29 gallon aquarium ideas

[Gannon]

I'm still thinking about ideas for a 29 gallon tank. I previously thought about pencilfish and hillstream loaches, but hillstream loaches might be a bit too expensive for a big group. I might do something pretty basic and cheap, but if I can find some fish, creature, or interesting community that would be really exciting I would be willing to spend more. One idea I had would be a school of cherry barbs, a group of honey gouramis, some kind of loach or other bottom dweller, as well as my L333 pleco thats still very small. 

[mynameisnobody]

Sounds good, go with what you like. No one can tell you what you enjoy more than you. I think you may have answered your own question. I love cherry barbs. Good luck! 

[Gannon]

On 1/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, Mynameisnobody said:

Sounds good, go with what you like. No one can tell you what you enjoy more than you. I think you may have answered your own question. I love cherry barbs. Good luck! 

Figured there is no harm in shopping around for ideas! All of my ideas feel like there is something missing in them to me. 

[mynameisnobody]

@Gannon With that said, let me give you a quick run down of what I do. I can totally relate to that “something is missing” feeling. 
I start off with a school of species I know I want to keep. For example, if I had a 29, I would add 6-12 Staeck Endlers. After adding them to a planted 29, I sit on it for 30-45 days. I would stare at the 29 daily until ideas would come to me. I would add slowly, but only as it comes to you. Truth is, after a couple of years of doing this intensely, there aren’t many fish or ideas I haven’t heard of. Those ideas or past YouTube videos come to me as I get lost in the 29. It’s a process that requires patience, however 9/10 times, my aquariums stay up for long periods of time because I added what I absolutely wanted.

Hope this helps. 

[Lennie]

Hello there! 
My main tank I have been taking care of  for a year by now and started the hobby back after ages is a 29g tank.

I am keeping my tank a bit overstocked but I stocked it over the year and very slowly. It is densely planted and I don’t mind keeping up with water changes and gravel vacuuming every week personally. I have a past experience on fish keeping so I can safely overstock a little.

In my tank, I have a L199, 4 nerite snails, orange sakura shrimps idk how many, 5 sterbais, 6 pygmy cories, one male honey gourami, one borneo sucker, 10 rummy-nose tetras.

You may have some questions on your mind after you read that stocking list:

First of all, I would love to keep 6 sterbais min, but my lfs had only 5 left when I was getting my corys and sterbais are generally one of the few that does okay in higher temperatures, and they didnt have them in stock for so long again so I couldnt increase school size to 6. During summer time I even see up to 47C outside, and it make my tanks rise up to 32-33C. so I thought sterbais would be one of the few good choices. They have been schooling well and even spawning now after a year! So I think they are happy as they are.

My borneo sucker does great and always seem to be super active and healthy even their best condition is high flow, cooler and very well oxygenated tanks. I watched lots of videos, and listened about Cory keeping them warmer waters and them even breeding. I personally haven’t observed any quality life issues for the fishy too. In opposite, it is looking awesome.

pygmy cories were the last addition and I’ve been in love with them forever but generally I believe it is better to keep same schooling species in higher numbers rather than having two schools with a lower number. I’ve seen them in the shop placed in the closest tank to the door, everytime someone uses the door, they were having a heart attack :,) I decided to brought them home. Maybe an excuse to get them! 😄 They are one of the cutest fish I’ve kept if not the cutest. As long as you can find tank bred ones, which isnt hard to do, I would suggest keeping them. They sleep on anubias leaves and rocks together and my heart. Cutest sht ever.

rummy noses are beautiful but I would get smaller sized schooling fish for the middle in a 29g if I stock it again. They were just super white faced and showing no color at the shop, they are super duper red and happy rn.

Honeys are the best but I advice keeping one as a centerpiece. Mine is a poop machine, I can easy keep one of my pygmy cory school or even more fish rather than having 3 honeys instead. Also keeping one eliminates any potential territory issues. Even they are peaceful, gouramis have personality like bettas that changes a lot.

End of my novel. Your stocking option sounds good tbf!

I would keep only one hillstream loach, so you won’t have to face any potential territory issues. They don’t really need a school to do well, if I am not wrong.

