Tank Compatability

[Nevergone815]

down the road and i mean way down the road from now i want ot get a huge tank that goes from one end of the room to the other, maybe 300-500 + gallons. would i be able to put eels/ropefish in with knife fish and dragon fish or vise versa? will they be too aggressive towards each other? i see these fish in pet stores and think that they are awsome and would like to get them eventually, and want to research them before i make any rash decisions and get myself into a bad predicament (sp). like have to give up the fish that kinda cost money or hafta rush and buy a much bigger tank or buy them and have to seperate them. you know all that good stuff that comes with making a poor decision. i want to avoid that and are curious as to besides these fish (if they can live together) what other fish can live with them?

 

[CFC]

Most predatory fish can be safely combined with fish that cannot fit into their mouths, the exceptions to this would be fish like pirahna which eat their prey a bite at a time and fish that are also territorially aggressive as well as predatory like Cichlids.

A 500g tank isnt as big as you would think and unless you have very small rooms or have a exceptionally skinny tank built (which then wouldnt be suitable for large predators) a tank that is the length of the room long is likely to be in the thousands of gallons not hundreds. This is a serious expenditure not only for the initial set up of the tank which will costs thousands of dollars/pounds but also for the ongoing running and maintainance costs which could be hundreds per month.

 

[Nevergone815]

yea i wasn't really going to set it up anytime soon. right now i'm a broke college kid so i won't be able to set that up until i'm financially secure and i thought that a wall tank would take thousands of gallons, but i kept hearing people talk about their "500 gal wall tank lol) so i naturally thought these guys know what they're talking about. lol silly me

 

[beblondie]

yea i wasn't really going to set it up anytime soon. right now i'm a broke college kid so i won't be able to set that up until i'm financially secure and i thought that a wall tank would take thousands of gallons, but i kept hearing people talk about their "500 gal wall tank lol) so i naturally thought these guys know what they're talking about. lol silly me

540 Gal. 96 x 37½ x 36 $2300 And thats the least expensive one i could find one other point weight.You really need a house built on a concrete slab or at the very minimum a crawlspace so you can brace the floor
A simple thing to remember is is 10 lbs per gallon and thats not counting the weight of the tank or stand,thats just the water and substrate-Anne

Now as for monthly expenses figure 10% weekly water changes thats roughly 200 gallons a month+ the electricity to run the filters,lights and heaters+ the cost of the chemicals to make the water safe+ the food to feed the fish.Remember the cost of the tank is cheap compared to the rest of the stuff-Anne

 

[Nevergone815]

thanks for the info. i really got into fish and i have so many plans to do things with. i know it could be costly so thats why it will be gradual build up and saving money. how long would a tank that size have to cycle (no fish) to get a good envirionment before adding fish? oh and i know i would have to have it on concrete and most likely a rock/concrete/marbel (anything hard and solid) stand. what i want to do eventually is get a nice house built with a sturdy concrete floor and make a "fish room" have along 2 walls (connected) a huge freshwater tank and on the other have the same for saltwater. in the middle have either a tank for the live fish i would have to feed the bigger fish or like a nice huge community tank with smaller fish. i know this probably will never happen... but i can have a dream can't i?

 

[beblondie]

thanks for the info. i really got into fish and i have so many plans to do things with. i know it could be costly so thats why it will be gradual build up and saving money. how long would a tank that size have to cycle (no fish) to get a good envirionment before adding fish? oh and i know i would have to have it on concrete and most likely a rock/concrete/marbel (anything hard and solid) stand. what i want to do eventually is get a nice house built with a sturdy concrete floor and make a "fish room" have along 2 walls (connected) a huge freshwater tank and on the other have the same for saltwater. in the middle have either a tank for the live fish i would have to feed the bigger fish or like a nice huge community tank with smaller fish. i know this probably will never happen... but i can have a dream can't i?

Lol dreams are good,its the cold harsh reality that sucks.Like any tank about a month unless you cheat and use media from a cycled tank-Anne

 

[Nevergone815]

any suggestions i want to eventually get a dragonfish, ropefish, glass knife, black ghost knife, i'll prolly need at least a 500 gal for just those ones right?

