NEW TANK - WHAT TO STOCK??!?!?!

So we are getting a 55g tank set up in a day or two. I am going to do a fish less cycle, or at least try too.

BUT what would be some nice options for a 55? I have 2 20s right now, with guppies, gourami, danio and betta. In different tanks obv. But im excited to be able to have maybe a little bigger or MORE fish.

Any help would be awesome!!!!!!!!!!!

I love my electric blue acara cichlid in my 38 gallon tank. It would be a beautiful eye catching flash of color in your new tank and they are relatively peaceful making them good for community aquariums as long as their tank mates aren’t too small. Maybe add a hill stream loach or bristlenose pleco. If not the loach or bristlenose, you could add some pelvachromis pulchers (kribs) who will claim their territory on the lower levels. They love heavily planted aquariums.

Or perhaps an underwater jungle with some beautiful schooling fish like ember tetras and neon tetras.

I think the Firemouth Meeki cichlid is a beautiful fish and you could keep a pair in a 55 gallon tank. I wouldn’t add other fish though as they are aggressive when they are breeding. If I ever get another medium sized tank or larger, I do think I’d be giving this fish a try.

Maybe you want to try a saltwater tank? Or maybe try some shell dwellers?

I love setting up a planted aquarium with driftwood and floating plants, something I find enjoyable to look at. Then I look for compatible fish that suit that habitat. I love Jack Dempseys but they aren’t good for planted aquariums.

Good for you. I can’t think of many things more exciting than setting up a new tank. I wish it were me. Keep us informed and show us lots of pictures. <smile> Thank you!

You really have to try cichlids if you've never had them before. There are so many different kinds and sizes and colors . The courtship and spawning are a marvel to behold and a brand new 55 kind of demands them.

Before considering any fish, know your source water parameters. This refers to GH and pH especially, and KH can be useful to know.

Byron said:

Before considering any fish, know your source water parameters. This refers to GH and pH especially, and KH can be useful to know.

Click to expand...

I have to disagree with this. The vast majority of freshwater fish will do just fine with any GH, pH or KH levels typically found in tapwater. There are of course extremes that should be avoided, but GH 3-15, pH 6.5-8.0, KH >3 should be fine. Extremely low GH or KH are more likely to cause problems than very high levels.

I've kept wild caught and farm raised African and South American species in a variety of locales and never had problems with the local water, and the science backs this up.

Byron said:

Before considering any fish, know your source water parameters. This refers to GH and pH especially, and KH can be useful to know.

Click to expand...

My water parameters for what comes out of tap is:

Ph: 6.6
KH - 71.6
GH - 17.2
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0

I am using crushed coral in my other tanks to bring up Ph, KH and GH. but depending on fish I may or may not use it in this one.

plebian said:

I have to disagree with this. The vast majority of freshwater fish will do just fine with any GH, pH or KH levels typically found in tapwater. There are of course extremes that should be avoided, but GH 3-15, pH 6.5-8.0, KH >3 should be fine. Extremely low GH or KH are more likely to cause problems than very high levels.

I've kept wild caught and farm raised African and South American species in a variety of locales and never had problems with the local water, and the science backs this up.

Click to expand...

My tap water is naturally low, so i used crushed coral in my current tanks

Aqua67 said:

I love my electric blue acara cichlid in my 38 gallon tank. It would be a beautiful eye catching flash of color in your new tank and they are relatively peaceful making them good for community aquariums as long as their tank mates aren’t too small. Maybe add a hill stream loach or bristlenose pleco. If not the loach or bristlenose, you could add some pelvachromis pulchers (kribs) who will claim their territory on the lower levels. They love heavily planted aquariums.

Or perhaps an underwater jungle with some beautiful schooling fish like ember tetras and neon tetras.

I think the Firemouth Meeki cichlid is a beautiful fish and you could keep a pair in a 55 gallon tank. I wouldn’t add other fish though as they are aggressive when they are breeding. If I ever get another medium sized tank or larger, I do think I’d be giving this fish a try.

Maybe you want to try a saltwater tank? Or maybe try some shell dwellers?

