Are My Fish Compatible

[rob00120]

hi i am new to tropical fish and need help
i want a friendly community tank i think i have done a good job so far i have

1 gold nugget pleco
8 mollys
2 male dwarf gourami
6 female dwarf gourami
6 little tetras
2 shrimp
2 apple snails
and 1 or 2 baby snails dont no where they come from

the ones i am not sure about are the 2 male opaline gourami are they aggressive??? i was not planing on these when i went to the shop and just found out that they get bigger than all the others but so far they all seem happy
the tank is planted and has lots of hiding places also 4 pices of bog wood
the water does get a bit cloudy between w/c is there any way to clear the water up ?
thank you for any help

 

[This Old Spouse]

How big is your tank, and how long did you cycle it before adding fish, and how did you cycle it?

 

[rob00120]

hi my tank is a fluval roma 240l with a fluval 305 filter the tank was not new when i got it is about 3 years old it was only empty about 12 hrs and the filter was not empted and the bogwood was in the tank when i got it aswell and i have algae growing for about 2 weeks now it has had fish in it for 4 weeks the fish shop do the tests on the water not sure what they are i will get a api master test kit as soon as i get paid but can not aford it yet lol the fish seem happy
thanks for any help

 

[fluttermoth]

You may have problems with the male gouramis, as they can fight, so you'll need to keep an eye out for any signs of aggression.

The tetras ned to be in a shoals of at least six, but preferably ten or twelve.

What media do have in your filter, and what exactly does the cloudiness look like? Green or white?

 

[rob00120]

hi i have bio media white round 1cm tubes charcoal and water polish fiber and a bag with white bits in that are for ammonia
the water is a little yellow but i think that is down to the new pice of bogwood allthow that was presoaked
there are tiny white bits
the last time i did a w/c it was so bad it took the filter more than 1.5 hrs to clear it
is it possable that i put to much media in the filter i put 4 polish fiber in 2 in each side on top of the bio media 2 bags charcoal 1 each side 2 bags of white ammonia bits 1 each side if this is slowing the filter down could that be the problem some people say they use just bio media and water polish fiber ??? thank you for any help

rob

 

[This Old Spouse]

Well, you don't need charcoal at all unless you're trying to remove the remains of medication. How often do you do water changes? You should be doing them at least once a week. What is your cleaning schedule? And the "white ammonia bits" I'm going to assume are Ammo-Lock or something similar. That needs to be taken out as well.

You should just have the ceramic media and the polishing pads, no charcoal and no Ammo-Lock.

 

[rob00120]

i clean the tank at least once a week and i change about 15g of water i will take the media out now thank you

 

[This Old Spouse]

You really should be changing out at least twice that amount each week with your size tank.

 

[rob00120]

oops i did not no that i will start changing more water on next w/c thanks

 

[Ruskull]

That's a severly overstocked tank in my humble opinion.

The Opaline males will fight & so will the Dwarf Gourami males. Your tank size is large though so it make take awhile, but they will eventually go at it.

I understand that male Opalines are more striking looking than the females but at least for me the lower level of aggression is well worth the trade off. Hence I have no male Three Spot varieties in my tank anymore since my male Gold died. RIP King Tiger, you'll always be remembered as the original Duke of Bowfront.

I have a male Pearl, a female Pearl & a female Opaline together in a tank that's a little better than half that size & it didn't take long for the Opaline female to establish supremacy. Yes, that's right, a female Opaline currently rules the tank although the male Pearl is smaller than her. The largest of the 3 is is actually the female Pearl, but she's also the most docile & submissive. The male Pearl chases her & the female Opaline chases him. Lately though he's been chasing her back a bit as he grows in size. Sometimes it seems as if the Opaline female protects the larger female Pearl from the male Pearl's advances!

Having hiding places is better than not, but having a fish hide all the time isn't a good thing either. It creates stress that can sometimes allow Ich, and other problems which can wipe out a tank quickly if not addressed. I would recommend trading at least 1 of the male Opalines out for a female and even that's no guarantee of peace.

