South American Biotype Tank - Stocking Choices

[eaglesaquarium]

So, a friend of mine and I are setting up a South American biotype tank at school, and we have narrowed our selections down to this:

20 or so bloodfin/rummynose tetras

20 or so cardinal/neon tetras

12-15 trilineatus corydoras

1-2 bristlenose pleco


We have a 110 US Gallon tank, with plenty of rocks, bogwood, and all natural plants. The issue we are worried about most is that the building can get a little warm in the summer. We won't be around as much, so the A/C will be off and the temps in some tanks at school have hit 84F! Which of these will take the temp differences better?

We are leaning towards bloodfins and cardinals, but we could still be persuaded a different direction if someone can suggest better options. We are looking for tightly schooling fish and movement.

 

[freshwaterfishlover]

In my opinion all your options are not going to work in a 10 gallon. All your options are way over stocked even with the best of filters.

 

[Sammy1911]

Fishlover he said 110G not 10G ... Lol

i would think theyll be find its like creating a natural environment i.e. Day/night, winter/summer fish accept it in the wild afterall

Eagle - whats ur filtration?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

In my opinion all your options are not going to work in a 10 gallon. All your options are way over stocked even with the best of filters.

It's 110 US gallons.

 

[gregswimm]

I would go with the blood fins and 12 corys.

Take a look at L104 instead of the bristle nose

 

[TekFish]

Apistogramma would make a brilliant centrepiece
20 rummynose/cardinal/bloodfin/whatever
12 corydoras sterbai
4 apistogramma of some kind
1-2 bristlenose (preferably 2 females)

 

[eaglesaquarium]

[background=rgb(255, 255, 255)]

Fishlover he said 110G not 10G ... Lol

i would think theyll be find its like creating a natural environment i.e. Day/night, winter/summer fish accept it in the wild afterall

Eagle - whats ur filtration?

Sorry, I missed this post.

We are running two Penguin 350's on the tank, one at the long end, and one on the short side. We're also going to have a powerhead running.

[background=rgb(255, 255, 255)]

I would go with the blood fins and 12 corys.

Take a look at L104 instead of the bristle nose

We hadn't considered a Clown Pleco, so thanks for the suggestion. [/background]

Apistogramma would make a brilliant centrepiece
20 rummynose/cardinal/bloodfin/whatever
12 corydoras sterbai
4 apistogramma of some kind
1-2 bristlenose (preferably 2 females)

[/background]

We've thought about apistogrammas, we may add them eventually.

 

[freshwaterfishlover]

Miss read. If it's a 110g then you could add all the fish and still be under stocked.

 

[gregswimm]

Better to be under-stocked vs overstocked.

You could also do a massive school of black phantom tetras. They are one of the most interesting schooling fish ime. The males are constantly displaying their large fins to the females. I had a nice school, but they had some horrible rot infection and all but one survived. Now I have a BPT that thinks he is an endler lol.

The L204 is also a good choice for pleco as is the L340 (although, if he is anything like mine, you will never see him).

Dicrossus sp. and Taeniacara candidi are totally worth a look.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

[background=rgb(255, 255, 255)]

Miss read. If it's a 110g then you could add all the fish and still be under stocked.

We are fine with it being a bit "understocked". The idea is to create a more natural environment, and I think nature has the fish a bit more widely dispersed than we keep in our tanks. So, a smaller number of shoals of larger numbers of fish would be the way to go, in our opinion.[/background]

Better to be under-stocked vs overstocked.

You could also do a massive school of black phantom tetras. They are one of the most interesting schooling fish ime. The males are constantly displaying their large fins to the females. I had a nice school, but they had some horrible rot infection and all but one survived. Now I have a BPT that thinks he is an endler lol.

The L204 is also a good choice for pleco as is the L340 (although, if he is anything like mine, you will never see him).

Dicrossus sp. and Taeniacara candidi are totally worth a look.

Looking at the cichlids you suggest - while the temps would be perfect, specifically with our summer issue, the water hardness is a concern. While our water is far from hard, its closer to 10 dH, while it seems this fish needs even softer and more acidic water than we are going to have. They are attractive fish though - and their sizes would be perfect. I think they may be difficult to track down as well.


I love the look of the black phantoms and have for some time, but I've never kept them - I almost did in my tank at home, but I was "gifted" with 3 harlequin rasboras, and decided to up their numbers to a suitable level, and went a different way with my tank. Primarily, we are looking for tight shoalers - I know in the pet store, they are tight shoalers, but do Phantoms stick together closely in the home tank as well?

 

[scotty]

clown plecs are very shy fish,so be prepared not too see it much

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I don't see my BN pleco much at my home tank. He comes out at feeding time, and rarely other than that. But I know he's around. My tank used to have some algae... As soon as I added him, all the algae was gone in a week, and has NEVER come back. He's got a huge piece of driftwood that he excavated the sand out from under, and comes out for an algae wafer or shrimp pellet.

 

[gregswimm]

[font=Helvetica Neue']

Miss read. If it's a 110g then you could add all the fish and still be under stocked.

We are fine with it being a bit "understocked". The idea is to create a more natural environment, and I think nature has the fish a bit more widely dispersed than we keep in our tanks. So, a smaller number of shoals of larger numbers of fish would be the way to go, in our opinion.[/font]

Better to be under-stocked vs overstocked.

You could also do a massive school of black phantom tetras. They are one of the most interesting schooling fish ime. The males are constantly displaying their large fins to the females. I had a nice school, but they had some horrible rot infection and all but one survived. Now I have a BPT that thinks he is an endler lol.

The L204 is also a good choice for pleco as is the L340 (although, if he is anything like mine, you will never see him).

Dicrossus sp. and Taeniacara candidi are totally worth a look.

Looking at the cichlids you suggest - while the temps would be perfect, specifically with our summer issue, the water hardness is a concern. While our water is far from hard, its closer to 10 dH, while it seems this fish needs even softer and more acidic water than we are going to have. They are attractive fish though - and their sizes would be perfect. I think they may be difficult to track down as well.


I love the look of the black phantoms and have for some time, but I've never kept them - I almost did in my tank at home, but I was "gifted" with 3 harlequin rasboras, and decided to up their numbers to a suitable level, and went a different way with my tank. Primarily, we are looking for tight shoalers - I know in the pet store, they are tight shoalers, but do Phantoms stick together closely in the home tank as well?

Phantoms don't school as tightly as a 'bait fish' would. Males tend to break off and display at females or other males. They stay rather close together but there isn't the uniform school as sardines or neons do. I have never kept more than 8 at a time so they may school much more actively in a large group like neons do. With a group of 8 its closer to a shoal.

I wouldn't stress the dKH for the fish tbh. And check davesfish.com he has lots of hard to find cichlids and cats. I have ordered from him before and can highly recommend.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Thanks for the info greg!