What I would do after a year of keeping a 29;

10-12 tetra/barbs of your liking, maybe 10 pygmy cories/8 panda corys(if they meet ur parameters), one honey gourami, your L333, snails and shrimp.

sterbais do get big, and keeping high numbered school in a 29g is hard. 5 seems like the max in my eyes seeing them as adults rn, which is rly the bare minimum for a school, maybe even less

I better stop writing.

peace,

Edit: Even your pic looks to be a sterbai. I feel stupid explaining about them lmao. Ignore the sterbai explanations please:,) Aint deleting since maybe it gives an opinion to another reader, who knows!

Edited January 14, 2023 by Lennie

[Gannon]

On 1/14/2023 at 1:38 PM, Mynameisnobody said:

@Gannon With that said, let me give you a quick run down of what I do. I can totally relate to that “something is missing” feeling. 
I start off with a school of species I know I want to keep. For example, if I had a 29, I would add 6-12 Staeck Endlers. After adding them to a planted 29, I sit on it for 30-45 days. I would stare at the 29 daily until ideas would come to me. I would add slowly, but only as it comes to you. Truth is, after a couple of years of doing this intensely, there aren’t many fish or ideas I haven’t heard of. Those ideas or past YouTube videos come to me as I get lost in the 29. It’s a process that requires patience, however 9/10 times, my aquariums stay up for long periods of time because I added what I absolutely wanted.

Hope this helps. 

Thats a great idea thank you!

 

On 1/14/2023 at 2:20 PM, Lennie said:

Hello there! 
My main tank I have been taking care of  for a year by now and started the hobby back after ages is a 29g tank.

I am keeping my tank a bit overstocked but I stocked it over the year and very slowly. It is densely planted and I don’t mind keeping up with water changes and gravel vacuuming every week personally. I have a past experience on fish keeping so I can safely overstock a little.

In my tank, I have a L199, 4 nerite snails, orange sakura shrimps idk how many, 5 sterbais, 6 pygmy cories, one male honey gourami, one borneo sucker, 10 rummy-nose tetras.

You may have some questions on your mind after you read that stocking list:

First of all, I would love to keep 6 sterbais min, but my lfs had only 5 left when I was getting my corys and sterbais are generally one of the few that does okay in higher temperatures, and they didnt have them in stock for so long again so I couldnt increase school size to 6. During summer time I even see up to 47C outside, and it make my tanks rise up to 32-33C. so I thought sterbais would be one of the few good choices. They have been schooling well and even spawning now after a year! So I think they are happy as they are.

My borneo sucker does great and always seem to be super active and healthy even their best condition is high flow, cooler and very well oxygenated tanks. I watched lots of videos, and listened about Cory keeping them warmer waters and them even breeding. I personally haven’t observed any quality life issues for the fishy too. In opposite, it is looking awesome.

pygmy cories were the last addition and I’ve been in love with them forever but generally I believe it is better to keep same schooling species in higher numbers rather than having two schools with a lower number. I’ve seen them in the shop placed in the closest tank to the door, everytime someone uses the door, they were having a heart attack :,) I decided to brought them home. Maybe an excuse to get them! 😄 They are one of the cutest fish I’ve kept if not the cutest. As long as you can find tank bred ones, which isnt hard to do, I would suggest keeping them. They sleep on anubias leaves and rocks together and my heart. Cutest sht ever.

rummy noses are beautiful but I would get smaller sized schooling fish for the middle in a 29g if I stock it again. They were just super white faced and showing no color at the shop, they are super duper red and happy rn.

Honeys are the best but I advice keeping one as a centerpiece. Mine is a poop machine, I can easy keep one of my pygmy cory school or even more fish rather than having 3 honeys instead. Also keeping one eliminates any potential territory issues. Even they are peaceful, gouramis have personality like bettas that changes a lot.

End of my novel. Your stocking option sounds good tbf!

I would keep only one hillstream loach, so you won’t have to face any potential territory issues. They don’t really need a school to do well, if I am not wrong.