I love setting up a planted aquarium with driftwood and floating plants, something I find enjoyable to look at. Then I look for compatible fish that suit that habitat. I love Jack Dempseys but they aren’t good for planted aquariums.

Good for you. I can’t think of many things more exciting than setting up a new tank. I wish it were me. Keep us informed and show us lots of pictures. <smile> Thank you!

Click to expand...

Aqua67 said:

I love my electric blue acara cichlid in my 38 gallon tank. It would be a beautiful eye catching flash of color in your new tank and they are relatively peaceful making them good for community aquariums as long as their tank mates aren’t too small. Maybe add a hill stream loach or bristlenose pleco. If not the loach or bristlenose, you could add some pelvachromis pulchers (kribs) who will claim their territory on the lower levels. They love heavily planted aquariums.

Or perhaps an underwater jungle with some beautiful schooling fish like ember tetras and neon tetras.

I think the Firemouth Meeki cichlid is a beautiful fish and you could keep a pair in a 55 gallon tank. I wouldn’t add other fish though as they are aggressive when they are breeding. If I ever get another medium sized tank or larger, I do think I’d be giving this fish a try.

Maybe you want to try a saltwater tank? Or maybe try some shell dwellers?

I love setting up a planted aquarium with driftwood and floating plants, something I find enjoyable to look at. Then I look for compatible fish that suit that habitat. I love Jack Dempseys but they aren’t good for planted aquariums.

Good for you. I can’t think of many things more exciting than setting up a new tank. I wish it were me. Keep us informed and show us lots of pictures. <smile> Thank you!

Click to expand...

Do you have any suggestions for what plants to use. In my 20’s I have some crypt, java fern and Anubis’s, and some frog bit. I am looking for more options tho. Getting them around here is rough. Any nice live decor is very difficult to find, but of course that’s what I prefer. I will order from away if necessary

Plants usually involve a little bit of maintenance…thinning them out when they spread, removing yellowing leaves, keeping bits out of your filter, etc. I love heavily planted underwater jungles and tend to lean to the easy plants (no CO2, can grow in gravel substrate, floating/fast growers). You seem to be starting that way also.

With a 55 gallon tank the height is probably somewhere around 20-24” so you could grow a very nice amazon sword plant. Here is a picture of a huge sword plant in my 46 gallon bow front tank, way back in 2007. You can see I believe in a large variety of food for my fish, and you’re not even seeing the fish food in my freezer, LOL. But anyhow, the sword will send off runners with more “baby” plants and once they grow a little you can plant them too. You want to leave the crown just above the substrate (don’t pile the gravel all the way up to the green stalks, leave some of the beginning of the roots above the gravel line where it connects to the green stalks - I guess you can kind of see that in the photo too).

Since you have some floating plants and plants that can grow attached to rocks/wood, I would suggest you get a good copper free liquid plant fertilizer (shrimp safe). For the swords though, I used a root tab and once every few months or so I’d push one down in to the gravel near the base of my swords. Just be mindful when you vacuum the gravel not to suck up your root tab.

If you keep angelfish in your 55 gallon, they may lay eggs on the sword plant leaves. If you breed angels though, you don’t want any other fish in there with them (and usually a 20 gallon tank is used for a breeding pair anyhow).

Susswassertang is a one-cell thick algae which shrimp love to hang out on and if you wrap some onto a nice round rock (use some cotton thread to wrap and hold the susswassertang to the rock) that can grow into a nice little round bush in your aquarium. Do a search to see what I’m talking about and research more on that plant to see if you would like that. I have that in my crustacean tank, along with many other plants too. It is very easy to grow, it is slow growing.

Another one you might enjoy is hornwort. It is much faster growing, especially with good lighting. It becomes quite bushy and can get to be 10 feet long or more. So you do have to trim it. You can share your extra with other aquarists, trade some for new plants, or toss it in your garden/trash bin.

You should show us a picture of what you have. What kind of aquarium scene are you hoping to achieve?

plebian said:

I have to disagree with this. The vast majority of freshwater fish will do just fine with any GH, pH or KH levels typically found in tapwater. There are of course extremes that should be avoided, but GH 3-15, pH 6.5-8.0, KH >3 should be fine. Extremely low GH or KH are more likely to cause problems than very high levels.

