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How would you arrange the fish I have with the tanks I have?


Tory
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So I made my first impulse fish purchase today 😳 nothing crazy, just 3 mollies. (edit: they're poecilia sphenops mollies for reference) The only problem is that I was thinking of them going well with my endlers, but forgot to check to see if they'd eat adult neocaridina shrimp - turns out, yes they absolutely will. 😕 The mollies are currently quarantined by themselves in a 10 gallon. 

The plan before was to move my prettiest shrimp into the 10 gallon for breeding, and keep some culls and skittles in my community tank where they currently live so I wouldn't care if some cull babies got eaten. I like having the shrimp as a cleanup crew and seeing how they interact in the community tank, but I don't want any adults to get eaten. 

Current setup is a 20 gallon long community tank. Heavily planted (like actually, about 70%+ is planted). Over filtered with two sponge filters on different air pumps that are both for 40-50 gallons. Fish: 7 kuhli loaches, 6 endlers, 8 juvenile celestial pearl danios, 1 mystery snail, 1 nerite snail, and ~20 neocaridina shrimp. No one's bothered the shrimp so far and they're comfortable enough to be out and about most of the time.

10 gallon is medium planted, deep substrate, sponge filter, just the 3 mollies in there right now.

My father-in-law is giving me a 100 gallon tank soon, but it'll be a hot minute before that's all set up and ready to go.

What would you do? I'm thinking of my options as:
1 - Move all the shrimp into the 10 gallon and the mollies into the 20 (after mollies are done in quarantine), potentially put a divider in the tank so I can have part of the tank where I'm selectively breeding and part of the tank for culls/skittles.
2 - Keep the mollies in the 10 gallon, potentially moving them to the 100 gallon when it's ready. Get another 10 gallon or a 5 gallon for shrimp breeding and go with the original plan of culls & skittles in the 20.
3 - Move the mollies to the 20, move my breeding shrimp to the 10, and get another 10 or a 5 for culls & skittles. 

Shrimp tank will also likely be a grow out tank for fry.

Edited by Tory
added type of molly
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Depends on how committed to mollies you are and your natural water parameters. I love livebearers and have a happy group of endlers and platies cavorting through all the crushed coral I can manage, but I have soft water and  I don't think I'd be able to hard it up enough for mollies to thrive. I have been thinking about starting a brackish tank with mollies and nerites, though! But yeah, probably not going to find a plant that survives long-term in brackish.

While endlers would be happy with hard water, most of the other fish wouldn't as much. If you have naturally hard water and want to boost it up even more, I'd make up a separate tank (the 10g could do in the short term, but would be better in a 20+) with the mollies, the endlers, and snails. Leave the loaches, danios and shrimp in their softer water, but you could probably introduce some larger tetra if it's feeling bare.

100 gallons is a huge, awesome tank! I'm jealous! If you get into mollies and want to use the 100g to start a hard water tank, this video has some great ideas, or you could even venture into african cichlids.

 

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Just now, Kirsten said:

Depends on how committed to mollies you are and your natural water parameters. I love livebearers and have a happy group of endlers and platies cavorting through all the crushed coral I can manage, but I have soft water and  I don't think I'd be able to hard it up enough for mollies to thrive. I have been thinking about starting a brackish tank with mollies and nerites, though! But yeah, probably not going to find a plant that survives long-term in brackish.

While endlers would be happy with hard water, most of the other fish wouldn't as much. If you have naturally hard water and want to boost it up even more, I'd make up a separate tank (the 10g could do in the short term, but would be better in a 20+) with the mollies, the endlers, and snails. Leave the loaches, danios and shrimp in their softer water, but you could probably introduce some larger tetra if it's feeling bare.

100 gallons is a huge, awesome tank! I'm jealous! If you get into mollies and want to use the 100g to start a hard water tank, this video has some great ideas, or you could even venture into african cichlids.

 

My tap water is super hard, so my tanks are already hard water tanks haha I know the kuhlis would probably prefer it to be softer but I've had them about 2 months and they're doing great despite the hard water - super active, gaining weight, always out and about swimming around looking for food. I'd have to work to get my water softer, I'm not even sure how to go about that. Do you think it'd be worth it? Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated 🙂 

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Just now, Tory said:

My tap water is super hard, so my tanks are already hard water tanks haha I know the kuhlis would probably prefer it to be softer but I've had them about 2 months and they're doing great despite the hard water - super active, gaining weight, always out and about swimming around looking for food. I'd have to work to get my water softer, I'm not even sure how to go about that. Do you think it'd be worth it? Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated 🙂 

Full speed ahead then! 😄

Your plan on using your 10g for your best shrimp is probably wise. If your 20g is heavily planted and your mollies aren't hungry, most shrimp will probably survive, but it sounds like you're pretty attached to them, so go ahead and protect them. the snails and any remaining shrimp should be fine for cleanup, though you could add some trumpet or ramshorn snails if things start getting a little gnarly.

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1 minute ago, Kirsten said:

Full speed ahead then! 😄

Your plan on using your 10g for your best shrimp is probably wise. If your 20g is heavily planted and your mollies aren't hungry, most shrimp will probably survive, but it sounds like you're pretty attached to them, so go ahead and protect them. the snails and any remaining shrimp should be fine for cleanup, though you could add some trumpet or ramshorn snails if things start getting a little gnarly.

Thank you this is helpful!! Maybe when I switch the mollies and shrimp, I'll leave a couple ugly shrimp in there just as an experiment lol and if the mollies aren't mean to them I'll try out my original plan 🧐

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