Most people won't consider Dwarf Gouramis or Honey Gouramis compatible with Opalines or any other Three Spot Gouramis. It's in their nature to fight for territory & the Opalines are bigger so they usually win that argument. You may notice the Dwarf Gouramis losing their color and that could be a sign of submission. That's not good for the fish & not good for your general community vibe.

The ratio of Dwarf Gourami males to females is good but you'll still have aggression between the 2 males, I'm sure of it. You'll also have problems with 2 male Honeys............did the fish store mention any of this to you? Didn't you research the fish before adding them?

 

[Ruskull]

Just doing the quick math you have 71 inches of fish in a 63 US gallon tank. At first glance that doesn't seem too far above the limit except that most of the fish are large & that means a lot of fish waste. Especially from the Mollys, which get about 4 inches when full grown, the Oplaines can grow to 5 or 6 inches each & the Dwarf Gouramis can grow to 3 or 4 inches a piece.

Just a suggestion: Pick your favorite of the larger fish and get the proper ratio of males to females which is no less than 2 females per male. You could keep a single Opaline male with 3 females for instance or you could just keep the ratio of Dwarf Gouramis you already have and hope the dominant male doesn't make life miserable for the other male.

Those Mollys will breed if there's males & females, that's certain. I know, I have 20 Molly fry myself and conditions were not optimum for breeding let's just say.

My Three Spot Gouramis didn't get along with the Mollys at all, even though I've heard they can co exist.

Increase the number of Tetras to be the minimum Shoaling/Schooling amount of 6, but better at a dozen. That's regardless of what type of Tetras they are. I hope they aren't Serpae Tetras or something similar since those are notorious for being fin nippers.

 

[rob00120]

hi thankyou for your reply i read that the mollys only get to 2.5" and the dwf Gouramis get to the same 2.5" but other than the femail dwf Gouramis hidding a lot of the time i think i will try to exchange the two Opaline male and the two gold mail Gouramis for cridit i did go in just for the 4 femail dwf Gouramis and assumed that the assitant in the fish shop would have told me that i could not have 6 male Gouramis in the same tank i will have to do more reserch on the fish i have thanks for the help

 

[Ruskull]

hi thankyou for your reply i read that the mollys only get to 2.5" and the dwf Gouramis get to the same 2.5" but other than the femail dwf Gouramis hidding a lot of the time i think i will try to exchange the two Opaline male and the two gold mail Gouramis for cridit i did go in just for the 4 femail dwf Gouramis and assumed that the assitant in the fish shop would have told me that i could not have 6 male Gouramis in the same tank i will have to do more reserch on the fish i have thanks for the help

No problem, you're doing the right thing. I will tell you that Mollys get to be at least 4 inches long and I have owned a Platinum Sailfin amle & a Creamsicle Lyretail female. Both grew to 4 inches.

At one time I had a very aggressive young male Gold Gourami named King Tiger in a 20 gallon tank with that Sailfin male Molly. The Gourami tormented the Molly so badly that I had to buy the 36 gallon bowfront so I could separate them.

Dwarf Gouramis can grow up to 3 or 4 inches also although I've never seen one bigger than 2.5 inches, which is how big my Powder Blue Dwarf male is right now.

Dwarf Gourami information:

Scientific name: Colisa lalia
Common name: Dwarf gourami
Max. size: 8.8 cm / 3.5 inches
pH range: 6.0 – 8.0
dH range: 5 - 19
Temperature range: 25 – 28°C / 77 – 82.5°F

 

[rob00120]

hi and thanks for all the help i took the two Opaline male and the two male gold Gourami back to the shop and i got 2 femail Gourami 3 neon tetras and 2 shrimp that are bigger than the neons i did ask two shop assitants if it would be ok with my fish they said they would be fine. the shrimp seem to be chasing the female Gourami around the tank lol
i will not make that mistake again i never want to take any fish out of my tank again it was so stressful for me as well as the fish all of the plants had to be re planted all of the bogwood fell over half of my fish are still hideing
what is strange is my gold nugget pleco has come out of hideing and is sucking on the glass for the first time
i have never seen him away from the filter intake befor it might be all the other fish hideing around the filter intake lol

thanks

 

[rob00120]

also my tank has gone very cloudy the cloud is white hopfuly the filter will sort it out thanks for the help