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For the past year I've had an oscar. I love the guy, but I don't really have the time to do maintenance on his tank(including 2X weekly big water changes) anymore. And upping the tank size is definately out of the question. I barely have room for the 60. . . So I am going to be giving up him and his 4 tankmates(3 silver dollars and a "common" pleco that planet catfish can't seem to ID) and just turning the tank into a tiny community tank.

Right now the tank has regular(don't know the wattage) fluorescent bulbs, a heater for up to a 75 gallon tank, a penguin bio wheel(350 GPH) and a rena filter(also 350 GPH). It also has some low fake plants, a rock "cave" a couple of pieces of fake driftwood(some desert plant that never rotted in the water) and gravel. I'll keep a bit of the gravel, but most of it is going to be replaced with silica sand(I've got a source for trumpet snails to keep it nice and turned over too).

The 20 gallon is sorta suffering along. I'd had a heavy load in there, and switched to sand, then accidentally re-cycled it. Oops. I thuoght the sand burned out the filter(clogged it. Works fine now, months later) and changed it for a different brand, which I was planning on eventually getting anyway. The big mistake was that I forgot to put the old media in the tank. Sooo, new filter AND substrate= new cycle. I didn't notice for a while. I actually noticed because one night 3 of my fish died, and most of the rest were gasping for air. Ouch. I felt terrible once it hit me what I'd done >_>. . . I started doing a lot of water changes almost daily, but most of my fish died anyway. I was left with 5 "feeder" guppies, 1 danio, 1 rasbora, 4 mixed cory cats, 2 khuli loaches and a clown pleco(4" tops) Since then I haven't gotten any new schoolers, except for 4 neon tetras. So once I find a new home for my 60's fish the small ones will be put into the big tank, and I'll be getting them more tankmates.

I'm going to keep both filters up and running(unless they would be hazzardous to the little fish. The canister has a spray bar, and the other has a big overflow area)

From what I've been reading recently, I'll need to get more cories of each variety for the others to school with. If I can't find any more of that variety though(I have 1 that was sold as a julii, though I haven't seen ANY more of those in town, 2 sold as just "spotted" and one peppered. I know I can get more of one of the spotted and the peppered.) would they be okay near the others?

Also, since I've only been used to small tanks, and have been told by the LFS guy I learned the most bad stuff from, I don't have a clue how much I can put in this tank. I'm going to likely get the rasbora 4 other tankmates(make it a small school of 5) same for the danio. I will try my best to get a school for each species of cory, though as I mentioned, I've only seen 2 of them one time around here, so I don't know how entirely likely that will be. Other than that I want NEONS! A lot of them! I don't know why, but I've always wanted a big tank with a ton of little fish in it. I'll probably do a few schools in there. One of neons, one of black neons, one of glo lights etc. Just curious as to how many of the neons(with the other fish in the tank) I could put in there to have a nice display, but not have it crowded too much. The goal still is to get rid of a bit of maintenance after all

Also, I eventually want to add a few small live plants to the tank. Do I really need to have all of the expensive equipment for that, or if I put on better bulbs, and still had the fish would that be okay for them?

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It seems like you are wanting to have alot of schools in the 60. Lots of small schools tend to look chaotic in a tank, while a couple large schools (or one large one) looks more tranquil. Its fine to have alot of small ones, if you don't mind the chaos though. I'd stick with a max of 4 schools for that tank. Since you are moving the Rasbora and Danio over, you'll need to get them more friends. I'd go with a max of 6. Then you could go with a school of the neons and another group. I wouldn't go with more than 8.

If you want alot of neons, I'd say go with the Rasbora and Danio schools of 6-8 and then get a big school of 10 neons. If you add more schools than that, you'll need to have less in each school.

Personally, I'd go with the 3 schools and have 8 of each (or 8 of the rasboras and danios and 10 of neons).

If you want to lower the maintenance, I'd keep it understocked. Go with the 3 schools mentioned above, the cories (up each type to 4-6), and then maybe a centerpiece type fish if you want, like a gourami.

If you keep the reg. fluorescent lighting, you are in low light and would need to stick with low light plants such as Java fern, Anubias, and Java moss. Cryptocorynes may also be ok.

Buying another bulb won't help because you'll still have the same wattage. For more plant choices you'll need to get more watts over the tank and that can be achieved either by buying another fixture or possibly buying a retrofit compact fluorescent bulb kit and installing it into your current fixture (would have to take out the bulbs and stuff in there now. Either way it will cost some money.

What are the dimensions of the tank?

*Kristin*

Am I understanding this correctly? If I have 2x30 watt bulbs in a tank, total watts are still 30 and not 60 watts?

I don't know the dimentions. I'm pretty sure it is 48 inches, by 12 inches by 18 inches.

I also decided to just stick to neons. Still want a good sized school of them.

Heh, I'm not worried about a bit of maintenance in there. After all, I'd be going from 2 50% water changes weekly to whatever I would need with small fish in there. Couldn't be that bad unless I packed them in I'd assume. Then it would look awful anyway.

And I was still wondering what will happen if I can't find the same species of cory cats in any of the local stores.

