New Fishkeeper, Stocking Help

Hi There,

Been browsing the forum for some time and I'm hoping the community could help me with stocking my new tank with fish.

Based on the advise I have read, I want to plan what to stock now so I have a plan rather than trying to choose fish ad hoc.

I have a Roma 240 tank package and will be starting a Fishless cycle tomorrow, here is the stock I'm thinking of:

Angelfish x 5
Boesmani Rainbow x 5
Albino Bristlenose Pleco Longfin x 1
Clown Loach x 4
Kribensis x 4
Red honey Gourami x 3
Full Red Agassizii x 2 (Pair)
Silver Shark x 1
Discus x 4

Edit: I'm planning to introduce the fish a little at a time over 6 - 12 months, NOT chucking them all in at once.

So now onto the questions:

I have put all of these 'types' of fish into the community creator but not all of the specific fish are in there so I'm assuming these will live happily together?

I know the Silver Shark will get too big for the tank hence only 1 of them and I have agreed with my local aquarium shop that they will take it back once it gets too big, is there any other concerns I should have here?

Plants - I have been trying to read up on plants but I'm not really getting anywhere, I know I'm going to need a few plants with these types of fish but I'm worried about the fish eating them or getting the right type. Can anyone suggest a few plant types I can introduce?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Gary

Hi gerd, welcome to the forum 

Before I get round to the fish, do you know whether you have hard or soft tap water? That info should be somewhere on your water company's website. You have soft water fish on your list (angels, apistos, kribs, discus) and hard water fish (rainbows). Unless your water is in the middle of the hardness range, you could have problems. And discus need soft water not just middling.


For the most part, your wish list looks fine. The things I would bring up are;

Silver sharks are a shoaling species; you need more than one. But as you are aware, they are big fish. I would leave them out.
Clown loaches need a bigger tank than the Roma 240, and more than 4 of them. They need a tank with a footprint at least 180 x 60 cm. But there are a lot of other loach species out there which would be very suitable for your tank.
Discus might be a problem as they need warmer water than the other fish on the list.
Kribensis are African, the other cichlids are American; they do not understand each others' signals and there may be problems keeping kribs with the others.
The other fish (eg rainbows) may be too boisterous for gouramis of any sort.


I would leave out the silver shark, discus and gouramis; change the species of loach; get more rainbows; leave out the kribs and get more apistos. You could easily have 1 male and half a dozen females in that size tank, and females are a nice bright yellow rather than the drab colours that females are in some types of fish.

One thing to be aware of - if you end up with a male and female angels that decide to pair up and lay eggs, you could have a tank with two angels in three quarters of it, and all the other fish down in the remaining quarter. Have a back-up plan ready in case this happens.

Sorry, I seem to have shot down most of your list 




One other piece of advice - while the tank is cycling, go to as many fish shops as you can to see what they stock. They will stock more fish than in the profiles on here and you may well change your mind 



I'll leave plants to other members. I have just java fern and anubias attached to wood - I'm not terribly green fingered.

Hello Gary, and welcome to the forum.

Thank you all for the warm welcome.

So I didn't manage to get the Fishless cycle going and it will have to wait till Monday no as I'm not around for the weekend.

In terms of stock I have found that I have hard water therefore I researched again and think I will go with the following:

6 Yellow Labs (10cm x 6 = 60cm)
6 demasoni (7.5cm x 6 = 45cm)
1 Synodontis petricola (10cm)
6 Rainbow Fish (10cm x 6 = 60cm)
6 Tiger Barbs (10cm x 6 = 60cm)
6 Serpae Tetra (4cm x 6 = 24cm)

360cm Stocking level = 259cm Which should give them plenty of room.

I would like some low-tech plants so suggestions would be good, I didn't see any mentioned in Sue's post.

Again thank you for all your help and a warm welcome, once I have built the tank I will start posting up pictures of my progress.

Wow I didn't realize there are so many variable to take into account, I'm just looking for a stock of bright colorful fish. Hence where I think I'm gong wrong 

Back to the drawing board again, could I be cheeky and ask if anyone has an example list or 2 of colorful fish for a hard water tank, it maybe simpler this way other than me posting lots of different lists?

Lets start with 6 x Rainbow fish as I think these are the most colorful and the 1 x Synodontis petricola, what colorful fish would get along with these?

Hi Fiona,

I have hard water, thanks for the reply

This is a good article on hard water aquaria: Clickety-click

I enjoyed reading that  The only comment I would make was that I found Indian Glassfish completely unsuited to a community tank as the buggers ate my CPDs

Fiona, maybe it was your CPDs that weren't suited to a community tank???

Nope they're quite happy in the 200l 

Puffers are great, have you ever considered bumble bee gobies Donna? They actually fit in very well with the dwarf puffers. The contrast between the innocent 'Oooo whats that?' expression of the puffers and the grumpy old man face of the bumbles is great. Plus there's the bonus of the colour. We've been successfully keeping them together for a couple of years now.

However they are both a bit specialist and not really community fish.