I’ve made a composite list of all the fish I want in my tank. Tell me what should be removed from it. 40 gallon breeder tank, heavily planted.

[Mint]

The fish are as follows. Note, this isn’t what’s actually going into the tank: I’m just trying to figure out how many of my favorite fish can go in. So just say what needs to be eliminated to make this not overstocked. And if anyone knows a good blue fish that can replace the Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish, that would be good to know.

- 1x Angelfish
- 6x Rummynose Tetra
- 6x Lemon Tetra
- 1x Lemon Blue-Eye Bristlenose Pleco
-2x Honey Gourami
-5x Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish

 

[Essjay]

Am I right that a 40 gallon breeder tank is 16 inches tall?

Angelfish - need a water depth of at least 18 inches so if the tank is 16 inches tall, and less water depth when substrate is added, the tank is not suitable. Also angels and gouramis don't go well together.
Rummy noses - fine if you have soft water, but shoaling fish should have a minimum of 10.
Lemon tetras - as for rummy noses (check if they are nippy fish with gouramis in the tank)
Bristlenose - fine
Honey gourami - fine if the water is soft. I'd go for 1 male 3 females. Caution - those fish sold as red honeys are usually thick lipped gouramis. Look for wild coloured or yellow.
Dwarf neon rainbows - again, more of them. These fish do seem liable to health problems though.


I would leave out the angels, increase the numbers of tetras, and a few more gouramis. I'd be wary of the rainbows though, there are too many reports of them developing lesions for me to be happy with them.

 

[Mint]

Alright, thank you! Yes, it is sixteen inches tall. I’m going to be using nothing but bottled distilled water, and some driftwood, so I think the softness-hardness thing won’t matter too much. If there’s no angelfish in the tank, I’ll just get blue tetras and switch the honey gourami out for something larger (Probably a single golden gourami). Near as I can tell, Lemons aren’t very nippy, and neither are Rummynose.

 

[Byron]

Can you give us the parameters, especially GH and pH? This is more important than many think, and our suggestions for some fish may be misleading if we don't know.

And what species is "blue tetra?" If it is what I think it is, gourami are not going to work.

 

[ClownLurch]

Alright, thank you! Yes, it is sixteen inches tall. I’m going to be using nothing but bottled distilled water, and some driftwood, so I think the softness-hardness thing won’t matter too much. If there’s no angelfish in the tank, I’ll just get blue tetras and switch the honey gourami out for something larger (Probably a single golden gourami). Near as I can tell, Lemons aren’t very nippy, and neither are Rummynose.

The softness-hardness thing will still matter.

 

[Mint]

Well, this is all irrelevant now: I’ve switched up my idea for a tank tremendously, because without the angelfish, this tank probably won’t look good. And yeah, you’re right on the blue tetras: I was looking them up on YouTube, and it turns out they’re just so fin-nippy. Not good for keeping with gourami at all. Sorry for wasting time: My ideas for this tank have been switching rapidly, and I’ve found a much better, less aggressive idea.

 

[Colin_T]

the sores and ulcers that rainbowfish get are normally caused by fish tb. try to get fish from a breeder/ source that doesn't have tb in their tanks. the sores can be reduced by feeding the fish lots of plant matter and plant based foods but it won't stop the tb developing and eventually killing the fish.