AtomicSunfish

I’d save the bloodworms for larger, more predatory fishes, and for small creatures that can handle large food items. I give bloodworms to cichlids, sunfishes, and catfishes, as well as African dwarf frogs and even crayfish. All of these can either easily swallow them whole, or else tear them up. Give the guppies something smaller like flakes, micropellets, brine shrimp, etc.

Yep! And healthy, too. My Endler guppies have great hybrid vigor.

Yes, and choose tough, hardy species that can survive toxic water conditions, like a betta or a few guppies.

As beautiful as bettas are, I have found that they can be quite limiting as far as tank mates go. If at some point you change your mind and want to add more fish, the honey gourami would give you more options. I’d go with the honey gourami for their more easygoing temperament.

I'd say my favorite underrated fishes are the sunfishes (family Centrarchidae) and darters (family Percidae). Both are native, North American fishes that are not kept in the hobby here in the USA very often, although sunfishes like pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus), and the smaller Enneacanthus and Elassoma sunfishes are popular in Europe. Sunfishes are very cichlid-like, with cichlid-like shapes and colors, as well as cichlid-like territorial aggression and parental behaviors. Darters are beautiful, tiny fishes that creep around the tank looking for food. Some are very colorful, others less so, but all have fascinating behaviors. Sometimes local laws get in the way of collecting or keeping temperate fishes like sunfishes and darters, but they are super cool to keep if you can.

Looks like their Penn-Plax brand listings are just for canister filters. So, I simply used the sponge filter equivalent. Right now my 29g just has 7 zebra danios in it: "You have plenty of aquarium filtration capacity. Your aquarium filtration capacity for above selected species is 665%. Recommended water change schedule: 9% per week. Your aquarium stocking level is 44%." I'm thinking of adding a dwarf gourami, which would be: "You have plenty of aquarium filtration capacity. Your aquarium filtration capacity for above selected species is 520%. Recommended water change schedule: 11% per week. Your aquarium stocking level is 51%." So, I'm probably going to do that. My aquariums are in my teaching lab. In the summers, I come in only once a month to do a 60% water change. When I'm not here, the tanks are fed by automatic fish feeders. So, I can't get any demanding aquatic animals, with crazy diets or anything, because they must be able to accept flakes and/or pellets dispensed by the robot during summer vacation. That's also why I like to stock them only lightly.

Okay, great! Well, with that in mind, it's saying I could go up to 5 angelfish: "You have plenty of aquarium filtration capacity. Your aquarium filtration capacity for above selected species is 176%. Recommended water change schedule: 29% per week. Your aquarium stocking level is 98%." I might do a total of 4 angelfish, though. Or I might just do the 2 angels, plus 1 blue acara: "You have plenty of aquarium filtration capacity. Your aquarium filtration capacity for above selected species is 269%. Recommended water change schedule: 26% per week. Your aquarium stocking level is 71%." Do you know, is there an option for some kind of UGF? My 29g has HOB and UGF, and I'd like to select both on AqAdvisor if I can.

Okay, well right now I have two baby angelfish in a 55g with an HOB and a sponge filter. AqAdvisor.com allowed me to enter all that information (except for the sponge filter, and the fact that they're still babies). Anyway, based on that, here's their output: "You have plenty of aquarium filtration capacity. Your aquarium filtration capacity for above selected species is 188%. Recommended water change schedule: 12% per week. Your aquarium stocking level is 50%." Looks good to me! 😀

