# new tank stocking... opinions



## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

my new tank is cycling and im trying to figure out the details for stocking. my centerpiece is my two green severums. i am also adding my pleco who is about 5 - 6 inches now.

i will also be adding a school of probably 5 or 6 cory cats. possible a couple otos.

i have also decided on my dithers. im gonna add a school of around 15 xrays (some albino some regular) and 6 - 10 black skirt tetras.

so:
2 x green sevs
1 x pleco
6 x corys
15 x pristellas
6 x black skirts 
possibly 2 x otos

what does everyone think? any suggestions, ideas, criticism, etc?
just fyi: sand substrate, eventually leaf litter, mostly driftwood, few floating plants.


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Well what size is the tank first of all?

Otos, only if it's planted and need atleast 6 then.


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## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 24, 2008)

If you've got the cash and the patience - and plan on making this a leaf litter tank, I could get ahold of some cherry shrimp and throw them in there first - wait a month or two for their population to boom in the tank, and they will feed off the leaf litter you add to the tank in the future, as well as provide a natural food source to the fish.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with black skirt tetra, but they really don't school - in my experience they're more of a menace to tank mates than anything and will actually stake out little mini-territory's for themselves.

I would go with 12 rummynose or cardinal tetra in their place, assuming you can find them at a full grown size. Or possibly replace them with praecox rainbow's or congo tetra's.

I would also most definately look into adding some pleco's to this tank - bushynose and goldies are some of my favorites - though if you only want a single specimin and don't care about algae cleanup the galaxy/vampire pleco's are very nice as well.

Of course this is all dependant on your tank size, as well as the dimensions.


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

darn, sorry. 75 gallon. 48 in x 18 in
yeah, i had that concern about the black skirts. good advice. i will probably take it to heart. i wanna stick to sa for the 75, other reccomendations for schooling tetras?
also thanks for the advice on the otos. i have a planted 29 which i am definetely getting them to put in there so i will just stick with my pleco in the 75.


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## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 24, 2008)

Honestly - if you keep a clean tank and are confident in your skills - cardinal tetra and rummynose are some of the best out there.

In a tank that size I would go with a much larger school, say 20+.

I would also look into getting a collection of pleco's going in there, mango's, galaxis/vampire's, goldies/sunshines, gold nuggets ect. are all great choices and don't just sit around in the shadows all the time


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

I can only add my experience with two severums in a 75g: go with two only if you think you have a good chance of having a pair, or have a back up plan to separate them down the road.

Our two severums were bought teeny tiny... and turned out to both be males. The alpha one (ironically the slightly smaller one) can chase the other one around quite a bit. It's not *that* bad... but still a bit more aggression than I'd like to see. I'm strongly considering separating them when I can scrape up the cash for another tank.

-Ryan


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## hollyfish2000 (Aug 23, 2007)

I heartily agree with the plan to ditch the black skirts. Hated mine.

Second the rummynoses. You might also look at black phantoms. Very attractive, interesting looking tetras.

For a pleco, why not go with an albino long-finned BN? I have one and she's fabulous!


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

ryanr, thanks for the heads up. i bought them together as little guys (size of a dime). i am more and more convinced every day that my big guy is a male. his fins are getting long and pointy and he now has noticable squiggly lines on his face. the other is much smaller, more bland in color so i am hoping she is a female. i dont necessarily car eif they are a breeding pair, but i do hope they are not two males. i guess only time will tell. the big one chases the smaller one when food is around but i have been keeping an eye on them and they are actually starting to get along very well. once they are in the 75 i am hoping the extra space will get rid of any left over agression.

black phantoms and albino bns are both good sugggestions. just a quick question as i only have experience with my standard pleco... do other strains of pleco (albino bn, gold nugget etc) all reach the same huge size as regular plecos or are there strands that stay small. honestly i dont have room for more than one huge pleco and i especially dont want to have to clean u after more than one.

thanks for the help guys.


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

I would go with a larger tetra species, like colombian or bleeding hearts. A full size sev will have no trouble swallowing either rummies or cardinals.


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

dwarfpike said:


> I would go with a larger tetra species, like colombian or bleeding hearts. A full size sev will have no trouble swallowing either rummies or cardinals.


How likely are sevs to start swallowing smaller tetra's? We've got red-eyed tetra's in with our sevs that I'm starting to worry about as our severums get bigger. 

