a friend of mine just got a 55 gal tank & has a general idea of what she wants - what fish do you have in your tank and why?
I currently do not have a tank but have fond memories of the Pearl Gouramis and leopard spotted cory catfish I had. beautiful, graceful, easy to care for.
I’m just about to re-do my tank, I have a 24" tropical set up, but I’ve only got two little tetras left…
I’ve had fish on and off since I was 11, and had most of the common small species at one time or another, plus some lovely dwarf cichlids, and (in a different tank) mudskippers for a while.
I’ve no idea yet what I’m keeping next, I’ll be watching what others post for inspiration!
100 gallon loach tank. Two clown loaches remain of the original five, one of whom succombed to old age and the other two to ich.
Tank also holds quite a few otocinclus affinis, although I have no clue how many. I generally buy five or six more any time I see them at the pet store. (hence the ich. :smack: ) They don’t live long and the 100 gal is in the sun so there;s always more algae than I can scrape.
There’s also a few guppies that Celtling took a liking to.
When I first got the loachies I also added a school each of Raspbora and Purple Danios, allowing them to slowly die off of old age to clear bio-load for the growing loches. Herman the Frankenfish, is the offspring of a Raspbora and a Purple Danio who were the last of their schools. He looks like a really big rainbow fish, and is silver/purple from head to waist and orangy/pink from waist to tail.
There are also about 3-4 horsehead loaches, but they seldom surface, so there’s no reliabel method for counting them.
The 12 gallon tank has a mix of accidentally snail species which I grow out and occasionally feed to the lochies. There are a couple of great-grandaddy MTS in there which are weird to see they are so big.
Finally, the 12 gallon holds Celtling’s betta fish.
My input for your friend? Keep the bioload waaaayyyyyy low. And do water changes every week. If she doesn’t have a python, get her one, she’ll love you forever.
Also, consider cherry shrimp which are enormously amusing.
I don’t have fish right now, but I had goldfish for many years. They’re aaaaaalmost like a real pet. They get excited when you come home. I had run-of-the-mill veiltails and redcap orandas. I love black moors but couldn’t get one to stay alive.
I had guppies for a while too. It turns out that watching them breed wasn’t as excited as I’d hoped. Very few young survived and they seemed to take a long time growing up.
the clown loach look familiar when I look at google image; I’d seen them, just didn’t know their names. are they easy to care for? they are shaped like cory catfish.
I will point her to this thread so she can check out the python.
looks like the clown loach get too big to be happy in a 55 gal tank, but thanks for the idea.
I always liked raising Tiger Oscars.
I used to keep discus and they are gorgeous, but somewhat fragile. Neon tetras are fun if you have a bunch so they school up. And a second vote for pearl gourami.
I have a 55 with 8 each of zebra loaches and Odessa barbs, which I chose because I love loaches and because the barbs are pretty and a similar region and aggression level to the loaches. It’s a semi aggressive tank, but the two species get along well.
I also have a 65 with weather loaches (4 golden and 1 normal) and white cloud minnows. I chose those because they’re both from China and are both very peaceful and happy in a cooler tank. This one is my favorite.
I also have an empty 30 sitting around all set up, which I will probably set up with dwarf chain loaches if I ever get around to it. I’d love to have a clown tank someday, but right now I barely have time and space for the tanks I have.
I have a 205 gallon with a bunch of different fish. Ultimately though, I think it just depends on what she likes to look at. I liked having Spotted African Leaf Fish a lot.
Darn right. Mrs. Plant likes them, but we are waiting until we can set up the 100 gallon tank.
We have aPulcher colony in a 55. They breed like rabbits. The fish store took twelve today for credit, but we have 75 more fry.
Another 55 has Tanganyikans.Shellies,Julies, Calvus and Tanganyikan catfish.
I sucked an Australe killie up in the python, and beat his trip through the hose to the sink to rescue him. 
Don’t turn the water on too much.
Mrs. Plant likes loaches. Yoyo and zebra loaches are easy to keep, and entertaining as are corydoras catfish. Both of these live on the bottom. Neon tetras are pretty and live in midwater to the top.
Someone else mentioned gourami, which are pretty but again dangerous to other tankmates if they spawn.
I like killifish, but they are not good for a community tank.
William T. Innes book, Exotic Aquarium Fishes is dated, but fun to read, and he suggests lists of species for community tanks.
Angelfish are attractive, but if a couple spawns they will kill everything else in the tank, as will the above Pulchers kill anything that is not a pulcher.
The fish with a personality.
I always thought of a 55 gallon as a “big” tank but apparently not, seeing what-all everyone else has.
I now am really wanting a tank myself but where I live is seriously cramped - even a very small tank would be a stupid idea…and I always feel sorry for a Betta in a little bowl. just because they can live in one, doesn’t mean they should. :dubious:
Honestly, even the 100 is a bit on the small side for the Clown loaches. Botia Striata though, would be perfect. Same personality and similar look but much lower size/bioload.
