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Nano fish for a 55 Gallon long planted tank - thoughts?


JPenguin12
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Since the picture below, my 55 no longer has my angelfish. The plants have grown some and I have several amano shrimp. I am considering the following:

Hillstream loach
Black kuhli loaches
Many varieties of endlers
Galaxy rasboras
Brilliant rasboras
Chili rasboras
Bamboo shrimp
Otocinclus

honorable mentions:
Red white clouds (maybe long-fin)
Select Apistogramma

I am interested in anyone thoughts. What groupings/varieties would you suggest? Should I just put some of everything in? What problems could I be asking for? What other suggestions should I consider (I really want to keep the amanos)? Some options will eat fry vs those that wont...

 

1813610237_Tankpicforforum.jpg.49840cc57a7a8e66c495f90efe1cc8c5.jpg

 

 

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It really depends on what you prefer and like. Only thing is that you have large enough group of fish that need larger groups and that they are compatible in temperature range.

I personally like one type of schooling fish but in larger quantity so i would probably go with something like this-

large school of galaxy rasboras

trio 1:2 m:f apistogramma type that you like

probably 6 otocinclus

and some cory cats depending what you like

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I love the big driftwood pieces! Its a beautiful composition. 

With all that driftwood, my suggestion would be to get yourself some sort of pleco in there, though maybe not one of the super xylophoric types. Ever thought about farlowella aka whiptail catfish? Some species stay pretty small and other get rather suzable, but they love to perch and hang out on driftwood and chill. Your driftwood is set up in such a way I could certainly see some of them hanging out on the flatter/lower angle parts. My personal favorite is the red lizard whiptails L10A. And they're shrimp safe, primarily algae and aufwachs feeders. I could only see maybe the very smallest of cherry shrimp fry wandering into their mouths to be eaten. Your amanos would be totally safe from them.

As for midwater schoolers, I'm a fan of one really big school of a single species. Although I've also seen two schools of starkly contrasting color species pulled off well in other tanks (red v. green, blue v orange, yellow v black etc). Now I also usually pair a single large midwater schooling group with a bottom dwelling group, either corydoras or loaches. I usually don't mix the two as I've found one bottom feeder often outcompetes the other species for food over time and they wither away. In my case, the corydoras outcompeted the kuhlis. The kuhlis weren't as quick to come out for food, so it was being devoured before they were  getting enough.

Of your choices I'd personally pick chili rasboras or galaxy rasboras, as they are very bright. Which is important to pick your nano school out from the scape from any distance.

Another suggestion for a schooler group - threadfin rainbowfish. You probably like long fins if you had an angel, and threadfins certainly have those in spades. Unlike angels, they're  very peaceable and have tiny mouths, so no eating other fish.

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Nataku - Thank you for the kind words and your suggestions. I couldn't help but be amazed that you figured out the two other fish I have in my tank that I didn't mention. I have a farlowella (the kids named "Sticky") as well as a spectracanthicus punctatissimus – (L030 | L016 | L315).

Do you have any thoughts on red scarlet endlers vs chili rasboras?

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@JPenguin12 i personally don't have experience with Apistos and Kuhli but i had Apistogrammas (cocato, agassizi, panduro, macmasteri) with corys and shrimps and i never had a problem so i don't see the reason why they wouldn't be compatible.

You could add kuhli instead of cory.

But depending on your fish numbers, filtration,plants and water change regime you could probably go with both. But it depends how much of each fish you will get and on everything i stated above.

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On 11/6/2020 at 9:06 PM, JPenguin12 said:

Since the picture below, my 55 no longer has my angelfish. The plants have grown some and I have several amano shrimp. I am considering the following:

Hillstream loach
Black kuhli loaches
Many varieties of endlers
Galaxy rasboras
Brilliant rasboras
Chili rasboras
Bamboo shrimp
Otocinclus

honorable mentions:
Red white clouds (maybe long-fin)
Select Apistogramma

I am interested in anyone thoughts. What groupings/varieties would you suggest? Should I just put some of everything in? What problems could I be asking for? What other suggestions should I consider (I really want to keep the amanos)? Some options will eat fry vs those that wont...

 

1813610237_Tankpicforforum.jpg.49840cc57a7a8e66c495f90efe1cc8c5.jpg

 

 

I have a 55 planted tank with nano fish and neocaridina shrimp myself. Here is my stocking. It's working perfectly:

Hyphessobrycon negodagua

Got 12 a few months ago. After less than 24h in my tank, they had already started spawning!

I'm currently keeping them in a 55 gallon with neocaridina shrimp, 2 vampire shrimp, mistery snails, 12 Cardinal tetras, 12 chilli rasboras, 12 celestial pearl danios, a sae, 6 hillstream loaches, 2 l168 plecos, 6 longfin albino bristlenose plecos and hundreds of guppies (I started with a trio).

Despite all of the fish and invertebrates, everyone seems to be doing great, and I sell around 100 neocaridina shrimp from that tank every 3 months. 

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I wanted a peaceful mostly nanofish tank with some decent schools in it.

I have a 55g with 6 ricefish, 6 forktail rainbowfish, 15 neons, 15 ember tetras, 5ish Otos, 6 julii corys, 3 kuhli loaches, a trio of guppies and their spawn. and 5 CPDs. I will be adding a couple of clown plecos and a bunch more CPDs that are growing up in another tank. I don't see the CPDs as a schooling fish but they are a blast to watch forage through the plants.

So far everything gets along.

If my water was a little softer I'd probably go with green kubotai rasboras, cardinal tetras, and rummynose tetras. All great schoolers I think.

Harelquin rasboras are great schoolers too but I wanted to try the ember tetras.

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