Crud...

[Panther]

I have recently finished cycling a new 4ft long 40 gal aquarium and now have the very enviable problem of deciding on what fish I want to put in it (I want it to be a community aquarium). I would like a small schooling fish--zebra danios or cherry barbs, I'm leaning toward the barbs--and some sort of relatively large community fish. I was hoping to get a pair of Pearl Gouramis (do those work with barbs?) but unfortunately, I don't have many fish stores around here that sell them. There only 2 that I know of; the nearest one sells their Pearls for $6.99 a fish (STEEP!!), but the other one--although it sells theirs for only 2.95 a fish--is so far away that it kind of defeats the purpose of going there, considering gas prices and all.

So, I was thinking about some other, more common, fish--perhaps a female blue gourami, but the problem with that would be how well it would get along with cherry barbs (not well?).

Now I don't really know WHAT kind of fish I want to get!! Like I said, I would like a relatively large, peaceful community fish that could get along with Cherry Barbs.

Any ideas? Anybody?

 

[sylvia]

Cherry barbs are not schooling fish. They preffer to be in pairs and willa ctualy form a territory. I would suggest you get a pair of cherries and then get a school of some kind of danio as well (but not giant). Then, yes, pearls would work and I think they are worth every penny if you do buy them. They are my favourite fish and look amazing IMO (though I know I'm biased). They would be fine with most danios and with cherry barbs as they aren't nippy like say tiger barbs are. Other gouramies you may consider are honeys, dwarfs, banded, thick-lipped, croaking, sparkling, moonlight and possibly three-spots. You already mentioned three-spots as a consideration actualy. Personaly, I would go for a different species because they are realy quite aggressive, territorial fish and, though they would be fine with both cherry barbs and danios, I preffer to keep these in species tanks with one male and several females or in very big community tanks or in tanks with more aggressive fish as solitary 'centerpieces'. Are you interested in any kind of bottom-dweller? Either cories or most of the smaller loaches would work nicely. If you do get a gourami, however, make sure any loach you choose won't nip at the longer fins.

 

[Panther]

I'm planning on adding 3 cory cats and a few Kuhli Loaches from another tank as bottom feeders. I love the idea of Pearl Gouramis best, but currently, I'm just a poor, starving artist right now. I just barely got away with the 40 gallon by using a tank a friend gave me, spare gravel, a spare heater and filter, and a bunch of extra bubblers. I'm rather short on money right now. Maybe I'll just wait and save up my spare change for a while.

When it comes to Cherry Barbs, my sources say that, although they can be somewhat territorial towards eachother sometimes, are a shoaling fish best kept in groups of 6 or more, and that keeping them in groups will encourage males to turn the bright, cherry red they were named for. I dunno, though; I've never actually owned them myself. Any other opinions on this matter?