Back in the 90s I had a five star general (Hemichromis elongatus). They’re related to the jewelfishes, but they’re a bit larger and even more aggressive. This one was close to full size at around 5 inches. I think it was female. Anyway, I put her in with my 11-inch Oscar in a 55g (back then that was considered adequate space). The Oscar had lived in that tank for several years, and even used to share it with a Jack Dempsey, a convict, and a firemouth. At one point there was even a regular jewelfish in there (H. guttatus). The Oscar peacefully dominated all of them. But in this case, and by the next day, the five-star general had taken control of the tank, and relegated an Oscar more than twice her length and some 5x her weight to about a quarter of the tank, often pressing him into the corner. Well, I separated them and kept her alone in a 29g, so I took her back. Gorgeous, awesome fish, which was why I got her, but way too aggressive for me. On the other end of the spectrum, when I was collecting native fish, I caught a swamp darter and a blue spotted sunfish. I kept them in a 10g, and they were very happy there. Both cute, beautiful, great fish! Sadly, my apartment at the time was struck by lightning and burned down, and I lost the little natives, along with African dwarf frogs. Amazingly, some (not all) of my kribensis cichlids in a 30g survived. A very strange event in my life, to be sure.

LOL ... so name some! 😄

As a rule of thumb, what would you consider to be a lightly, moderately, or heavily stocked aquarium? Of course, slender minnow- or tetra-like fish secrete less waste than more robust perch- or carp-like fish, so that has a bearing on how many fish a tank can safely support (eg - one 4-inch cichlid or gourami needs around twice as much water, food, and oxygen as four 1-inch guppies or neons). I prefer to keep my aquariums lightly stocked to foster good water quality more easily, so I'd like to know what you would consider lightly stocked. Roughly how many slender or robust fish would constitute a 10, 20, or 55-gallon tank that is "lightly" stocked?

Ok, thank you. Yes, I think bioload was the problem, because that frog is the last of 5 … the other four died of bloat, which I’m now convinced was due to poor water quality. Even with bladder snails cleaning up after them, their uneaten food and waste released too much ammonia and fouled the water. That’s when I realized Elodea or other plants could help with that. Well, hopefully the current community will work better. Thank you!

Update for you all: I gave most of the guppies away, and put the stragglers in my 10g with an African dwarf frog. Now the 55g just has 2 baby angelfish in it. It was just too difficult to feed them with so many guppies around them, plus the water quality got bad enough that fish started dying and I had to do a big water change to correct course.

Yes, here is a picture from this morning. This tank is a 10g with one African dwarf frog (hiding), and I just added the ~20 guppies. But the Elodea are pretty small. You can see some new growth in the back left, but other than that, I think they’re staying short. Do they have to lay down roots first before they can grow?

Ok, so it sounds like if your tank is cycling properly, then that puts Elodea at a disadvantage and makes it grow slower?

Do you use waterweeds (Egeria densa and Elodea canadensis, formerly Anacharis) in your aquaria? How are they for removing ammonia and reducating nitrate buildup? How demanding are they in terms of lighting and nutrient needs? Are simple LED lights enough for them, or do they need some kind of special grow lights? I had a bunch of Elodea in my 55g, but most of them dissolved away. I don't think that's due to nutrient deficiency, since the bioload was pretty high in there, so I think that was because the tank was too dark. So, I moved some to my 29g which had better lighting, and they seemed to grow a bit better there. I recently put some in my well-lit 10g African dwarf frog / bladder snail tank, to help absorb nitrogen from uneaten food, and they seem to be growing better still. Do you think that's mostly due to more light, more fertilizer (waste), or both factors about equally? Nevertheless, I'm kind of surprised they're not growing super-fast in the well-lit 10g and 29g tanks. I thought waterweeds were some of the hardiest and fastest-growing aquarium plants out there. Are they pickier and more slow-growing than I thought? Would you recommend some other kind of plant instead?

My recommendations for a 10g: - African dwarf frogs! You can keep up to 5 if your filtration is good. - I also used to keep a darter in a 10g. Mine was a swamp darter. They’re native fish, and they’re super cute and interesting to watch! Some of the species have amazing colors that rival any tropical fish. - Guppies/Endlers! They’re small, beautiful, and as long as they’re not inbred, also quite hardy. Just don’t let them overpopulate.

