What do you see when you look at the tank....

[nabokovfan87]

Hey everyone,

I may, potentially, be able to do one small fish order and add something that isn't just corydoras to the tank. Grace the shark is in there now and it's not something where she won't be happy to have a few friends in there with her.

I want to ask.... take a moment and just look at the photo and tell me what stocking comes to mind.

Water is generally softer (around 7 PH, KH is 3-4) and hardness is in the middle somewhere. 6-8 normally.

Right now, the plan is to get some plants, get a pleco, some otos, SAE, maybe some amanos. I have my own ideas, but you can see the just of the space and there's plenty of opportunities there.

[Galabar]

Taller plants (stem?) in the background.

[Stef]

Blue-eye lemon Pleco would look great against that dark background and substrate. Grace is a beauty!

[mynameisnobody]

12 Melanotaenia praecox

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/14/2023 at 8:07 PM, Galabar said:

Taller plants (stem?) in the background.

1000%

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Mid-level swimmers needed, something silver or colorful so as not to disappear into the black background. Something that schools.. it would be great to see the whole pack of ‘em moving across the tank.

On 9/14/2023 at 11:07 PM, Galabar said:

Taller plants (stem?) in the background.

Aponogeton 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[tolstoy21]

Hamsters. However, you'll need more pine shavings and maybe a wheel.   🤪 

Edited September 15, 2023 by tolstoy21

[Tanked]

BloodfinTetras 

[MN-AQUARIST]

I feel like i would do some sort of smaller barb like tiger barbs with Grace but that's just me.

[JChristophersAdventures]

A large school of small-med tetras... cardinals, embers, blue emperors, green neons, or rummynose.

[MattyM]

On 9/15/2023 at 8:12 AM, Tanked said:

BloodfinTetras 

These are some of my favorite tetras. Cheap, hardy, and very active - almost like a danio. 

[Tanked]

On 9/15/2023 at 12:40 PM, MattyM said:

These are some of my favorite tetras. Cheap, hardy, and very active - almost like a danio. 

In my tanks at least, both of those will also play tag with the  SAEs.

[Galabar]

60 rummy-nose tetras... 😉

[GoofyGarra]

something bright like a gold barb would look really good against all the black.

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/15/2023 at 4:23 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

something silver or colorful so as not to disappear into the black background.

There's a bright orange tail! 😂

To be fair, she does go a bit nuts at night and I wish it was easier to share.  Her "I'm gonna go on an adventure tonight" moments are pretty cool as long as it isn't very jarring and worrisome.  There will be some silver in there and I do have plans for something that isn't (as jet black), but we'll see what happens.  Trying to find what I want to find at the right cost is definitely a factor.

On 9/15/2023 at 11:03 AM, GoofyGarra said:

something bright like a gold barb would look really good against all the black.

Ah, love it.  There are albino tigers too!  I was leaning towards 2-3 specific barbs, but I hadn't considered the golds.  I tent to want more vibrant greens and blues.  I'm excited to see how much the tank develops given all the plants and how they could (potentially, if they grow) alter the landscape a bit!  It would seem so blacked out or stark.  The colors will definitely pop.

On 9/15/2023 at 10:58 AM, Galabar said:

60 rummy-nose tetras... 😉

If I knew someone with a LOT of rummynose rasboras... I'd be tempted 🙂

On 9/15/2023 at 7:25 AM, MN-AQUARIST said:

I feel like i would do some sort of smaller barb like tiger barbs with Grace but that's just me.

Welcome to the forums! She did grow up with a lot of barbs and tigers especially.  I am sure she misses them!

[tolstoy21]

If you get a pleco, go for an L134. Ok so not an algea eater, but I find these don't hide as much as other plecos (but maybe that's just mine).  If you want bristlenose, my vote is for an L183 white-seam starlight. Very nice looking fish.

[Galabar]

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/15/2023 at 3:34 PM, tolstoy21 said:

If you get a pleco, go for an L134. Ok so not an algea eater, but I find these don't hide as much as other plecos (but maybe that's just mine).  If you want bristlenose, my vote is for an L183 white-seam starlight. Very nice looking fish.

I found some flash plecos.  I really am considering a colony, but IDK if they make sense for my setup.  I do enjoy them.....  Most people have skittle shrimp tanks, I would love to have (and have had) 3-4 species of pleco in my tank before.  All really cool and I enjoyed watching each of them do their own, unique things.

[Ninjoma]

I imagine rummynose tetra or roseline sharks. 

[madmark285]

On 9/15/2023 at 3:39 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I was leaning towards 2-3 specific barbs,

I been struggling in my search for quality Odessa Barbs ( Pethia padamya). I want some from Select Aquatics but cannot justify the costs (including shipping, ~$150 for 6 unsex Odessa). You could end up with one vibrant male and 5 females. The Odessa's I got from PetCo never colored up that well. Someone suggested that these are breed so the female and males have similar colors to prevent LFS having a tank full of females left over.  I have no problem with a school of females and vibrant males, just tell me what I am buying.

