Stocking options for 40 gallon breeder

[Jacob Hill-Legion Aquatics]

I built the stand for my 40 gallon I have planned, I still need to get the tank and equipment but I was wondering what would you do? I want the fish to be plant safe cause I wanna do lots of plants, I’m leaning towards guppies but I just was wondering what other options do I have? 

[Scapexghost]

Theres a lot of options but you cant go wrong with guppies.Id do a school of corydoras along with the guppies.

[JettsPapa]

Serpae tetras look great in planted tanks.

[Hannah Parker]

Soooo many options! Since you are leaning towards guppies, you could just do a big ol' community tank with lots of different fun species. My mismatched community tank is my favorite tank. As an example, I have 3 synodontis petricola catfish, 4 golden zebra loaches, 5 highfin platies, 5 guppies, and a male betta in it. With the loaches and the livebearers it makes for an extremely active tank and is loads of fun. You could do livebearers and maybe have a school of some pretty tetras in that tank, and you have so many bottom-feeder schooling options. Really can't go wrong with a lot of combinations. Other good community centerpiece fish would be german blue or bolivian rams, or dwarf gouramis. 

[drawnitsud]

I just did the same thing @Jacob Hill-Legion Aquatics and am also vetting what to stock my 40g breeder with. I do have some Platy fry that might eventually go into the tank and I am going to also heavily plant it. 

I am leaning one of two ways:

Rainbowfish tank: Neon Dwarf, Boesemani, Axelrod, Red Irian and Lake Kutubu are all some popular types that, I believe, you can put into a 40g breeder and if the internets are to be believed, you can mix and match and they will still school together (keep at least 6)

Ram Plus tank: Bolivian Rams (I think the breeder can afford two pair with enough plants and breeding areas), the Platy fry, Guppies, maybe two small Plecos and Nerite snails/ Amano shrimp. Those last two help keep algae in check.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.  My concrete block stand is built, but it will be a while until I can set up the actual tank, so I am still doing a lot of research. Let us know what you go with.

[_Eric_]

I agree that rainbowfish look great in a planted tank.  I’d also look into Apistogrammas- I’m just getting into these guys myself but they are interesting and beautiful- what’s not to like 😆

[Jacob Hill-Legion Aquatics]

What types of Corys can go in a 40 breeder?

[Dancing Matt]

You could do most(all?) of the cory species in a 40 breeder. Which look fun to you?

[_Eric_]

On 8/10/2022 at 10:51 AM, Jacob Hill-Legion Aquatics said:

What types of Corys can go in a 40 breeder?

Which ones can’t?

[k0olmini]

You’ve got a ton of options at this size. Once my 40 breeder opens up this is what I’m considering: rock dwellers + shell dwellers, one puffer, huge school of silver tip tetras, rosey barbs + Odessa barbs. 

[BradfordAquatics]

Bolivian rams are one of my all time favorite fish, so I'd second that option! Also, angelius loaches are super fun fish, so a group of those would be nice as well. The loaches would be a more unique alternative to cories. Kuhli loaches would be fun too. 

 

All of the above fish are compatible with guppies so you could still keep them in there.

[JettsPapa]

On 8/10/2022 at 10:51 AM, Jacob Hill-Legion Aquatics said:

What types of Corys can go in a 40 breeder?

I have Corydoras trilineatus in mine.  They're commonly sold as juli corys, but Corydoras julii are rarely, if ever, sold commercially.

[IanB]

One tank that I've always been interested in would be a Lake Inle or even just Burma-based tank. Inle is a shallow lake with a ton of vegetation, much like most planted aquariums. It also is home to one of my favorite community fish the sawbwa resplendent (often called the "Asian Rummynose") along with danio erythromicron (dwarf emerald rasbora) and close to the home of the Celestial Pearl Danio, which would also be at home in this aquarium. For bottom dwellers, rosy loaches would be perfect. All of these fish have bright, pleasing colors (except the female rosy loaches), fun behavior, and small size so they can be kept in large schools in a 40 breeder. They not only are ok in a planted tank, but love it there. The only caveat is that the CPD's and dwarf rasboras can be very shy, so you might want a dither in addition to the sawbaw resplendens. Either a handful of Lake Inle Danios if you want something larger and more active, or some pencil fish or hatchets if you aren't concerned about regional accuracy and want to stay small.

[anewbie]

The species of fish depend a lot on water condition (kh/gh) and target temperature. Assuming your water is not extremely hard (and if it is i'd drop plants and do an africa rift lake with rock scape); i'd populate with something like:

6 borelli (2 males 4 females) or 4 Laetacara araguaiae (these are more sensitive than borelli with regards to water hardness so check carefully) or 6 keyhole cichlid.

15 to 20 pygmy cory

10-15 otto (wait till tank is well mature or they might die)

15-20 kubotai rasbora (or if you want to stick with sa fishes 20 green neon) (the kubotai rasbora have the advantage of adding a lot of motion as they are active swimming schoolers - most of the smaller tetra prefer to sit still looking pretty - serape are more active but do get considerably larger.

2 red lizard whiptail or similar (these really should have soft clean water)

-

I would skip plecos and larger cory (though there are options here if you prefer something like eques cory (expensive), sterbai, orange/green laser (expensive) (the eques tend to be esp out going if you want to see your cory).