Click to expand...

I don't get it why you would disagree because basically you're saying the same thing as Byron... Just read exactly what you're saying here and it's not different from what Byron says.

I apologize for another reply, JayLB, but you can make your own wonderful live decor. Just purchase a great piece of driftwood, or a little cave, etc. The wood chunk can be small or it can be large. Get some crazy glue and an Anubias or use some of your java fern, and using tiny drops of super glue adhere the plant root to your decor. Then just let time do its thing. I moved some driftwood around in this tank yesterday and here is a driftwood ledge I made which has a lot of java fern growing attached to it. If you don’t want to use glue you can use cotton thread, as I think that was what I used on this particular piece.

I bought some small chunks of driftwood for my nano tank and the wood had these little cracks in it. I just slid some java fern roots in to the slits and it stays there all on its own. My nano tank is so full of plants the only ones that see that little decor masterpiece are the crustaceans that live there though. I don’t want to pull it out of the jungle for a picture as it is part of a little driftwood pile and there are probably shrimp and crabs hiding in there at the moment. Besides, its only been pieced together for about 6 months so it doesn’t look like a great piece of live decor yet. Hahaha.

You can buy pieces online but they are expensive and quite frankly, I’m happiest with the pieces I’ve made myself, although the ones I’ve purchased have been nice.

One idea is for your shrimp. There are shrimp “hides” (cubes with holes, or similar items) and I’ve purchased tissue culture mosses (no snails, no diseases or other pests) grown in gel. The mosses can also be glued onto the shrimp hides. I didn’t cover the entire cube, only 3 sides, leaving the back-facing side moss free so they could easily continue to enter and exit if the sides with the moss glued became too thick and bushy, overgrown. I ended up taking the cube out though as the ramshorn snails were getting stuck inside the cube (just something for you to think about). I ended up sanding one of the holes to make it large enough to remove the snail and I didn’t put it back in. Poor snails, it was a trap for them. You could just as easily glue the tissue culture mosses to a branchy/twiggy piece of driftwood or find a piece that looks like a tree trunk and put the moss on the branches as if they were leaves. That is pretty cool too.

If you have more patience than money, I’d say make your own live decor. If you have a good amount of both, buy some that you love and get create some unique pieces too.

I hope this gives you some good ideas and was helpful.

JayLB said:

My water parameters for what comes out of tap is:

Ph: 6.6
KH - 71.6
GH - 17.2
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0

I am using crushed coral in my other tanks to bring up Ph, KH and GH. but depending on fish I may or may not use it in this one.

Click to expand...

Are the numbers for KH and GH in ppm (parts per million, which is the same as mg/l), or degrees (dH, dKH)? I will assume ppm as the KH at 71 dKH is unlikely. But please confirm, as this makes a huge difference to fish.

And when testing pH of tap water yourself, ensure any dissolved CO2 is out-gassed or the reading may be inaccurate. Letting a glass of tap water sit 24 hours will dothis. Not a necessary step with tank water (unless just drawn).

emeraldking said:

I don't get it why you would disagree because basically you're saying the same thing as Byron... Just read exactly what you're saying here and it's not different from what Byron says.

Click to expand...

No I am not. Byron is saying water parameters are important. I'm saying they are not. I provided some examples to illustrate my point.

plebian said:

No I am not. Byron is saying water parameters are important. I'm saying they are not. I provided some examples to illustrate my point.

Click to expand...

Just read these lines of yours:

plebian said:

The vast majority of freshwater fish will do just fine with any GH, pH or KH levels typically found in tapwater.

Click to expand...

plebian said:

There are of course extremes that should be avoided, but GH 3-15, pH 6.5-8.0, KH >3 should be fine.

Click to expand...

plebian said:

Extremely low GH or KH are more likely to cause problems than very high levels.

Click to expand...

I agree with a lot of fish will do fine with the parameters of tapwater. But you're making distinctions yourself as well. So, water parameters do make a difference according to yourself...

That's why I've said: Just read exactly what you're saying here and it's not different from what Byron says.

But I do get your point what you are trying to say.