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Ok, now that I am gettign the tanks cleaned out. I need some ideas as to what I should put in them. The tank is going to be in our basement and it is more for my husband than anything. Here is what I was thinking we would put in the tank. I know its probably pushing the numbers a touch but if I do it slowly it might not be bad.

1 bristlenose pleco (he is a must!)
5-6 small cories
5-6 Von Rio Tetras
5-6 Glass Catfish

Tell me what you guys think. Any suggestions or alterations, I am always open to suggestions.

I will post pics of the tank once I get it set up.

Make sure you have some plants in the tank and you're good I think. The numbers are pushing it a bit, but you're planning small fish which won't have as much of a bioload, especially if you stick with the smaller species of cories (panda bandit ect). Make sure you don't get dyed or colored glass cats.

If you only have the standard bulbs on the tank stick with low light plants that go on driftwood like javafern. It's pretty easy to grow and the leaves will look good contrasted against the red of the von rios.



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That is what I was hoping to hear. I knew it was pushing the numbers a bit, but like you said, I was going for small fish so it makes it ok to push the envelope just a bit. I would NEVER buy the dyed fish. I told my husband that was not gonna happen because its cruel. I am very excited! I haven't had a tank up in a couple years! Any other tips would be appreciate as well.

Glad to hear it! It makes my bloodpressure skyrocket every time I see the dyed ones in the shops. Even more when you see people looking at them!

Just the usual, stock slowly, and carry a big net. No wait, just stock slowly. Since you've got a plec, make sure you've got some driftwood for him to rasp on.

Add some Cycle if you can, it really does help. We had a filter running on an established tank to switch over to a newly set up tank, had some trouble till I convinced thehusband to just get some Cycle in the tank as well.


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I completely agree! My husband thought they looked neat. I said "NO WAY!!!" Its horrible what they do to those poor guys! We put 6 danios in the tank after used some "Aquastart"? I think thats what its called. Anyway, they are doing just fine. I have one concern though. I have EXTREMELY hard water. It also had a pH of like 8.5. I bought some jugs of water to help dilute it. It helped but the water is so hard to begin with it actually dropped it low enough for the tester kit to register it. Should I just break down and buy a R/O kit to help clean my water because buying water once a month for tank changes for a 55 gal (I forgot to mention we decided to use the 55 gal for this set up instead)tank is gonna get pricey real fast, and that is money I could be spending on other fun stuff for the tank... like fish to live in it.

oh they'll look 'neat' to people that don't know that it's not natural.

That is really hard water. IMO it's always best to get fish that match the water, rather than making the water match the fish. In which case you're going to want to look at africans. Not all are aggressive and get big, luckily most of them are pretty brightly colored without having to have an acid bath!. You may have trouble finding them in your area though. I did a quick look at the profiles section and narrowed the search results by african here's one. What I remember from when I was looking at 10 gallon options a lot of the Neolamprologus tended to stay on the smaller side. They like shells for spawning and living in so you'll have to find a bunch of them plus some good looking rockwork.

Since you do have other tanks it might be worth it for you to break down and break the bank and get the R/O unit. If it was me I'd just do the easy thing and match the fish to the water though!


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Africans in the 55 woudl be fine but I am planning on setting up a 30 gal SW FOWLR soon and I am going to need to get my water under control for that anyway. I am pretty sure my hubby would be ok with the Africans but I don't think the SW fish would get used to the hard water. I am going to look on ebay and see what I can find for a r/o tank. I am also going to test water in some different parts of our house. The source I got the water from was an unused faucet in our basement so that might have had soemthing to do with it. I will let you know what we decide. The danios are still doing well so jsut goes to show you how incredibly hardy those guys are!

Ok, we may not have to get an R/O kit after sll. I did some water checks. We have one of those Brita water pitcers. It makes the water pretty much perfect when we put it through that. We will just get another one of those and designate it for tank water only. That is much cheaper than an R/O kit. I am going to get a more precise test kit soon. I just got the kind with the test strips for now. Then I will see how things pan out as far as water quality goes.

hmmm never thought of using a brita for water changes, you might be on to something there. One of the on tap systems make be easier for you though. Had one back in the states, easy enough to switch back and forth between filtered and normal tap water. Also, depending on how old the plumbing is in your house running the tap for a while may be a good idea. I know my parents house needed to have the water run for a few minutes before it got the metallic taste out of the water, they're on a well.

Done right, I've seen some african tanks that can rival a SW FOWLR set up. Not trying to keep you from going to the dark side mind you (yes, yes I am ).

Never really liked the paper dip strips.


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Well, we got one of the filters that go on the tap but we bought a different brand and it is not filtering the water near as well as the brita. I love our brita pitcher. I think I may return it and buy a brita brand faucet attached one. Try testing your water if you have one. It really does make a difference. I don't know why I didn't think of trying that a while back. Maybe it is a trend I can start...

Well on another note this is what I have thought up so far
We are still working on plants and other decorations because my hubby has an idea for the design that is taking us a while to find pieces that suit it.
The current tank occupants.

6 Long Finned Danios (These guys might be moving to a new tank I am setting up in a couple weeks.)
4 Scissortail Rasboras (There were only 4 left when we went to Petsmart)
8 Ghost Shrimp

We are going to add 6 Ghost Catfish and some more Ghost Shrimp today.

We are trying to decide what else to put in it.

Do you have the LF danios already or are you getting them?

Don't be surprised if the ghost shrimp become snacks, my baby gold bars took care of mine in pretty quick order.

You can start with 4 rasboras and get more if you find more in the stores, I find them to be pretty good tight schoolers, although it could just be our aggressive male sword teasing them .

We tend to use rainwater for our tanks, and our town water is pretty neutral but I'll run some tests just out of curiosity.


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