What Kind Of Fish? Not New To Fish!

[Hobbit]

alright, since i got really good grades (finnally) I get to get another aquarium, and any freshwater fish I want. My tank will probably be 35-40 gallons. I am thinking about either getiing a really nice setup, and putting some guppies in it. Guppies, or Mollies. I either want to do that, or buy one or two red-bellied piranhas. I have a lot of experience with fish, but I cant decide what to get here. I would apreciate some feedback, and tips, thanks.

 

[trace1]

hiya
guppies would be fine in there & i would think you could quite a lot as well, or end up with a lot 1 or the other lol. but i thought red bellied piranhas were a bit like cichlids in the sense that the more the better to avoid aggrasion (sp) sorry if i'm wrond bout them ) lol

 

[riverman444]

What a difference.....Guppies or Pirahnas.....

 

[dwarfgourami]

The tank is too small for piranhas. They need to be in schools, and they are great big messy fish that require a lot of water and massive filtration. A 75 gallon is the recommended minimum.

But there is an alternative if you want the piranha personality. Bucktoothed tetras (exodon paradoxus) are said to have a similar character, but are quite a bit smaller. Again, you would be looking at a school to spread aggression, and a species tank. There is a description of these in the fish index (I see 55 gal is recommended minimum size- so you might want to discuss tank size with an expert. I believe CFC has these fish.)

As for guppies, well, that's clearly a very different setup; you could fit a fair few in. Or you could have a trio of mollies, and some more community fish.

edit:

Check out- new informative topic on piranha-keeping by AMS in the cyprinids, characins forum! This will give an idea of the needs of piranhas, and make it easier to decide whether you can cater for them. AMS also has a list of suggested piranha-alternatives.

 

[Hobbit]

The tank is too small for piranhas. They need to be in schools, and they are great big messy fish that require a lot of water and massive filtration. A 75 gallon is the recommended minimum.

But there is an alternative if you want the piranha personality. Bucktoothed tetras (exodon paradoxus) are said to have a similar character, but are quite a bit smaller. Again, you would be looking at a school to spread aggression, and a species tank. There is a description of these in the fish index (I see 55 gal is recommended minimum size- so you might want to discuss tank size with an expert. I believe CFC has these fish.)

As for guppies, well, that's clearly a very different setup; you could fit a fair few in. Or you could have a trio of mollies, and some more community fish.

edit:

Check out- new informative topic on piranha-keeping by AMS in the cyprinids, characins forum! This will give an idea of the needs of piranhas, and make it easier to decide whether you can cater for them. AMS also has a list of suggested piranha-alternatives.

Thanks, but Ithought 15 gallons per piranha is what is needed? oh well, i forgot about 3 or 4 is the minimum beacause they start fighting. thanks for ur feedback. What other fish would you recomend for this tanks? It's an octigon. by the way. Right now, I'm leaning towards mollies, but what do you think?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Wether you go for mollies or guppys or both, you will need to have 1male per 2-3females in each species if you are going for a mized gender group, or a minimum of 5males of each species if you are going for an all-male group(although all-male groups are more difficult to stock successfully due to agression) .
Both mollys and guppys can produce a lot of fry each month(females can have over 40fry a month), so you may want to take this into consideration and plan on adding a few peaceful fry-eating fish to help cut down on any breeding/fry population problems- have you considered any other fish species/types yet like barbs, tetras, loaches, plecs, corys etc ?
Are you planning on a gravel or sand substrate for the tank?

 

[kubora666]

if you wanted to go for the mollie guppy idea you could create your own colour strains
anyways what about RAINBOWFISH ? they require shoals but i see them reletively small at very bright reds blues greens , really nice fish, i have only ever owned 2 of them and they were lovely and active.
also if you like aggressive fish you could go for the smaller ( i mean ones that dont get 1 foot long ) cichlid.
not the giants like dempsys severums etc.
convicts maybe?

before i changed my tank i had a lake tangynika themed set up.
they are similar to the malawi cichlids only they average sizes from about 1" to 6 " at the largest.
they have a large variety of shell dwelling tiny fish.
avoid the large frontosa cichlids though
hope that helps.
kubora666

 

[Hobbit]

umm-- I was thinking sand, but what does it matter? Is one better, or what? And Maybe some aggressive fish, I dont know. What kind of fish did you mean by friendly fry eating ones? And thanks so much for all the help!