My Tanks Advice Please

[Mattyb]

Hi I was wondering if you guys could give me some advice I have recently started up keeping tropical fish and I need some advice on a few things.

I currently have a 5 foot by 3 foot by 2 foot 94 gallon tank I have a gravel substrate with various plants filerting is provided by 2 x Eheim 2215 Classic canister filters both with JBL ball and tube media and carbon etc.

The fish I currently have in it are as follows: 2 x Albino Catfish, 2 x Pearl Gouramis, 4 x Long Fin Rams, 10 x Columbian Tetras, 8 Buenos Aires Tetras, 3 x Sword Tails, 6 x Cardinal Tetras, 1 x Guppy, 2 x Rosy Barbs, 7 x Black Mollys, 6 x Orange Platys and a 10 inch Sailfin Pleco.

I also have a 25 Gallon tank which is unused but set up cycling at the moment with an Eheim 2213 external Canister filter.

My question to you is this can I move 2 x Albino Catfish, 2 x Pearl Gouramis, 4 x Long Fin Rams, 10 x Columbian Tetras, 8 Buenos Aires Tetras, 3 x Sword Tails, 6 x Cardinal Tetras and the Rosy Barbs into the 25 Gallon tank or will this be massivley overstocked?

My idea was if I can do this was to put an maybe 1 or 2 Oscars in with the Pleco or 1 Oscar and maybe 2 largish Clown loaches I am not worried about the Black Mollys or the Platys and would give them away to the fish centre or maybe let the Oscar eat them!

My other idea which I would like advice on is maybe add some more community fish to the 5 foot tank like some rainbow fish and maybe a few other things and still get rid of the mollys and platys and use the 25 Gallon tank for a species only tank with maybe figure of eight puffers or dwarf puffers?

I think the 25 gallon tank is to small for a malawi ciclid tank?

Your Advice and comments would be very welcome.

Kind Regards,
Matt

 

[arobinson1984]

Hi, the 25 gallon would be too small for all them fish, not only would it be quite heavily overstocked in terms of water chemistry but with all them fish in there I think you'd find visually it would look far too crowded.

Personally, if you are set of wanting to move them out of the large tank then you may have to decide which fish you want to keep for the 25 gal and rehome the others.

The 94 gal would only be big enough for 1 oscar really, its recommended that they need 75 gal for one, also clown loaches really need to be in groups of 4+

Andy

 

[Mattyb]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for that bad advice from Maidenhead aquatics I guess they had 2 x Clown Loaches they said would be fine on their own with the Oscar @ Pleco. How many more community fish can I add to the 5 foot tank do you think I would like something interesting.

And any ideas for the 25 gallon tank?

Matt

 

[arobinson1984]

Personally for the 25 gal I would go:

A centre piece fish: Either your 2 pearl gouramis OR 2 of your rams, think the tank may be a little small for all 4 rams.

Shoaling fish: I think the tank would be too small for the columbian and buenos aires tetras so you'd prob be best keeping the cardinals and increasing the amount to 10/12

Bottom feeders: I'm presuming by albino catfish you mean corys? If so keeps these and increase the amount to 6

I'd rehome the columbians, buenos aires teras, swordtails. Also the guppy and rosy barbs need bigger groups so personally I'd rehome them.

Obviously its up to you but thats what I'd recommend.


As for the 95 gal - 1 oscar, 4 clown loach and the plec would be fine. You may get away with a few other tank mates depending on how the filtration copes and obviously any tank mates have to be big enough not to get eaten by the oscar.


Andy

 

[Mattyb]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the advice mate one more bit if thats ok if I wanted to keep a tetra only tank what size would you go for as I quite like the activity of the larger tetras. And I love the colour of the rams so many options! If I decided to go the community route with the large tank how many more fish do you think I could Add?

Matt

 

[Wills]

Hi, that is quite a big tank! Are you 100% on the dimensions of that as a 5x3x2 is 220 US gallons and you have massive massive stocking options in there if thats right.

For the 25 I agree with Arobinson you need to juggle the fish around a bit but for the big tank honestly if you like cichlids you could have such a good community in there! You could have a really good mix of things like Severums, Uarus, Panda Uarus along with Eartheaters like Geophagus Tapajo sp Red Head or Satonopercas or Geophagus Altifrons. Plec wise if you like the commons and the sailfins yeah cool but there are over 400 species of plec and I can only think of a handful that get too big for that tank. You could have something like L14 Sunny Plec. In this set up your columbian tetras would work really well as would your buenos aires, clown loaches would mix really well with them all as well.

Wills