Live Aquaria  sells them ($78 for six) but still unsexed. 

The Odessas I got from PetCo are very active, much more than the tiger barbs in the tank.

[tolstoy21]

On 9/15/2023 at 7:54 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Most people have skittle shrimp tanks, I would love to have (and have had) 3-4 species of pleco in my tank before. 

If you do skittles, your best bet is to attempt to have only male shrimp in the 'skittles' tank, otherwise the you could wind up with a lot of brownish shrimp.

You should be also able to do both neocaridina and a pleco colony in the same tank. In my experience, plecos don't "taste the rainbow!". At least my L183's, 397's and 134's haven't had any impact on the shrimp I have kept in their tanks. If  carnivorous species--like the L134's--eat shrimp, I would guess they don't do so ravenously in a way that would dent the population.  

I used to throw all my culls into the my pleco tanks and they were overflowing with shrimp in no time.

[tolstoy21]

On 9/16/2023 at 5:35 AM, madmark285 said:

The Odessa's I got from PetCo never colored up that well. Someone suggested that these are breed so the female and males have similar colors to prevent LFS having a tank full of females left over. 

I used to breed Odessa's from Greg Sage's line. Yes they are pricey, but they are big and healthy and produce vibrantly colored offspring. I would say you could only justify the costs of acquiring them from him if you planned on breeding them.

Odessas also color-up differently depending on environment. Subdued lighting, dark substrate and plants is a must to get them to show their best colors. However, Greg has been selectively breeding for more than a decade to produce fish with matte blacks, vibrant reds, and bright greenish yellow on the fins. If you have light substrate and background and a sparse amount of plants, the Odessas will stay drab.

My guess would be that the Odessas you find in most chain pet stores and LFS's are farm bred and no one is selectively breeding them, thus they turn out inferior to Sage's line.

Every now and then I see Odessas from the "Greg Sage Line" being sold either by Dan's fish or on GetGills. These tend to be a tad more reasonable in price but are of great quality. 

On 9/16/2023 at 5:35 AM, madmark285 said:

Prevent LFS having a tank full of females left over.

Kind of why I stopped breeding them. Broke my heart to have to cull a tank full of females.

On 9/16/2023 at 5:35 AM, madmark285 said:

The Odessas I got from PetCo are very active, much more than the tiger barbs in the tank.

Odessas are probably the fastest, most active fish on the market. Watching a large school of them feeding is a sight to see!

Here is a pic of one my fish when I had Odessas a few years back. Their colors really are that nice!

Edited September 16, 2023 by tolstoy21

[Guppysnail]

On 9/16/2023 at 11:31 AM, tolstoy21 said:

you do skittles, your best bet is to attempt to have only male shrimp in the 'skittles' tank, otherwise the you could wind up with a lot of brownish shrimp.

Years ago I started with red, orange, yellow, blue and snowball all lower quality. I went through a phase where I started seeing a higher number of browns. 
Over time though they started throwing more and more orange and red of much higher quality than I started with. Now I get predominantly higher quality orange and red. Some rilli, some snowball but browns are my leadt numerous. 
Some of the orange and reds are so high quality it tempts me to put them in their own tanks to breed. 
However this has been over a few years and I lived with 50% brown and clear for a year. 

[madmark285]

On 9/16/2023 at 11:39 AM, tolstoy21 said:

I would say you could only justify the costs of acquiring them from him if you planned on breeding them (Odessa).

I agree 100%.  I just started up a 40 gallon tank for my barbs and have a spare 29 gallon tank, it is tempting. My current plan, move my mature barbs to the 40 gallon and use the 29 gallon to grow out some more barbs, now would be the time for a breeding project. 

On 9/16/2023 at 11:39 AM, tolstoy21 said:

Kind of why I stopped breeding them. Broke my heart to have to cull a tank full of females.

For smaller fish like Odessa need to be sold in pairs. I would be thrilled with a school of 16 Odessa, 8 brilliant males and 8 drab females.  

On 9/16/2023 at 11:39 AM, tolstoy21 said:

Subdued lighting, dark substrate and plants is a must to get them to show their best colors.

That is one problem I have, the plants all died in my first barb tank. I suck at growing plants so for my new 40 gallon tank, I may just try growing Anacharis. I would be quite satisfied with a dense forest of Anacharis in the tank. 

[tolstoy21]

On 9/17/2023 at 6:05 AM, madmark285 said:

For smaller fish like Odessa need to be sold in pairs. I would be thrilled with a school of 16 Odessa, 8 brilliant males and 8 drab females.  

The problem arises when your spawn's gender ratio isn't 50/50.  Odessas have pretty large spawns, so if you had a spawn of 300, you could end up with 100 males and 200 females, as an example. I spawned maybe 6 or so batches of these, and in my specific setup, the numbers always favored females over males.

The females aren't bad looking at all, its just that the male's coloration outshines that of the females.

Females from my fish when I kept them:

Edited September 17, 2023 by tolstoy21