dwarf Cichlids

May have to choose between them 2.  I assume a lot of these selections will be based on what my local shops have in stock and I'm assuming given they're local they would stock mainly fish for this areas water hardness etc?

Maybe a stupid question, but does anyone deliver fish via mail/courier?


Also, out of the above fish, I'm planning to gets some mature media and seed my tank, however, I will still need some more hardy fish, so looking for recommendations on the above or others which would be better during the initial cycle process.

I have left out the headstanders because I have never seen any in shops. And I've been to a lot of shops in 20 years 

There are some currently in my LFS, so perhaps a batch has been flown into the UK recently, therefore I wouldn't completely exclude them just yet just in case yours have them in stock too. 

[Edited to add: I see they're included in the MA databank https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/databank/spotted-headstander- (along with other headstanders) which would tally with my experience.]

Interestingly, I hadn't actually noticed them - I just assumed it was fish foraging in the way cherry barbs do, but it was a member of staff who pointed out what they were.

I have hard water, so have no experience of the fish that you have listed.
Going just on information on SF, and looking at the pictures, I'd agree with Sue about larger numbers of the shoaling fish. Bigger shoals of smaller fish look great. Cherry barbs, neon tetras, and harlequin rasbora are all very colourful fish, and I think they would look amazing together.
Between the apistos and the kribs, I like the shape of the fins on the apistos, and it has some yellow, which you'd previously mentioned you wanted with the orange chromide, and I think that a splash of yellow would stand out with the colours of the shoaling fish.
I'm clicking back and forth between the forum and SF, to check out pics of the fish, and the honey gourami have just had a verbal/out loud "oooo" of interest from me. Interesting shape, colour and markings. Would it be worth considering perhaps a shoal of either cherry barbs OR harlequin rasbora (both red in colour), with neon tetras, at least 10 of each, to allow for enough stocking space for apistos and honey gourami? This could also give you room for the headstanders, if you can find them.
Just to reiterate, this is just my personal opinion from looking at SF profiles, and I have no experience with these soft water fish. It is worth mentioning that it is also normal for people to start keeping tanks with small numbers of many different species of fish, then often go on to keeping larger numbers of less species.
Without seeing the fish live, and with no experience of these fish, just looking at the size/colour/markings, if I was told to pick from your list I would go with honey gourami, apistos, headstanders (if available - great markings and I like the odd way they are head down), then larger shoals of neon tetras, then it's a tough choice between the rasboras and cherry barbs. I've always had a soft spot for rasbora because I can't have them, though think that if you could get the headstanders (with their awesome markings), then the cherry barbs (more a solid colour fish) may emphasize the headstanders.

I really shouldn't spend time looking on SF at fish I can't have. 

None.

A fish-in cycle is not a good idea. It stresses any fish used and at best they will not live out their full life expectancy. I know you want to do a fish-in cycle so the tank will have fish straight away for your children, but are you prepared to do daily 50% water changes for weeks, and risk the fish dying during the process?


There are two safe ways to cycle a tank - fishless cycling and silent cycling.

This sticky explains fishless cycling https://forums.thinkfish.co.uk/fishtank-filtration-and-cycling/fishless-cycling-how-to-do-it/

Silent cycling involves the use of live plants. Before any fish are bought, the tank is planted with both plants that are rooted in the substrate and floating plants. And not just one or two live plants but a lot of them. Once you are sure the plants are growing well, fish are added one species at a time and testing the water daily for ammonia and nitrite after each addition. If either show up, a water change is needed. After a couple of weeks with no ammonia or nitrite, the next species can be added.


With either method, neon tetras should only be added once the tank has been cycled a few months. That is, once the tank is mature, which means it has grown a lot more types of micro-organism. For reasons we do not yet understand, some fish do not do well in tanks that are not mature, and neon tetras are among those species.




Looking back through your posts I missed that you said you will be using Fluval's cycling enhancer. Don't bother, it won't work. Instead, try Tetra Safe Start. This one contains the correct species of nitrite eating bacteria, and does actually work provided it has been stored correctly (though with the weather this summer if it was left aboard a delivery lorry for hours the heat may have killed the contents). And even TSS does not cycle a tank instantly; it is better used for supplementing a fishless cycle.

This thread continues here https://forums.thinkfish.co.uk/fishtank-filtration-and-cycling/1-week-fishless-cycle-with-mature-media-then-fish-in-recommendations/ I haven't merged them because this one is more about which fish, the other about how to proceed setting the tank up.

Just wanted to continue this thread about fish and another potential  for me.  My son is obsessed with Koi Angel, I've said to him we can't have them because the tank isn't big enough, however, he said "Well lets get a bigger tank!" which I initially laughed at, but then the wife agreed with him albeit after we've set the 1st one up and got a healthy community going (i.e. 6-12 months).
Anyway, the thought has now crossed my mind that the LFS has a few baby Koi angels which arn't much bigger than the Cherry barbs if I'm honest, so my question is, could I add 2-4 Koi Angel to my community, with a view that once they get bigger I could transfer them to my "new" bigger tank in 12-18 months time before they start to become a problem?  Similarly, could I do the same with a few other fish I've discounted due to the size they grow to?

Angels are a bit of a problem.
Unusually for cichlids, they are shoaling fish and need a group of them so they need a big tank. Further problems arise if two of them pair up and they spawn as they will pick on the rest of the shoal unless they are in a huge tank.
2 angels can be a problem. 2 males will fight. A male and female that are not bonded would fight. A male and female that choose each other would pick on any 'spare' angels, and if they bred would keep all the other fish herded at the opposite end of the tank

Personally, I think angels are more trouble than they are worth, despite how pretty they are 



It is not a good idea to get fish knowing they'll need a bigger tank. 12 to 18 months is too long to keep fish in a tank that's too small as they reach their adult size pretty quickly. And what happens if circumstances change and you can't get that bigger tank?

"Well lets get a bigger tank!" which I initially laughed at, but then the wife agreed with him albeit after we've set the 1st one up and got a healthy community going (i.e. 6-12 months).

Hooray, plans for a larger tank in the (relatively short term) future. 

My advice - get the very biggest tank you can find some space for. Consider moving furniture if you have to.