Kuhlis are also great fun to watch, although I’ve never managed to find healthy ones. Bought three groups and they all died within a few days.
An eclipse 5 makes a great betta tank, and is very easy to maintain. I’ve done a betta and a few cherry shrimp in an Eclipse 6 and they lived long happy lives. . .
Anyone have new comments on this topic?
I’d love to learn more about the “Eclipse 5” that TruCelt mentions. The search comes up as a filter, which may be what was meant.
In my 55, I kept a betta, a few goldfish (2-3). I like black moors, so I had one of those. I had a large copper oranda. I can’t remember the third, a fan tail maybe? I had an assortment of smaller fish, some tetras and some guppies. The guppies bred like crazy. I had some plants the fry could hide in, but most fed the betta and the goldfish. One loach.
I had a large filter system, and a lot of plants. Once that tank hit equilibrium, it was rock steady.
Over the years, I’ve had many types of fish. Let me know if you have questions on any particular variety.
In a NEW tank, your first fish probably should not be your favourite fish. They should be fish that are good for starting the ammonia cycle - hardy. The start of an aquarium is a time of chemical balancing, and if you jsut drop some prize fish in there there’s a good chance your friend is wasting money and killing pets.
A small school of zebra danios is a great choice for this. They are extraordinarily durable, and so famously good at beginning the cycle; they’re also, to be honest, kind of fun little fish to have along with more showy fish, assuming your eventual choice of prize fish isn’t one that will eat them.
Not to open a new kettle of…um…you know. But I would definitely recommend you research fishless cycling and go that way. A fish-in cycle, no matter how hardy the fish are (including zebra danios) is just not fair to those fish. They may live (zebra fish probably will), but they will definitely be hurt, and probably harmed (and zebra danios are extremely cool little fish–too cool to sacrifice).
Fishless cycle is easy and safe, doesn’t hurt any fish, and when it’s done you know for sure that you can put your favorite fish in there and have them be healthy and comfortable.
(I know there is disagreement about this. But I’ve done it both ways and deeply regret that I ever tried the fish-in method. I would never go back to it).
Research and research and research! The decision-making can be half the fun if you don’t let it paralyze you. A 55 gives you plenty of options.
Currently I’m running a 55 with Tanganyikans that I’ve had up for about 7 years. A big Altolamprologus calvus, a melanistic Julidochromis regani (huge), a Neolamprologus brichardi, a Neolamprologus tretocephalus, and a small school of Synodontis lucipinnis catfish.
The Tanganyikan cichlids are definitely my first and strongest love. I’ve kept almost every variety available in the hobby at one time or another. In addition to that 55 community tank, I’ve got single-species tanks of Neolamprologus multifasciatus (they breed like mad. Want some?), Altolamprologus calvus (they grow SO slowly), and Lepidiolamprologus hecqui (a pair and their son. The pair still produce fry but the son tends to eat most of them. One day I’ll re-home him and try to raise these in quantity. They’re cool fish).
I’ve also got a planted 36-gallon in the dining room. It’s an experiment in a simple “back to my nostalgic history” tank and it’s consistently a crowd-pleaser. I wanted to do just simple plants that could thrive with ordinary lighting and no CO2, and simple standard fish.
For this kind of tank (and you can definitely do something like this in a 55. It would be great), I like big shoals of colorful fish with a few others for interest. A dark (black) substrate also helps make the colors really attractive. In there I have
cardinal tetras (much hardier and bigger than neons, and I like the color better)
black neon tetras
(both in big enough groups to shoal)
three electric blue bolivian rams
celestial pearl danios (these are fairly new in the hobby and strikingly beautiful. But they’re really tiny even when full-grown. Might not show up so well in a big tank).
and a couple of nerite snails and an orange Mexican dwarf crayfish (I really like these crayfish. They stay small enough not to bother fish, and they’ve got a lot of character).
Then at work I’ve got a nano marine tank, currently being used for aiptasia anemones (we did an “anemone in a jar” event for students). That’s going to become another planted tank in a month or so.
My big advice on starting a new tank (I just taught an “Aquaria in Your Area” workshop founded on this) is to do your research, enjoy the research, and remember that nothing good in the aquarium hobby happens quickly. Give it time and enjoy the process!
(And I definitely second the advice about getting a python or similar–or making one. Schlepping buckets is a very good way to get sick of water changes, neglect them, and end up out of the hobby. Water changes should be fun! A python, good music, your consumable of choice, and it becomes a pleasant weekend routine).
I second this. It takes some patience, but it’s well worth it. I had a 20 gallon aquarium about 15 years ago and did a fishless cycle before I put anything in there. I started the aquarium with part of a raw shrimp, and monitored everything for a few weeks. Once the nitrates and nitrites stabilized, I did a water change, put in a school of zebra danios, and they did really well.