What I would do after a year of keeping a 29;

10-12 tetra/barbs of your liking, maybe 10 pygmy cories/8 panda corys(if they meet ur parameters), one honey gourami, your L333, snails and shrimp.

sterbais do get big, and keeping high numbered school in a 29g is hard. 5 seems like the max in my eyes seeing them as adults rn, which is rly the bare minimum for a school, maybe even less

I better stop writing.

peace,

Edit: Even your pic looks to be a sterbai. I feel stupid explaining about them lmao. Ignore the sterbai explanations please:,) Aint deleting since maybe it gives an opinion to another reader, who knows!

sterbais are amazing and I totally agree with you!!

 

[Ninjoma]

My 29g has 1 angelfish, 2 honey gourami, 3 platys, 6 khuli loaches, 6 otos and some snails. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

One of my 29’s has a group of Pea Puffers and the other one has 6 Albino Cory’s, a pair of Peacock Gudgeons, 4 Praecox Rainbows, 10 Glowlight Tetras, a few Marbled Hatchetfish, shrimp, and snails. 29’s are my favorite size as they’re small enough to easily maintain, but large enough to get a rad community going. 

[Gannon]

On 1/14/2023 at 10:27 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

One of my 29’s has a group of Pea Puffers and the other one has 6 Albino Cory’s, a pair of Peacock Gudgeons, 4 Praecox Rainbows, 10 Glowlight Tetras, a few Marbled Hatchetfish, shrimp, and snails. 29’s are my favorite size as they’re small enough to easily maintain, but large enough to get a rad community going. 

ive thought about doing pea puffers. Is it worth dedicating a whole system like that to just a few of one species?

[AllFishNoBrakes]

I have enough other community tanks that it was fine for me to dedicate that tank to a species only. Personally, I think Pea Puffers are awesome. They have a ton of personality, “beg” for food like puppies, know who you are as the person that feeds them and see you coming, and I get the satisfaction of keeping a puffer (even better a group of them!) without having to worry about needing large tanks as they grow and grinding down their teeth. Also, doesn’t hurt for me to have a source of live food for them in the form of snails from the other community tanks. For me it just made a lot of sense all the way around. 

In my opinion it was totally worth it and that tank is one of, if not my favorite tank. It was also one of the last tanks I set up so I definitely used what I learned from previous tanks to “scape” it and have it look a little nicer. My Pea Puffer tank is in my bedroom as I knew it would be a tank I wanted to see a lot. 

[Gannon]

On 1/14/2023 at 10:40 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

I have enough other community tanks that it was fine for me to dedicate that tank to a species only. Personally, I think Pea Puffers are awesome. They have a ton of personality, “beg” for food like puppies, know who you are as the person that feeds them and see you coming, and I get the satisfaction of keeping a puffer (even better a group of them!) without having to worry about needing large tanks as they grow and grinding down their teeth. Also, doesn’t hurt for me to have a source of live food for them in the form of snails from the other community tanks. For me it just made a lot of sense all the way around. 

In my opinion it was totally worth it and that tank is one of, if not my favorite tank. It was also one of the last tanks I set up so I definitely used what I learned from previous tanks to “scape” it and have it look a little nicer. My Pea Puffer tank is in my bedroom as I knew it would be a tank I wanted to see a lot. 

I will have to do this someday! maybe a few in my 15 gallon flex or something when I inevitably give my shell dwellers a 30 long or something when I move in a couple years. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/14/2023 at 11:29 AM, Gannon said:

I'm still thinking about ideas for a 29 gallon tank. I previously thought about pencilfish and hillstream loaches, but hillstream loaches might be a bit too expensive for a big group. I might do something pretty basic and cheap, but if I can find some fish, creature, or interesting community that would be really exciting I would be willing to spend more. One idea I had would be a school of cherry barbs, a group of honey gouramis, some kind of loach or other bottom dweller, as well as my L333 pleco thats still very small. 

On of my favorite things about the 29 / 38 gallon tanks is that it's a vertical height where you do get to see the separation of species at different levels of the tank. For a 10 or 20L/20H there isn't much separation.  For bigger tanks, of course there can be depending on which tank you have.

That being one of the main features I would look at stocking a tank in terms of what do you want where.

