Future Fish For A Tank

Off the top of my head, if it were my tank, I would keep the following:

• 25 Cardinal Tetras
• 3 Apistogrammas (probably Aggassiz's Fire Red as they are so attractive) 1 male and 2 females.
• 12 small Corys (Pandas or similar)
• 8 Rosy Barbs

This would put the tank at approx 90% stocked.

I'd love to have a tank this size! 

Panda cories do indeed look great in large numbers, like they're working together.

I also like the apistos and also rams (eg Bolivian rams). [The pic of the butterfly cichlid ram is lovely on the Fish Profiles but I think if I were you, in light of your experience, I'd be constantly checking out their patterning to make sure that the markings weren't whitespot.]

Lemon tetras, rummynose tetras and harlequin rasboras seem to put on a particularly impressive show in their shoaling behaviour, but you'll know better than me whether these are suitable for your water flow.

Hello Sue,

I am really sorry to hear of your current problems, I am sure you will come out on the other side perfectly OK!

Your water is virtually identical to mine. In the 125L the following fish have thrived:

Neons, Embers, Glowlight Danios.

The danios have proven to be too boisterous for my previously "calm" tank, and I regard their addition as a mistake. I have only lost 1 tetra out of the 20 added up to 15 months ago.

Also, I have 10 Amano Shrimp, which do a wonderful job keeping hair algae under control.

The fish which did not thrive were Panda Cories (two batches from different LFS's) and Otocinclus. My tank has very small rounded gravel. I don't think that this was the problem for the Panda's. When the Otos were added, there was a lot of green and brown algae in the tank, which they loved!  I believe that the problem for both these fish was pH. At cycling, my pH was 7.4, but increased to 7.6 shortly afterwards. A pH of 7.4 seems to be the upper limit for both these fish on the other sites that I respect and use. All the other inhabitants have continued to thrive.

Hope this helps,

                                    Skittler

I'd choose to keep only fish in related groups tetras OR small cyprinids. I'm also becoming more convinced that the "cheap and cheerful" fish are the best choice, they are usually robust, which is why they are cheap. For cyprinids, I'd have one of the Harlequin group, Cherry barbs, a danio (zebras are as good as any), Odessa barbs and/or Five banded, each in a decent sized group. For tetras, I really like Lemons, also Silver tips and both are cheap and very tough, but the choice is wide. If I  had tetras, I'd probably have a Corydoras species as well, but the barbs do a good job as bottom feeders. I think it's a good idea to keep fish from the same general part of the world together.

Platinum tetras at least 20. I'd love to keep them but my water is far too hard, a shoal of those and cardinal tetras would look amazing. Corydoras Sterbai too, just because they're beautiful. Ummm and rams because I'd love to own a pair but have the same problem with hard water.

If you want bigger fish, then I'd be tempted to go for Ruby Barb, Odessa Barb, Golden Barb and, perhaps, Tiger Barb. They will all 'work' in your soft water with the added advantage of having a much cooler (therefore cheaper) tank. As there're a few different colourings of Tigers then a big shoal of a mix of the colours might be very attractive. Rubies hang around the bottom of the tank. Zebra loaches are different to the stripy Barb theme and SeriouslyFish has them at a cooler temp than ThinkFish. Just a thought.

Put hubby in the creche at the garden centre and spend a few hours in MA with a note book. (For the younger members amongst us, that's what we of a 'certain age' use to make notes with rather than tapping away at some new-fangled shiney thing. )

I should clarify the size issue.

In the 125 litre I had ember tetras (20 mm), green neon tetras (25 mm), Microdevario kubotai (20 mm) and he complained he couldn't see them. He was fine with emperor tetras, golden pencilfish and cherry barbs.

I'd avoid Ruby and Tiger barbs. Although I started with 10 of each, the males constantly attacked each other once they became fully mature. Two of the Tigers died, their tails totally bitten off. The Ruby males always look tatty with parts of their tails and other fins nipped off.

Sad to hear, But good to know. I have 5-bands and Cherries..... both lovely. The 5-bands definitly prefered more than 6, and the Cherries like more females than males.

Those rasbora are very pretty.

Good to know about cherry barbs and harlies, thank you.

The tank isn't tall enough for angels. They need at least 45cm water and as my tank is that height, minus 1cm bottom glass, minus the substrate, minus the air gap on top of the water, I don't have enough water depth for them.

This tank is not as tall as 180 litres usually are. It is custom built so I could get one I could reach into without standing on a stool