-Ryan


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Red eyes are fairly tall/thick and get a decent size, I'd put them in the same group as bleeding hearts and colombians ... if they are the red eyes I am thinking of (_Moenkhausia_ sp.).


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

HONDO said:


> ryanr, thanks for the heads up. i bought them together as little guys (size of a dime). i am more and more convinced every day that my big guy is a male. his fins are getting long and pointy and he now has noticable squiggly lines on his face. the other is much smaller, more bland in color so i am hoping she is a female. i dont necessarily car eif they are a breeding pair, but i do hope they are not two males. i guess only time will tell. the big one chases the smaller one when food is around but i have been keeping an eye on them and they are actually starting to get along very well. once they are in the 75 i am hoping the extra space will get rid of any left over agression.


I think our two males do mostly OK since they grew up together from a very small size to their current size.

Our's are actually bizzare: I'm almost 100% certain that they are indeed both males, but occasionally they'll do the courtship thing. Very funny. :lol:

-Ryan


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

man, the stupid dithers are harder than the sevs!

i will go with either a school of 20 pristellas, rummynoses or cardinals. i will hope they are quick enough to not get eater but if they do thats the way it goes.

in addition i will get a higher bodied tetra in a smaller school. i was thinking black skirts but i will take everyones advice and steer clear. im not positive what to go with but i will shop around and ask opinions once im settling on something.

again, large pleco and school of corys will round it off. stay tuned...

by the way, i know this isnt an in depth cichlid thread but i am actualy really enjoying hearing everyone elses experiences with the smaller fish that "tie the room together". the dude abides...


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

RyanR said:


> dwarfpike said:
> 
> 
> > I would go with a larger tetra species, like colombian or bleeding hearts. A full size sev will have no trouble swallowing either rummies or cardinals.
> ...


i may go red eyes as the larger bodied, unless i go with rummy noses... they would look to similar.


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

RyanR said:


> HONDO said:
> 
> 
> > ryanr, thanks for the heads up. i bought them together as little guys (size of a dime). i am more and more convinced every day that my big guy is a male. his fins are getting long and pointy and he now has noticable squiggly lines on his face. the other is much smaller, more bland in color so i am hoping she is a female. i dont necessarily car eif they are a breeding pair, but i do hope they are not two males. i guess only time will tell. the big one chases the smaller one when food is around but i have been keeping an eye on them and they are actually starting to get along very well. once they are in the 75 i am hoping the extra space will get rid of any left over agression.
> ...


haha, funny


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## hollyfish2000 (Aug 23, 2007)

Bristlenose plecos stay small 4-5", I think. You can't beat them!


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

very cool.


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

> by the way, i know this isnt an in depth cichlid thread but i am actualy really enjoying hearing everyone elses experiences with the smaller fish that "tie the room together". the dude abides...


One thing that is cool to do, if you have multiple tanks in the same room ... to tie them all together, is use the same dither species. While I usually like having a differant one for each tank, I have seen someone do this ... all their tanks had rummynose (they raised discus, angels, apistos, and various krib species). The entire fish room, naught but rummynose except one display planted tank (which also had rummies though). It really drew the eye tank to tank, your eye literally flowed all the way around the room becuase of this.


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

interesting. do you think it may look cool to have two dither species that look similar... like red eyes and rummy-nose? i once thought it would be cool to have all my fish the same color and had like 5 sunburst platys, 5 serpae tetras, a few orange/red gouramis etc. ended up looking horrible. live and learn i guess.


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## hollyfish2000 (Aug 23, 2007)

I've had red-eyes and currently have rummynoses, and they really don't resemble each other in "real life." The red-eyes were like linebackers and the rummynoses like ballet dancers. Well, you get the idea. I did not care for the red eyes at all. For two tetras that look similar but different, I have two schools of pristellas and black phantoms in a tank. They are the same shape and size, but have different coloration.


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## emptyhead (Apr 16, 2007)

I'll throw in my 2 cents on dithers.

The rummy nose are great. For a more full bodied tetra - I really like the white tipped rosey tetra.


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

hollyfish2000 said:


> Bristlenose plecos stay small 4-5", I think. You can't beat them!