 

[beblondie]

any suggestions i want to eventually get a dragonfish, ropefish, glass knife, black ghost knife, i'll prolly need at least a 500 gal for just those ones right?

By dragofish do you mean arrowana?

 

[Nevergone815]

any suggestions i want to eventually get a dragonfish, ropefish, glass knife, black ghost knife, i'll prolly need at least a 500 gal for just those ones right?

By dragofish do you mean arrowana?

i dont know they are always advertised as "dragonfish" in pet stores (at least when i see them)

i just google searched and no if what i saw for arrowana is what they are NO they are huge they'll eat me lol
if the description is what i think it is then it scientific name is Gobioides broussonetti

the "dragonfish" i see look like this
http/www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Oddball,%20Dragon%20Goby.htm

ok that site gave me info... maybe if i keep it in a 30 gal by itself... it needs brackish water and i don't know if the others can handle brackish water. if so it would be grat but i doubt it. but in the pet store i saw it in with Schultzi Cory Cats. they can't live in salt can they, i know my albino cories can't. so can the "dragonfish" i know live in pure fresh water without salt?

 

[beblondie]

Ok heres the possible problem both the glass knife an blackghost knife emit a weak electrical siganl to
navigate and help find food this could lead to agression between the two
glassknifefish13''
ghostknifefish18-24''
ropefish 15-20''
You dont need a 500 gallon tank really thats overkill it would be great but overkill

 

[Nevergone815]

Ok heres the possible problem both the glass knife an blackghost knife emit a weak electrical siganl to
navigate and help find food this could lead to agression between the two
glassknifefish13''
ghostknifefish18-24''
ropefish 15-20''
You dont need a 500 gallon tank really thats overkill it would be great but overkill

so what size tank you think i need like a 100 gal (longer than high i presume) would be more than enough? also i wanted to make a community out of it using like chicklets and gouromies (sp), cat shark and pleco, stuff like that or any other fish i can. so i wanted to make sure their is plenty of space for the fish. also, if i get a decent size tank (i.e 100 gal or so) would the glass and blackghost knife be able to live together? i just wantto get as much info as i can before i get financially secure enough and buy all this stuff and find out the hard way (and expensive way) that i don't need that much. or that they won't go hand in hand.

and what if i ask for a male and female knife fish. would that cut out aggression any or is the chances of being able to sex them too low?

also if you have tankmate suggestions for those fish for a larger tank it would be great. i know you can't have any fish that is like less than 4-5" long or it'll be food. with full grown of the ropefish, knife fish, dragon fish, and such probably 6" long to be safe right?

also another question, do all of these live in brackish water? the dragonfish thrives in it

 

[penguinpimp1990]

the knives and ropefish wont be able to handle the salt, so unless you are willing to stock your tank around the dragon goby you cannot have him. A 30 gallon tank is far far to small for a dragon goby, they can reach around 2 feet in captivity. Though 2 feet in captivity is rare, 17-19 inches is more likely, but still too big for a 30 gallon tank. And the he is probally kept in FW in the petstore because of the money on salt, most brackish fish are kept in FW in LFS's because they can handle the FW for short periods of time and then they are sold. Thus saving money on the seperate tanks and equiptment need for the salty tanks. But like i said they could handle hard akleine FW for short periods of time but truely need brackish water to thrive. Dragon fish is one of the only true brackish fish in the aquarium hobby. Alot of commonly believed brackish fish such as BBG's, glassfish, figure 8 puffers, and others are actually more often found naturally in hard alkeline FW than brackish waters. But like i said dragon gobies are true brackish fish and MUST be kept in brackish waters.

 

[Nevergone815]

ok so the dragon would probably need a 50 gal long brackish water tank by himself. so what size tank would i need to get the others?

 

[fishfishfish]

no a dragon fish AKA purple goby pnly needs about 20 gallons

 

[Nevergone815]

no a dragon fish AKA purple goby pnly needs about 20 gallons

ok so it only needs a 20 gal, i was wondering why a thin, long, 18" fish needed more than 30 gal.

i'm assuming though that it would be better to have a 20 gal long (not high) right?