Stocking Advice For A 72 (us) Gallon

[KevM]

I'm considering an African oddball theme for my new tank. It actually holds a bit more than 72 gallons because of its height but it has the foot-print of a 72. Anyway, I like the following and would appreciate advice on which (and how many) of them would work:

Senegal Bichir
Leopard Bushfish
African Brown Knife
Congo Tetra (I know it's not an oddball but I'd quite liek something schooling to add colour and activity)

I'm also open to suggestions on anything else that would work with some combination of the above. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Wills]

Man after my own heart! I love African Oddballs at the moment and Im seriously thinking of them for my next tank

I think that mix would work pretty nice

Maybe

3 Leopard Bushfish
1 African Brown Knife
15 Congo Tetras
1 Senegal Bichir

Maybe some nice Synos would work well in there

Wills

 

[thereverendturtle]

Man after my own heart! I love African Oddballs at the moment and Im seriously thinking of them for my next tank

I think that mix would work pretty nice

Maybe

3 Leopard Bushfish
1 African Brown Knife
15 Congo Tetras
1 Senegal Bichir

Maybe some nice Synos would work well in there


Wills

+1, except I might go with 3 reedfish instead of the bichir.
I might also add a group of 3-5 African butterfly fish.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

A group of Reedfish or the smaller adult size Polypterus delhezi might be more suitable and more community friendly, enabling the option of a group of Pantodon buchholzi and/or Synodontis nigriventris, providing you buy the the Reedfish/Bichir last and let the other tankmates get a good head start on reaching adult size (Pantodon and S. nigriventris are pretty slow growers).

With the Leopard Bushfish, choose either a singleton or 4+, an unpaired duo will likely lead to fatal bullying. I started with a group of ~2cm specimens, they are very shy as babies and so conspecifics really helps, three of them reached teenage size of ~6cm at which point I risked adding a new ~10cm speciemn. Because he was much bigger, they instantly accepted him as the group leader, which was fortunate beacuse adding new members can lead to fatalities if the new ones are smaller or similar sized.

They are not available very often and when they do they tend to come in labelled as Synodontis notata (just like my singleton), but Synodontis congica are really mild mannered synos that suit the behaviour of these classic African oddball setups, because they can easily be bullied in community tanks and be outcompeted for food consequently. If I could purchase another 5 or so of these I would do so in a heartbeat, they are extremely social (like the other syno oddity, S. decora), my one pootles midwater in the current, surrounded by a 20-strong group of 4-5cm "Debauwi Catfish" and a small group of Golden Pencilfish. These synos, just like flavitaeniata ("Pyjama"), reach nothing like their wild size potential and do well to exceed ~10cm SL and so are very manageable in a 4-foot tank.