You can't beat them, but also you can't find them! :lol:

We bought two.... oh.... a few months ago. Put them into the 75 gallon, and POOF! They were gone. One I consistently saw when moving stuff while cleaning the tank, the other I assumed got stuck in a plastic aquarium decoration and died. Four weeks later, the missing one resurface: alive, well, and huge! I could only see a little part of the head, but extrapolated the size by what I could see.

 
-Ryan


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## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 24, 2008)

Throw some zuchinni in your tank and you'll see your bristlenose after they figure out how good it tastes - mine actually fight over chunks of it to eat to themselves 

I just stick a fork in it to weight it down - at first it took my BN about 3 days to find it, now they head straight for it before it even hits the ground.

If red eye tetra are the lamp eyes, i.e. the high bodied ones with red eyes and a black stripe I would stay away from them - they're very boring and don't school at all...in fact I found them to be a menace in my tanks - fighting with juvenille severum and rams for territory!


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## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 24, 2008)

On another note, I do the same thing with zuchinni in my Amphilophous nourisatti's tank for my clown loach, and he'll actually wait for the loaches to come eat the zuchinni then pick up the fork and move it somewhere else like it's a game...

I think I need to get him some toys or somthing.

I would also look into dwarf loaches if you can find them - they're fairly rare but an absolutely beautiful fish that aren't nearly as destructive as larger loaches.


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

*** never seen dwarf loaches but there are several different kinds of bn plecos available around where i live. one place in particular has them often. i actually really like the gold nugget pleco. do they stay smaller like the bns?

it seems that alot of the high bodied tetras are boring and dont school. any out there that school very well and are good community fish? i am narrowed down to rummynoses or pristellas but still cant really get a grip on a high bodied tetra i like. im starting to think about going with a very large school of one of the two mentioned and getting a school of hatchetfish instead of another high bodied tetra. im just nervous that between the ac110 and the eheim 2217 filters the hatchet fish will not be happy because of the currents the outputs create.


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

*** never seen dwarf loaches but there are several different kinds of bn plecos available around where i live. one place in particular has them often. i actually really like the gold nugget pleco. do they stay smaller like the bns?

it seems that alot of the high bodied tetras are boring and dont school. any out there that school very well and are good community fish? i am narrowed down to rummynoses or pristellas but still cant really get a grip on a high bodied tetra i like. im starting to think about going with a very large school of one of the two mentioned and getting a school of hatchetfish instead of another high bodied tetra. im just nervous that between the ac110 and the eheim 2217 filters the hatchet fish will not be happy because of the currents the outputs create.


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## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 24, 2008)

hatchetfish will be fine, I'd try going with the marbled variant in a large school if you can fidn them, just keep in mind they're jumpers!

Gold nuggets stay small, but will also eat plants - not sure if you're keeping plants or not. If you're not you can also look into mango pleco's, which are one of my favorite's and stay small.


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

In regards to the marbled hatchetfish, if the surface current is to strong they will drop down to a level in the tank which they feel comfortable at.

When I moved mine to the smaller 3 foot, 50 gallon tank, I had to face my filter spray bar towards the glass to cut down on surface movement. It means I don't have a lot of surface movement, but it sure creates a lot of air bubbles that goes swirling down and along the tank.[/img][/url]


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

there will just be leaves and some floating java moss so maybe a gold nugget or mango pleco will work.

are marbled hatchetfish hard to find as opposed to the silver which are common? i think i am gonna give these guys a try. what would be the best number of hatchets to get? medium size school of 6 or so? larger, 12 - 15 fish school?

sounds good with the output. i can always adjust the spray bar to make less current. since im on the topic, can i just unplug a 2217 to adjust the spray bar? its kind of a mess when its on. is it bad to just unplug it, adjust the spraybar then plug it back in once i have it how i want it?


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## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 24, 2008)

marbled hatchetfish, in my opinion, look a lot better and don't grow nearly as large as silver hatchetfish - they're a bit hard to find out here but that doesn't mean they are in your area.

Hatchetfish are actually a tetra, so a large school is fine. In a 75 gallon, assuming you have no other top dwelling fish, I'd say you can go as large as 25-30 of marbled.


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

so with hatchets on top, either pristellas or rummynoses mid water and corys and plecos on the bottom things would be ok? i like it. thanks to everyone for your help and opinions.

anyone in northern va know where to find some marbled hatchetfish? ha


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