Neat idea! I’ve had ADFs in a 10g with bladder snails for years, too. Gotta have the snails to clean up after the messy frogs. Mine get frozen brine shrimp and blood worms, both of which they love, especially the brine shrimp (although I gather that’s not as nutritious). I’ve also offered ADF sinking pellets, but they don’t really like them; sometimes they’ll take them if offered along with the thawed invertebrates. ADFs are very tricky to keep with fish, which usually outcompete them for food (in nature, amphibians typically go where fish cannot). I like the ADF-snail combo in a nice, shallow 10g. Maybe someday I’ll try a 20-long, which is the same height as a 10g (1 foot), but the same area as a 29g (20” x 10”). I’ve learned the hard way to keep up the water quality, because if that deteriorates, the frogs get sick with bloat / dropsy and die. Looks like your technique is a good way to help prevent ammonification from uneaten food, so that’s great!

I've read that pictus catfish, which get to be around 6 inches long, need to live in big schools (6+) and a big tank (75g or more). What has been your experience with keeping them, and what are good tank mates for them?

Oscars and many other cichlids will dig up plants. However, Oscars are predators that eat fish, crustaceans, insects, and mollusks, so they do not eat plants, and are not interested in roots. I would not expect the Oscar to mess with the pothos roots growing down from your HOB. As for the pleco, they are omnivores, but I would not expect them to take an interest in pothos roots, either. However, I have never kept plecos in the presence of exposed roots, so I don’t know for sure.

Angels are not very sexually dimorphic, but short of actually examining the vent of a breeding individual, there is an indicator of sex. Females tend to have a longer, rounded bottom line between the pelvic and anal fins, while in males that line tends to be shorter and straighter.

It's often hard to keep only two cichlids (or sunfishes for that matter) of the same species in the same tank. A singleton is okay, and several are often okay, too, because of aggression dilution (although you're more likely to get breeding pairs, and then all bets are off). However, if you have only two, it's easy for one to bully the other, or for both to go to war, undistracted by anyone else. If you still wanted to keep the two together, you might get away with it if you had other angels in there with them (although again: more likely to get one or more territorial, breeding pairs that way). Another trick you might try is putting other compatible, comparably semi-aggressive cichlids or gouramis in there - or even dither fish or catfish - so that they are distracted and don't have time to fight each other.

Those wild oscars are gorgeous! 😀 Yes, the closest thing to wild type oscars is the tiger oscar, which has more red than the wild, but less than the red oscar. As a rule, I favor wild type or close to wild type in fish and really all animals for the following reasons: - Preference for natural appearance - Avoid inbreeding depression - Avoid deformity / dysfunction Whether its fish, dogs, or whatever, breeding animals to extremes usually harms the animals. Flat-faced dogs like pugs and bulldogs often can't breathe or move very well. Hairless sphynx cats can't regulate their temperature very well. Blood parrot hybrid cichlids can't close their mouth. And so on. When it comes to color-bred cichlids, not only do I prefer the wild colors, but the solid colors prevent the cichlids from communicating and camouflaging as easily, because they can't change their color pattern. Red oscars are just solid red, EB acaras, JD, and rams are just solid blue, and so on. If you've ever watched a true blue acara, you know that like most cichlids, they can change their color dramatically. It's awesome to watch, and it's healthy that they can do so. For all these reasons, I'm sad it's gotten hard to find them.

I find it really odd that the market for blue acaras has been flooded with the morph known as the “electric blue” acara. EB acaras are generally more than twice the price of true blue acaras, so I guess that explains it. But I generally prefer pets that are closer to the wildtype, and not morphs. Even my LFS is having a tough time ordering blue acaras for me. It’s weird, because you can still easily find oscars, Jack Dempsey, ram cichlids, angelfish, etc. that still have the original colors and patterns. I’d rather not order fish myself, but I might have to. Anyone else lament how hard it has become to find true blue acaras?

Another nice semi-aggressive, South American cichlid: the true parrot cichlid. They get big - like a foot long.