If you want hillstream loaches (borneo loaches might be a nice substitution, depending on what you're after) then you'd have something cooler in terms of temperature and you'd wand some fish that can handle that as well as some good circulation / oxygenation.

Barbs, rasboras, corydoras, danios, etc. all fit that bill, but one of my favorites to have with hillstreams is white cloud mountain minnows.  In my tank they basically stayed up top and didn't move.  I've seen other tanks where they are going elsewhere.  I didn't have a school, so I understand why my experience might be a bit different than others.  There are some species of rainbowfish that would be fantastic as well. (see this blog post by the co-op)

Then adding something like the emerald green rasbora or the cherry barb you mentioned might be a nice mid level swimmer in that tank.  It really depends on what you're looking for and what catches your eye.    I would try to have 2-3 species in the mid/upper section of the tank and then go from there.   You can almost always add in a clown pleco, corydoras, hillstream (or borneo) loaches after the fact too.

Edited January 15, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[Guppysnail]

I have a group of 6 honey gourami currently in my 29. I don’t consider them high energy exciting however their interaction and social behaviors and the way they communicate with their feelers is quite interesting. Plus they are gorgeous fish. 

[Lennie]

Im cheating and adding some of my pygmys sleeping on anubias leaves after a meal. They are here to steal your heart 

[Lennie]

On 1/15/2023 at 1:00 PM, Guppysnail said:

I have a group of 6 honey gourami currently in my 29. I don’t consider them high energy exciting however their interaction and social behaviors and the way they communicate with their feelers is quite interesting. Plus they are gorgeous fish. 

Honeys are adorable. What is your m:f ratio? There were only bois in my lfs when I visited, they all seemed to keep their territory even in the store tank. So I thought keeping one could be the best choice for me. I would love to see more of their natural behavior if I had a chance to keep 1m:2f/3f or something

[jwcarlson]

One of my favorite community fish in this reboot of the hobby for me has been kerri tetras.  They are awesome to watch.

Kerris with some shrimp and snails would be fun.  Could also do borneos or hillstream loach with them. 

They are quite active and pretty aggressive feeders in my experience, but they have a nice purpleish body once they mature a bit. 

Edited January 15, 2023 by jwcarlson

[Guppysnail]

On 1/15/2023 at 8:46 AM, Lennie said:

Honeys are adorable. What is your m:f ratio? There were only bois in my lfs when I visited, they all seemed to keep their territory even in the store tank. So I thought keeping one could be the best choice for me. I would love to see more of their natural behavior if I had a chance to keep 1m:2f/3f or something

I bought an unsexed group of 6. It turned out 1 female 5 male. About 2 weeks ago I tried moving the girl with the boy she stays nearest to in the tank beside it. She is an insufferable flirt and spends time with each boy so it was hard to tell who her main squeeze was. 
Neither tank would eat or swim about. They all huddled at the ends so they could see each other. I had to put them back. Within minutes they each touched and reunited my girl visiting each boy and the boys then huddling in a group wagging then my girl used feelers on the front glass demanding food. Everyone ate with gusto and returned to normal behavior. I named her Catherine the Great for her multiple boyfriends each with his own suite inside HER tank. 
The entire story of it is on the next to last page in my journal linked in my signature. 
These are my first honey gourami but my understanding NOW is ratio is not real important just that they are social and do better in groups. 

Edited January 15, 2023 by Guppysnail

[Lennie]

On 1/15/2023 at 5:27 PM, Guppysnail said:

I bought an unsexed group of 6. It turned out 1 female 5 male. About 2 weeks ago I tried moving the girl with the boy she stays nearest to in the tank beside it. She is an insufferable flirt and spends time with each boy so it was hard to tell who her main squeeze was. 
Neither tank would eat or swim about. They all huddled at the ends so they could see each other. I had to put them back. Within minutes they each touched and reunited my girl visiting each boy and the boys then huddling in a group wagging then my girl used feelers on the front glass demanding food. Everyone ate with gusto and returned to normal behavior. I named her Catherine the Great for her multiple boyfriends each with his own suite inside HER tank. 
The entire story of it is on the next to last page in my journal linked in my signature. 
These are my first honey gourami but my understanding NOW is ratio is not real important just that they are social and do better in groups. 

