Stocking My 125lt Tank [missing Posts In Thread]

The volume allows for more fish than a standard 60 cm tank, but since swimming length is the more important dimension, you need fish that will be comfortable in 60 cm. This means no fast swimming fish as even tiny ones will need more room to swim in. But don't worry as there are plenty of sedate fish which will be suitable.

Many of the smaller tetras would be fine
harlequin rasboras or one of their slightly smaller lookalikes (Trigonostigma hengeli and T. espei)
if you can find any, one of my current fish Daisy's ricefish (Oryzias woworae)
one of the dwarf sepcies of corydoras if you have sand substrate (C pygmaeus, C. habrosus, C. hastatus) though at least 10 of these.

Would you want a 'centrepiece' fish?
Peacock goby/gudgeon, Tateurndina occelicauda (I have those too)
Honey gouramis
One of the more common apistogrammas - A. borellii and A. cacatuoides (cockatoo cichlid) are fine in your hardness



I am sure the other members will have more suggestions 

Peacock gudgeons, 1 male 2 female. Read up on how to tell the difference. You would also need a couple of caves for them. These fish like tiny caves, the tighter the better. I do wonder how a male and female fit inside the 'caves' in my tank - a 3 inch length of 3/4 inch plastic piping with a chunk of slate siliconed to it to make it look prettier and weight it down. The male just about fills it by himself.

Dwarf cories need at least 10. Just to be warned, I've only ever seem hastatus once in the flesh. Pygmies are the most common in shops, followed by habrosus. If you have a good shop near you they may be willing to order fish for you.

Rice fish males do chase each other. There tends to be a very colourful dominant male, and drabber, subordinate males. And mine, both male and female, often have chunks missing from their tails.
These fish breed unusually. The eggs hang from the female's vent until they are scraped off when they swim through things. I often see females with what looks like bubbles stuck to her.
You'd need a minimum of 8.

I don't know much about hatchetfish as I've never kept them 

I have marbled and what I think might be silver hatchets, not sure as I bought them quite some time ago from MA. They are in a 1m long tank, and mainly swim in the flow of the filter. I really like the shape of them, as I'm partial to anything a bit odd. They do jump if spooked, though I've not had any major issues with mine, except for the time I was trying to move them to another tank and one of them jumped out of the water, but landed in the net (very useful).
I live in a hard water area, so use a mix of tap & RO for some of my tanks, mainly because I'm a bit of an idiot and tend to go for fish I like rather than those more suitable for my water. 

A couple of points from Matt's post

Otocinclus need to be added after a few months. When newly acquired they often won't eat anything except algae so the tank should have grown a fair amount before getting them.

Deep golden little gems

Err.... which fish do you mean 


Bolivian rams need a tank with a bigger footprint 

I have a sneaking suspicion that the new species that @Matt has "identified" (or at least renamed) might be ember tetras - I'm fairly sure I've heard him describe them in similar glowing tones before. Am I correct, @Matt?

I have a sneaking suspicion that the new species that @Matt has "identified" (or at least renamed) might be ember tetras - I'm fairly sure I've heard him describe them in similar glowing tones before. Am I correct, @Matt?

Full marks!! 

So, just to check my/our understanding:
* you have the 5ft/400L tank with a sailfin pleco, rainbow shark, albino cory, bronze cory, black widow tetra, and the to-be-transferred-post-quarantine clown loaches;
* you have some ideas of what you will stock in the (unconventional-shaped) 125L tank;
* you are wondering if:
*** post-quarantine of the clown loaches, some of the existing inhabitants in the 400L could be transferred into the 125L temporarily to keep its filter media alive while it's empty and while you decide upon new inhabitants for it? *or*
*** you could add some inhabitants to the 125L in conjunction with quarantining the clown loaches? *or*
*** you could start stocking the 125L immediately following the clown loaches' quarantine with new inhabitants? *or*
*** you could get some inhabitants for the 125L, either now or post-quarantine of the clown loaches, that could be swapped into the main tank (i.e. could co-exist with its current inhabitants) if you ever needed to transfer them in there to free up the 125L for quarantine or hospital purposes?

I'll blame the time of the afternoon for sounding a bit dim (even although it's usually the time of day I'm most alert ).

[Some posts missing in this thread as, regrettably for us given that she was a valued member, former member Fishtales left the forum and deleted most of her posts and edited the initial post.]