Need Advice About Stocking

[Andyman77]

I am a total beginner to fishkeeping and I was wondering a few things about stocking: I know I want 2 German Blue rams, but what other fish could I keep with them?( preferrably ones with colour and personality)My tank is 32US gallons and I'm thinking about adding 3-4 live plants( suggestions on that appreatiated) and caves and stuff like that. Basically I want a tank that when people come over they are like , lol. Also, any advice about what NOT to do would be appreatiated!

Thank you so much,

Andrew

 

[nukeonekitty]

Blue rams are a community fish so you could put them in there with tetras, guppies... what to avoid would be any fin nippers (like tiger barbs) because rams fins are pretty flashy. As for plants I think I would go with anubias because it tends to be tough and hardy aka good for a beginner. For rocks you might want to just do a search here... many rocks will work!

 

[Andyman77]

Thanks,

Anyone else?






Andrew

 

[Fishkrazy1]

what to avoid would be any fin nippers (like tiger barbs) because rams fins are pretty flashy.

This simply is not true! Tiger barbs make excellent tank mates for anything even anglefish, I have a school of 5 with 4 angles and my tigers don't bite my angles fins!, making sure that the school of tiger barbs is atleast 12 you will have no problems with your rams fins. People, such as nukeonekitty, just haven't had much experience with tigers and believe everything they hear about them. Tigers would be a great addition and remember that rams are cichlids and they may eat fish small enough to fit in their mouths so I suggest no neon tetras. As for plants, I've found hornwort looks nice and is really cheap too good luck

 

[Andyman77]

I've also been eye white cloud mountain minnows and black neon tetras, would that work?


Andrew

 

[Chri$]

Yes White Clouds would work.

Are you just wanting to have 1 large shoal and a pair of rams?

 

[Andyman77]

Well I was thinking:

6 WCMM
12? Black Neons
1 Male honey gouramis
12 Corydoras
2 German blue rams
and mabye 1 more shoal of tetra( if so which kind?)


Should I add or take away anything?



Andrew

 

[Chri$]

IMO that would be a little overstocked.

I would go for something like this:

Pair of German Blue Rams M/F
6 x WCMM
12 x Black Neon
6 x Corydoras

 

[Andyman77]

ok i'll cut the corys to 6 and keep the 1 male honey gouramis. Should I keep th Black neons at 12 or have a group of 6 and another type of tetra? Also the plants I want to get are Amazon sword anubias, and hornwort,any other suggestions?


Andrew

 

[Chri$]

I have found that Black neons shoal alot more and generally become a lot more active if you have a larger group.

However i only had 4 at the time so a group of 6 could make all the difference.

It's up to you really.



As for plants I would reccomend Hygrophillia Polysperma - very fast growing and quite hardy.

Also striaght or twisted vallis would be a good choice.

 

[Andyman77]

Ok I think this is my final list( I hope):

6 WCMM
12 Black neons
6 corydoras( which kind)
1 male honey gouramis
2 german blue rams (M/F)
and possibly 6 harlequin rasboras. As for plants: Amazon sword, anubias, hornwort and twisted vallis(if my LFS has any).

any comments welcomed,

Andrew

 

[Fishkrazy1]

depending on how big you want these little guys, aqualandpetplus.com has loads of info on the sizes of these fish, check the site and find out how big they get. I know green corys get to be around 4" max, peppered corys around 2" and panda corys around 1-1.5"

 

[Chri$]

If you went for a smaller cory i.e pandas you could just about fit a small shoal of Harlequins in there.

 

[Andyman77]

ok guys I think ill go with the smaller cories and get a shoal of harlequins.


Thanks for all your help (especially chris)



Andrew

 

[nukeonekitty]

This simply is not true! Tiger barbs make excellent tank mates for anything even anglefish, I have a school of 5 with 4 angles and my tigers don't bite my angles fins!, making sure that the school of tiger barbs is atleast 12 you will have no problems with your rams fins. People, such as nukeonekitty, just haven't had much experience with tigers and believe everything they hear about them. Tigers would be a great addition and remember that rams are cichlids and they may eat fish small enough to fit in their mouths so I suggest no neon tetras. As for plants, I've found hornwort looks nice and is really cheap too good luck

If you want 12 of the same kind of fish in a 32 gal be my guest... 2 things, I used to keep tiger barbs with a buddy when we were younger and they fin nipped in large numbers so please don't act like you know what fish I have kept... Also, my buddy has blue rams and I have bolivians and NEVER once have they eaten a neon...