That is interesting to hear. thanks!

[Gannon]

On 1/15/2023 at 8:27 AM, Guppysnail said:

I bought an unsexed group of 6. It turned out 1 female 5 male. About 2 weeks ago I tried moving the girl with the boy she stays nearest to in the tank beside it. She is an insufferable flirt and spends time with each boy so it was hard to tell who her main squeeze was. 
Neither tank would eat or swim about. They all huddled at the ends so they could see each other. I had to put them back. Within minutes they each touched and reunited my girl visiting each boy and the boys then huddling in a group wagging then my girl used feelers on the front glass demanding food. Everyone ate with gusto and returned to normal behavior. I named her Catherine the Great for her multiple boyfriends each with his own suite inside HER tank. 
The entire story of it is on the next to last page in my journal linked in my signature. 
These are my first honey gourami but my understanding NOW is ratio is not real important just that they are social and do better in groups. 

I'm warming up to the idea of a group of these. I had a pair a while ago but despite being in a 29 they were somehow stunted and died. I would like to try again with likely healthier ones. 

 

On 1/15/2023 at 7:46 AM, Lennie said:

Honeys are adorable. What is your m:f ratio? There were only bois in my lfs when I visited, they all seemed to keep their territory even in the store tank. So I thought keeping one could be the best choice for me. I would love to see more of their natural behavior if I had a chance to keep 1m:2f/3f or something

how is their behavior and schooling? I'm trying to decide between a bunch of schoolers like dwarf neon rainbows, cherry barbs, rummynose tetras, silver tip tetras, ember tetras, etc. 

 

On 1/15/2023 at 12:45 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

On of my favorite things about the 29 / 38 gallon tanks is that it's a vertical height where you do get to see the separation of species at different levels of the tank. For a 10 or 20L/20H there isn't much separation.  For bigger tanks, of course there can be depending on which tank you have.

That being one of the main features I would look at stocking a tank in terms of what do you want where.

If you want hillstream loaches (borneo loaches might be a nice substitution, depending on what you're after) then you'd have something cooler in terms of temperature and you'd wand some fish that can handle that as well as some good circulation / oxygenation.

Barbs, rasboras, corydoras, danios, etc. all fit that bill, but one of my favorites to have with hillstreams is white cloud mountain minnows.  In my tank they basically stayed up top and didn't move.  I've seen other tanks where they are going elsewhere.  I didn't have a school, so I understand why my experience might be a bit different than others.  There are some species of rainbowfish that would be fantastic as well. (see this blog post by the co-op)

Then adding something like the emerald green rasbora or the cherry barb you mentioned might be a nice mid level swimmer in that tank.  It really depends on what you're looking for and what catches your eye.    I would try to have 2-3 species in the mid/upper section of the tank and then go from there.   You can almost always add in a clown pleco, corydoras, hillstream (or borneo) loaches after the fact too.

I 100% agree on the dimensions being fun!

[Matt Armstrong]

On 1/15/2023 at 6:13 AM, jwcarlson said:

One of my favorite community fish in this reboot of the hobby for me has been kerri tetras.

Agreed! Just be sure to keep them in a school or aggression might be a problem. Not to other fish, but to themselves. I adopted a tank with 3 kerri tetras. At those numbers one of the kerri's was dominant and the other two were constantly being chased and/or hiding. Adding 4 more kerri's evened out the aggression and now they are a source of constant movement and energy in the tank.

They stay fairly small, so in a 29 you could stock many.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Matt Armstrong

[Lennie]

On 1/15/2023 at 7:04 PM, Gannon said:

how is their behavior and schooling? I'm trying to decide between a bunch of schoolers like dwarf neon rainbows, cherry barbs, rummynose tetras, silver tip tetras, ember tetras, etc. 

No, honey gouramis are not a schooling fish. They can show signs of communication with each other in tanks where they are kept with other honeys like @Guppysnail mentioned! But even 1m:2/3f ratio does not seem to play any role in her experience which is usually adviced. That is why I love hearing about experiences rather than reading on paper alone 🙂I'm sharing @Irene's video below where she is also talking about her experience about keeping honeys and seeing no actual schooling behavior, or even some bully action between the females in quarantine tub!