[url=http://dragcave.ath.cx/viewdragon/bNFR][/url]

No, if you have 2 3o watt bulbs, it becomes 60, this gives you 1 watt per gallon. 60wattts/60gallons.

-Vincent

No, if you have 2 3o watt bulbs, it becomes 60, this gives you 1 watt per gallon. 60watts/60gallons.

It wasn't the original poster that asked this question. But, if the OP has 2 fluorescent bulbs, I'm guessing its 2x40 watt bulbs...just a guess though. Or it could be 2x32 watts...over a 55g would still be around 1wpg...or low light.

I don't know the dimentions. I'm pretty sure it is 48 inches, by 12 inches by 18 inches

That sounds like a standard 55g. Which is still fine.

And I was still wondering what will happen if I can't find the same species of cory cats in any of the local stores.

If you absolutely can't find them locally (and don't want to order online), then you could just get some that look very similar. They should socialize with them even if they aren't totally the same species.

Even with the small fish, I'd still do once a week water changes of about 40%.

So, do you think you can stick with 3 schools? I know you want variety, but trust me, a bunch of schools looks chaotic. I have 3 types of tetras in my 55g and I wish I had narrowed it to 1 or 2.

*Kristin*

Hi there,
I know people think many different kinds of small
fish together look "chaotic" but I disagree.
How the ocean must have looked amazingly chaotic with 80% more fish than are currently in there!

I prefer tanks with many kinds of fish.
I think a 60g with 6 schools each of 10 would look
amazing.

My suggestion:
6 Schools each of 10 small fish, one school being
cory catfish.

I think 10 rummynose, 10 neons/cardinals, 10 glowlights,
10 lemon, and 10 harlequin rasbora with 10 corydoras trilineatus or panda or hasbrosus (15) would be a great active tank.

Corys should be kept with groups of all one kind.
I highly doubt you will have any trouble locating a nice size group of one kind, provided you dont choose a totally obscure, or rare cory cat.
Bronze and albinos (same species) are probably the most common, then peppered (also come in albino though not as common), and then trilineatus (called leopards and jullis and three striped and spotted, etc etc), are probably the 3 most common species of cory cats out there.




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I know for sure I can find the peppered, and one of the spotted ones(got them both at petsmart, they've always got them in stock) the julii, I've only seen one of, though I'm going to the store I got it from tomorrow to see if they have any of them again(rarely do they get any) the one is a bit off of the normal path. It is the largest of them, and has spots and a big streak over its eyes. It was sold in a random cory tank at petco and I've not seen another like it around here.

The original plan I'd had was to get the cories into bigger schools, get the danio and the rasbora into bigger schools, then get it up to about 10 neons, black neons and glo-lights. I thought that would look really cool Though I wasn't planning on getting up to 10 rasboras and danios. I like them, but just not That much

[url=http://dragcave.ath.cx/viewdragon/bNFR][/url]

You could get something like: 10 neons, 10 black neons, 10 glowlites, 6 rasboras, 6 danios, 15 corydores.

Weeelllll, I spent all afternoon between the LFS's in town, and got some new friends, and said goodbye to one old one()

I got an extra 5 neons, so now I've got 9 of those. I got 4 more danios to make 5. I would have gotten some more rasboras, but the only ones in town were way more than the usual price for them >_> I also found 2 more julii cats, 4 more peppered cats and 3 more of the weird spotted ones with the hoods. Now all I need is to hope that the one lone cory either buddies up into one of the other schools or that I can find some more of that variety in town. Right now all of the cories are sitting together in a corner of the big tank.

I also got about 14.something more pounds of sand. I dunno what the total ammount I've got in there is, but I think that makes it somewhere around 40 lbs, along with a bit of flourite and some gravel from the old tank that I'll sort through, find a few pretty pieces and put back in there. I still need to do a couple more water changes before the tank gets really nice too. It's still somewhat cloudy from the sand in both tanks being moved around. I also still need to sort through the decorations in there. I moved the plants and fake rock from the 20 gal. and kept the fake plants, the rock and the couple of pieces of driftwood from the 60 in there. There's too much on the bottom, so when it settles a bit I'll plant the live plants, figure out what decor I don't want in there and go from that.

[url=http://dragcave.ath.cx/viewdragon/bNFR][/url]

Thats awesome! I bet the tank is pretty colorful already.

I know people think many different kinds of small
fish together look "chaotic" but I disagree.
How the ocean must have looked amazingly chaotic with 80% more fish than are currently in there!

The ocean is alot bigger than a fish tank and there is room to have huge schools. In tanks, when people want many different types of schooling fish, usually there isn't enough room for big schools, and thats where it looks chaotic, when you have 6 of one type, 4 of another, 7 of one, and so on....

*Kristin*

Personally, I dont think that looks chaotic.
I may be weird, but I like to look at 5 of this and
6 of that and 9 of that.
Looks great.
And yes, the ocean is a lot bigger, but 100 years
ago, it had so much life in it, that our stocking in our
small aquariums would look like tiny bioloads in comparison.
At one time there was an average of 100,000-250,000 fish in each square mile of ocean.


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