Why Are Brothers So Stupid?

[Ben M]

hi, my older brother (age 16) is getting a 2 foot tank in his room. At first i thought, great! more fish, and i would have tried to help him choose fish, plants etc. but now he is convinced that goldfish is the way forward. he says that all tropical fish are grey and boring. can anyone help me convince him otherwise, and/or recommend any colourful, small maybe shoaling fish that he could keep in a 2 ft by 1 ft tank. or maybe some shrimp. or recommended other fish, such as corry species etc.
help please!
thanks

 

[JohnRossDele]

hi, my older brother (age 16) is getting a 2 foot tank in his room. At first i thought, great! more fish, and i would have tried to help him choose fish, plants etc. but now he is convinced that goldfish is the way forward. he says that all tropical fish are grey and boring. can anyone help me convince him otherwise, and/or recommend any colourful, small maybe shoaling fish that he could keep in a 2 ft by 1 ft tank. or maybe some shrimp. or recommended other fish, such as corry species etc.
help please!
thanks

in my point of view a goldfish would be quite lame in a 2ft when you could have a nice colourful community

maybe tell him about this site he might think if he gets into any problems he can ask us,show him some picks of a community tank, the most colourful fish you can think of, maybe get him into livebearer breeding and how he can sell the raised fry for money! you can go wrong with livebearers

hope this helps you tell us how it turns out

 

[Ben M]

thanks, i did suggest to him endlers livebearers, but he said that they look grey! he must be colour blind.

 

[JohnRossDele]

thanks, i did suggest to him endlers livebearers, but he said that they look grey! he must be colour blind.

ask him what is his fav colour please. then i can find a fish that has that colour

 

[Ben M]

he said that his fav colours are blue and red/orange.

 

[JohnRossDele]

he said that his fav colours are blue and red/orange.

platys, mollies, swordtails all can have orange/red on them, show him a nice pic of these we're getting there

 

[Curiosity101]

Show him german blue rams, and gold rams (the gold variety of the german blue). It's probably just big enough for a pair of either of those.
Infact...

Or one of the apistos...eg. Dwarf Cockatoo Apisto

Honey Gouramis...

^^ red variety

^^ Yellow/ Natural Variety

Or show him some bettas on aquabid...

Does he prefer a center piece/pair, or a shoal of dithers etc?
I could carry on suggesting..?

 

[Wills]

If he wants goldfish tell him to get long finned rosy barbs. Or he could have cherry barbs, rusty thick lipped gourami, pearl gourami. Then obviously if he wants blue/red - Dwarf gourami, he could do a betta sorority lots of colours. Black ruby barbs or he could have cardinals or neons, rummy nose tetras could do a good school of flame tetras. Then there are tons of livebearers that are orange. Tons of options for him, if he went with goldfish its only because of ignorance.

Honestly the amount of orange fish that he could have other than goldfish run into double figures.

 

[Curiosity101]

Rosy and black ruby barbs would be too big in my opinion, as would the thick lipped gourami and pearl. A single dwarf could exist in their, but get more than one male and you're asking for agression.
Just my opinion, and all fish are easily a better choice than goldfish, but I wouldn't put them in there.

 

[Ben M]

Does he prefer a center piece/pair, or a shoal of dithers etc?

i'm not really sure what he prefers to be honest, maybe a couple of rams or something and a shoal of little fish. also, maybe some corrys for the lower levels?

i'll suggest all of the other suggested fish to him as well.
any more for any more?

 

[JohnRossDele]

Does he prefer a center piece/pair, or a shoal of dithers etc?

i'm not really sure what he prefers to be honest, maybe a couple of rams or something and a shoal of little fish. also, maybe some corrys for the lower levels?

did you show him mollies, platys or swordtails because they can all have orange/red markings!

 

[Curiosity101]

Well with the rams I suggested you have to plan the rest of the tank around them, cause with rams you need to set the temp to 28C minimum, your 'average' community fish wont do that well at this temperature.

Don't suppose you could drag him to the pc and ask for his opinion? That way we could start suggesting a full tank set-up.
It's just without his opinions the list is almost endless!

 

[Ben M]

i'll try to get him now.
won't be a sec.

 

[JohnRossDele]

Well with the rams I suggested you have to plan the rest of the tank around them, cause with rams you need to set the temp to 28C minimum, your 'average' community fish wont do that well at this temperature.

Don't suppose you could drag him to the pc and ask for his opinion? That way we could start suggesting a full tank set-up.
It's just without his opinions the list is almost endless!

swordtails and mollies can live at 28*C platys not so much theyd be prefer 26*C max

so maybe a school of swordtails and mollies with a ram pair

 

[Curiosity101]

Again personal opinion, but I wouldn't recommend swords or mollys for a 2ft tank.
Swords can easily reach 5" in length, as can mollys if you pick the wrong type.

Platies would be fab, and come in all sorts of colour morphs, but I do agree that 28C prob would be a struggle for them long term.