I keep mine as a centerpiece fish in 29g. They can do great alone. They have kind of a reputation to be shy, but mine has never been shy since day 1. But yea, if you are searching for a schooling fish, they will not show the schooling behavior you want. But if you want a centerpiece fish or as a small group, go for it!

All the schooling fish you mention are great. I'm keeping 10 rummy noses in my 29g with a honey gourami. They seemed to be interested in its long feelers on the first day and randomly tried to nip the feelers, but they stopped such behavior afterwards. But in the store, they were keeping honey gouramis with dwarf rainbows and they were somehow bullying honeys and stucking them to the corners nonstop. They didn't let them swim at all. I would not keep them with rainbows after seeing that personally.

 

Here is the video!

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2023 by Lennie

[Gannon]

On 1/15/2023 at 10:35 AM, Lennie said:

No, honey gouramis are not a schooling fish. They can show signs of communication with each other in tanks where they are kept with other honeys like @Guppysnail mentioned! But even 1m:2/3f ratio does not seem to play any role in her experience which is usually adviced. That is why I love hearing about experiences rather than reading on paper alone 🙂I'm sharing @Irene's video below where she is also talking about her experience about keeping honeys and seeing no actual schooling behavior, or even some bully action between the females in quarantine tub!

I keep mine as a centerpiece fish in 29g. They can do great alone. They have kind of a reputation to be shy, but mine has never been shy since day 1. But yea, if you are searching for a schooling fish, they will not show the schooling behavior you want. But if you want a centerpiece fish or as a small group, go for it!

All the schooling fish you mention are great. I'm keeping 10 rummy noses in my 29g with a honey gourami. They seemed to be interested in its long feelers on the first day and randomly tried to nip the feelers, but they stopped such behavior afterwards. But in the store, they were keeping honey gouramis with dwarf rainbows and they were somehow bullying honeys and stucking them to the corners nonstop. They didn't let them swim at all. I would not keep them with rainbows after seeing that personally.

 

Here is the video!

 

 

 

sorry for confusion, was not asking about honey gouramis schooling, was asking another commenter on their kerri tetras!

 

was trying to at least, quoted the wrong thing whoops

[Tanked]

On 1/14/2023 at 2:32 PM, Gannon said:

All of my ideas feel like there is something missing in them to me. 

That is why I usually don't take part in stocking suggestions.  Sit down in front of the 29 with your beverage of choice and rethink what look and activity levels you are trying to achieve. A pair of Moonlight Gourami would make a great peaceful midlevel centerpiece fish. A pair of Angels would be a little more active.  The ACO newsletter recently recommended Rummy Nose Tetras, as a tight schooling fish. I am partial to Bloodfins and Embers.  They do both their own thing and school.  My favorite for the moment has become the SAEs.  Even when they grow larger they are fun to watch, swim at all levels, individually and in groups.  Their only shortcoming is they lack bright colors.

[jwcarlson]

On 1/15/2023 at 10:44 AM, Gannon said:

sorry for confusion, was not asking about honey gouramis schooling, was asking another commenter on their kerri tetras!

 

was trying to at least, quoted the wrong thing whoops

Here's mine. 

They do not school as well as rummynose, but they school better than cardinals by far.  It's more of a ball of activity than a peaceful "pacing" back and forth in the tank like rummynose seem to be.  They didn't feed too aggressively in the video because I just popped the light on.  But they are sometimes a tornado of frenzy.  One went hard after a flake that go blown into the java moss yesterday and was thrashing around to get deep enough to get it.  

Have seen my cardinals and kerris eat cherry shrimp and not just the babies. 

Depending on what you are looking for they might not be for you.  They inhabit the top thrid pretty much, unless food like baby brine draws them down. 

 

[Lennie]

On 1/15/2023 at 7:44 PM, Gannon said:

sorry for confusion, was not asking about honey gouramis schooling, was asking another commenter on their kerri tetras!

 

LOL happens! At least you have a clue regarding dwarf rainbows and rummy noses' behavior vs honeys from my experience! 😄