tank companions, Help!

[Rodge]

Hi

At the min i have a 42usgal tank (40x15x15). There are 25 plants 5 guppies (all male) and 5 platies (3f 2m).

I am wanting to add companions with them in a few weeks, the list of what i want to add is bellow. I have done the calculations for the length of fish i want to have using this site ( http/www.liveaquaria.com/product/categ.cfm?pCatId=830 ) as a rough estimate of the fish sizes. I am not sure if the size on that site is including fins or not.

the size i get for total fish length is 131cm and the total for fish i want is 148cm

Would you say this is over stocking or not taking into account the fish i want in.

fish to add
2 x Silver Zebra Angel (1f 1m)
2 x Dwarf Gourami (1f 1m)
3 x Clown Loach
3 x Assorted Swordtail (2f 1m)
8 x Neon Tetra

o and i have a spare 10gal tank just incase of lil fry.

Thanks for any help in advance

 

[emma12321]

Hi Rodge,


The fish you have chosen are compatible but you will be very lucky to get a male and female angel unless you buy an adult proven pair, the angels may also eat the neons as they get bigger. They will definately eat platy and swordtail fry. The swordtails will interbreed with the platies also.

Clown loach are not recommended for tanks under 75 gallons as they can easily get to 12" in tanks. They can get to 18" in the wild and can live for over 40 years so unless you plan on upgrading within a couple of years i would swap them for zebra loach (botia striata) or chain loach (botia sidthimonki).

take a look at this site http/www.loaches.com/species_pages/clown...l_aquarium.html

you may also find other suitable loaches on this site

Hope this helps

Emma

 

[GSD]

i would say the tank was too small for the clown loaches.IMO they should have 75gallons +

also the neons and angelfish cant go together,as the neons are an angelfishs natural diet in the wild!So watch out for missing fish

You are also going to leave quite abit of space for when those livebearers(swordtails/platies)start to breed.Unles you have another tank to put all the fry(baby fish)into.

and yes it will be hard to sex angelfish unless they are large ones!

 

[GSD]

double post

 

[NinjaSmurf]

With the angels in there I would imagine most guppy fry would get pegged off before they got to any sort of size to cause overstocking issues. Not sure how big swordtail fry is, so don't know if it would be the same for them.

And yeah, sorry but I have to go against clown loaches as well, plenty of people will say they can upgrade, but you never know when life is gonna nail you one so it's better to just play it safe for something like that.

 

[Rodge]

thanks for the advice guys.

the swordtails are now off now. and it looks like i am going to have to find some other type of loach.