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i am looking for suggestions for a surface dwelling fish for our main tank. we have lost all but 3 of the danios we had for cycling the tank and everything else we have in there seems to dwell towards the bottom of the tank (even the barbs and tetras are never more than a few inch from the bottom) so most of the time so the upper regions of the water seem quite bare.
the tank is fairly heavily planted at the back with open swimming space at the front.
current stock of the tank can be seen on my profile.
water conditions are as follows
ammonia 0ppm
nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 10-20ppm
temp 25c
gh 12
kh 3

any suggestions appreciated

Of my fish, the redeye tetras are always at the top. They seem to like to just school and hang out somewhere near the surface and not really go anywhere else.
They don't seem to like a very strong current though, so that might be something to keep in mind depending on your own setup.

good point you borught up there and something that mmight effect peoples suggestions, there is quite a strong current in the tank

My Red flame gourami always is on top, and the opalines as well. Strangest thing that my bronze cory's always are swimming closer to the top as well.

Gouramis tend to dislike high current and come from mostly still waters which is why they can breathe air from the surface. Less water movement=less dissolved oxygen.
Why not just increase the stocking of the danios? Danios prefer a group of at least 6 fish. A potential problem I see is that the danios I had were always so hyper they'd stress out even the tetras in the tank making them hide or at least scatter away from the danios. They might be the reason your tetras hang out along the bottom. It would be best to either finish the danio school or return them.

Last edited by sham at 08-Sep-2005 15:45

as much as i have enjoyed the danios i have no intention to replace and will just allow the last 3 to live out thier days in the tank, we wabt to try something different as more young and hyper danios would just be far too much for the discus to cope with.

How about hatchetfish?

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

wendy isnt too keen on hatchets, i was thinking maybe some type of rainbow, maybe dwarf or threadfin? would they stay towards the surface and be ok with discus?

i had some dwarf rainbows and they stayed mostly in the middle

My threadfins use all of my 90g. They are usually somewhere near the middle but swim in a loose school across the tank and up or down depending what catches their attention. They actually schooled better when I had 6 instead of 9. Now they are much more spread out covering alot of the tank at once. My tetras though have also always used all of the tank and gone near the top quite frequently except for when the danios kept divebombing my congo school. No danios will ever touch my tanks' water again.

Have you thought of a killifish. Golden wonder killies are not too hard to find, and they are beautiful when settled into a tank. The more elaborate killifish are stunning, but harder to find.

You also need to get your nitrate levels down as they are too high for tetras and some other fish. Try some splashing tetras, they are stunningly beautiful and stay at the top, they go really nicely in groups of 3 or 4.

nitrates are being brought down to a target of 10ppm by alternate day water changes and the addition of more plants, so that is under control.

"splashing tetras" what are they? i have never seen them and cant find any info on them, do they have another name or can you give me the scientific name?

Last edited by hembo666 at 10-Sep-2005 15:28

"Splash tetra" is the common name for them, but you may be able to find more information under the scientific name, Copella arnoldi.

A link: [link=http://
www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=214]http://
www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=214[/link]

Hopefully that will help you out some.

In my experience though, they hang around the middle area of the tank more than the surface.

Last edited by sirbooks at 10-Sep-2005 21:07

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

my bloodfin tetras stay at the top most of the time. When I added them to my tank all of the other fish became much more active and my neons actually started hanging out toward the top as well.