New 55 gal setup questions

[04MINI]

Good day. My back ground...had a 55 gal tank for about 20 yrs starting back in late 80's.  Went through several different phases....goldfish, tropical, back to gold fish, back to tropical..lol.

Decided to get back into it and am in the process of setting up my new 55 gal tropical planted  I currently have the Seachem black gravel Flourite for my substrate and various pieces of driftwood and rock for my hardscape. I am not interested in having added CO2.  I would like to have a nice no hassle peaceful community tank with various compatible Tetras and male guppies.  I Like the idea of a colorful, numerous small fish tank.  I am also thinking about having some Cherry Shrimp.

At this point I am looking to have some tips, advice, good idea-bad idea help.  The plants that have been suggested are these...

Anubias barteri

Bonsia Anubis

Chain sword

Corkscrew Vallis

Corkscrew sword

Creeping Rush

Dwarf sword

Echinodorus ovalis

Java fern

Java moss

Pearl moss

River buttercup

Obviously I won't be getting all of these, but would like some feedback on "best" compatability.

I am on well water and so far my testing is showing a pH of around 7.6, gH of around 5-100, kH of around 100-200.

Sorry for the rather long post.  I live in the country and am rather limited on availability of local information.

Thanks, Scott

[Ben P.]

With your water parameters you don't really have any limitations on fish, just a limitation on mouth size if you want cherry shrimp.  You're pretty much painted into a corner of tetras and rasboras.   They may get slightly larger but I'm loving Congo tetras lately and they look fabulous in plants 

[04MINI]

Thanks Ben, the Congo Tetras are probably larger than I want to go.  Looking for quantity and colorful.  But love the suggestion.

[AquaLu]

Greeting Scott, 

Sounds like you already have had quite experiences with freshwater aquarium. Since you don’t have a specific question I’ll just type whatever pops up in my head.

Since you have a large tank, I think ensuring that water parameters stabilize first, with a fully established ecosystem, is really important before introducing any fish into the tank. This way, it helps you narrow down your choices of fish and also avoids the stressful process of altering water parameters, especially in a big tank like this. It's going to be a slow process, but no rush – don’t add too many fish at one time.. always monitor their reaction and behavior 

Plants: Anubia species, Java fern, Java moss, dwarf sword, chain sword, are all good for low lech and low maintenance. Corkscrew vallis, creeping rush are really nice background plants. 

Fish: For a peaceful tropical community tank, you may consider neon tetras, cardinal tetras, or ember tetras. Male guppies also good choice to add color and activity in your tank. Cherry shrimp should do well for this setup as long as there are plenty of hiding spaces among your plants.

Most importantly, enjoy the process and the beauty of this rewarding hobby! Good luck and have fun! 

 

[nabokovfan87]

The tank looks great. I would try to start slow. Especially considering that you want to have shrimp.

Neocaridina is an option (GH might be slightly low), but any questions regarding their care I would immediately recommend checking out marks shrimp tanks on YouTube. Given the situation though, I think my suggestion would be to do something like otocinclus, amano shrimp, and white clouds. It'll be a single species tank in terms of the centerpiece fish with some cleaners, but you're talking a very beautiful, easy to care for fish. They would do well for you and it's a great place to start and learn.

I would recommend doing an off-gas test and getting a GH/KH test kit to verify what you're seeing on the strips. If you're planning to keep shrimp, it's a great tool to have on hand as well. Off gas test meaning, that you simply take water from the faucet, aerate it for 24 hours with an air stone, then go ahead and test for everything. This would be what you'd expect the tank parameters to balance out to.

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/18/2023 at 1:53 PM, 04MINI said:

The plants that have been suggested are these...

Anubias barteri

Bonsia Anubis

Chain sword

Corkscrew Vallis

Corkscrew sword

Creeping Rush

Dwarf sword

Echinodorus ovalis

Java fern

Java moss

Pearl moss

River buttercup

Obviously I won't be getting all of these, but would like some feedback on "best" compatability.

I am not familiar with all of the plants mentioned, but I would recommend starting with easy to grow plants that are somewhat simple to get going.  Moss can be challenging, but it is pretty helpful and fast growing. The only real challenge is the method of attachment. Given the wood and hardscape, I think tying the moss would be very nice and work well for you.

To that I would add in any and all forms of anubias as the other plant.

The substrate you have, I also have, and while the package mentions that it's for planted tanks the real confusion is that it's not the best. I ended up taking it out, adding soil as a base layer, then capping that with the fluorite and it's working extremely well for me now. Some root tabs are on the way and I think the tank works really well now given the root feeding plants and stems have access to nutrients.

The above mentioned plants however, moss and anubias, only require liquid fertilizer.

Some other plants you could try would be something like bacopa, hydrocotyle, or valisnaria. Those plants tend to be very easy species and low demand.

Dwarf chain sword (or micro sword) would be a good plant to sort of push the boundary of skill. Trying to get it to carpet.

[Lennie]

In my experience, the easiest and hardiest plants are most crypts, echinodorus species, anubias and Hygrophila polysperma Ceylon and elodea. For surface plants, it is the amazon frogbit.

 

Ive tried many plants (believe me lol) and these were the choices that would live wherever I put. High ph low ph soft water hard water low kh very high kh... Everything else seemed more conditional in my experience.

 

 

[beastie]

The only tank where my moss ( java) is doing really well is the one where it has no direct competition. No fast plants, no plants requiring fertilization, just java fern. That is the only moss that is algae less in my tanks so just a fair warning

Rather than having tetras and guppies, which is a bit of a common boring setup, I recommend you look into other interesting schooling fish, like the white cloud minnows or any of the pseudomugil ( except furcatus), I have luminatus, guppysnail has gertrudae if I am not mistaken. Normal shoaling fish, but lovely colors, lovely behavior and for luminatus I read you can keep them with shrimp because they have super small mouth

Attaching pictures of mine. They do look best in dark setup though, so that may be a no go for you

Edited September 19, 2023 by beastie

[04MINI]

Thanks to all of you that responded.  I think I am on the right track now.

[DaveO]

For a smaller colorful fish I chose these guys. They are called Orange Bolivian Lemon Tetra. You have to look around a while to find them, but well worth it.