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I am looking for suggestions on future tankmates. I have the following in my 55g community tank:

(2) Rainbow Fish
(2) Clown Loaches
(2) Salt & Pepper Cories
(4) Rummy Nose Tetra
(1) Rosy Barb

(2) Rainbow Fish
(2) Clown Loaches
(2) Salt & Pepper Cories
(4) Rummy Nose Tetra
(1) Rosy Barb

Hi there,
my first suggestion is to fix the numbers
of the schooling fish that are drastically
understocked.
I would up the Rummy nose tetras to 8,
the Clown loaches to 6, and the Corys
to at least 6.
That would be a good start.
Then you could have room for some more fish.
Maybe something like a trio of Keyholes
and a pair of Festivum,
or a group of Discus or something.


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I agree...up the schooling/shoaling fish first to make them happier. I would also add a few more rainbows as they are schooling fish too..as are the barbs.

So you are looking at:
4-6 Rainbows
4-6 Clown loaches
6-8 Cories
8 Rummynose tetras
6 Rosy Barbs

Then you have room for a centerpiece type fish or two. Along with the suggestions made above, other options are a pair of Apistogrammas, Bolivian or German Rams, or Kribensis. You could possibly add a pair of Angelfish, but I'm not sure if Rosy barbs are nippy or not. Discus could possibly be stressed by the very active rainbows.

After correcting your schooling numbers and adding a centerpiece fish/pair, you'll be at the stocking max IMO.

*Kristin*

I agree with GirlieGirl and So_Very_Sneaky. You need to fix the schooling numbers and also the CL requires a tank of at least 70g as they grow quite large.

10G- 6 Zebra Danios, 1 Upside Down Catfish
20G- 1 Goldfish
72G(maybe95)- Need Stock suggestions

Hi So_Very_Sneaky,

I've seen you suggested a trio of Key-holes more than once. I happen to have one key-hole in my 31G tank. Should I get another one to keep him happy? Also do I need to match the size, as most available in the LFS are much smaller than mine (around 3.5 inches)

Just took a look at your stocking.

First of all, the Clown Loaches. Clown Loaches will easily reach 12 inches in length in an aquarium, and in the wild, reach up to 18 inches - they're a food fish for the natives in Borneo! Consequently, these will, in the fullness of time, require a MUCH larger aquarium, an issue compounded by the fact that they like to be in groups. A 55 will be fine for the first two years of life, but after that, you're looking at rehousing. Personally, I would rehouse them NOW and free up space for other, less space-demanding fishes.

Second, the Rosy Barb. Again, a shoaling fish, and one that can reach 6 inches. I would rehouse this fish too, because Barbs that size can cause some interesting maintenance problems if you're not aware of some of their traits. The BIG problem with Barbs is that they are, basically, garbage compactors with fins. They have ravenous appetites, and if allowed to, will gorge upon whatever food you supply. This in turn leads to them passing partially digested waste out the back end, which in turn leads to increased loading on your biological filtration system. If you're not aware of this, and make the mistake of letting chunky Barbs of this and larger size stuff themselves to bursting point, this can impact upon your biological filter severely. To make life easier, I'd suggest rehousing the Rosy Barb to remove a further complication from your system.

Third, when you say you have Rainbow Fishes, exactly which species of Rainbow Fish do you have? Because there's over 50 species of Rainbow Fish to choose from! Go here, look at the list of scientific names along the left hand side, and click on each until you find the one that looks like your fishes. Then let us know which one you have. Because this will also have something of an impact upon your future stocking, depending upon whether your Rainbow fishes are fairly small ones or whether they're big ones.

Once these issues have been addressed, the next step is your Corys. If your Corys are in fact the genuine "Salt and Pepper Cory" , namely Corydoras habrosus, then you need to boost their numbers quickly. ALL Corydoras prefer to be in groups of their own species, and the usual number quoted is a minimum of 6 individuals of any one species. However, the smaller Corydoras species, namely habrosus, hastatus, pygmaeus, cochui and panda, are more avowedly social than the larger Corys, and need a minimum of 8, preferably more. If the fun and frolics I have with my 14 Pandas is anything to go by, then I would say that even bigger numbers are in order, and in a 55, you DEFINITELY have room for 12 habrosus along with the other suggestions I'm about to make!

Once you have a decent number of habrosus Corys, the next item is your Rummy Nosed Tetras. Build up the numbers to 12. You have space for 12 of those in a 55 along with the other fishes. You will not regret putting together a big shoal of Rummies, because they'll reward you by being much more outgoing and sparkling colour wise than if you only keep small numbers. In a big shoal, they end up looking as though their heads are carved from solid ruby! Watch out when acquiring new Rummies though, because Rummies are very sensitive to transport shock. Ask your LFS to bag them so that there are no more than 4 in each bag, then transport them in total darkness till you get home - either wrap the bags in newspaper to cut out the light, or put the bags in a container that shuts out the light. When you get them home, expose them to daylight gradually to minimise shock, and transfer them to the aquarium with the lights OUT. Don't put the lights back on until they've settled in for at least 3 hours, preferably more. Best thing to do is pick them up as late in the day as you can, acclimatise them carefully through the evening, then let them spend a whole night in darkness while they come round. Next morning, at "lights on", they should be displaying a nice red face signalling that they're happy. At that point, drop in some live Daphnia or live Bloodworm, and you should end up with a nice robust shoal of Rummies that will sparkle in your aquarium for the next 6 to 8 years.

Once you've addressed the Corys and the Rummies, now is the time to add more Rainbow Fishes. If they're big ones such as bosemani, you should aim for 6 maximum. If they're a smaller species (for example, mccullochi) then you can have 8 or maybe 10.

At this point, you're ready to consider other fishes.

In a 55, you will have enough space for quite a selection of interesting companions for your shoals. For example, you could go with a pair of peaceful Cichlids. And before you look at me as though I've stepped out of a flying saucer with green antennae on my head, yes, there ARE such things as peaceful Cichlids! Two favourites of mine that are WELL worth checking out and which I keep pushing here because they're FAR superior in many respects to the typical Cichlids choices offered to the unwary aquarist are:

Flag Cichlid, Laetacara curviceps
Thomas's Cichlid, Anomalochromis thomasi

These two Cichlid species (the first South American, the second a West African riverine species that likes the same kind of water as your Rummies) are both about as close as you will get to 'pacifist' Cichlids. They are excellent in a community setup, FAR easier to integrate with typical community fishes than Kribs or Rams, and have many other virtues into the bargain - they have superb colours when courting (in the case of the thomasi, this species is covered in lots of iridescent spangles), make excellent parents, do not dig or destroy plants, and do not beat up other aquarium occupants. In fact, if you get a pair of either of these fishes, you will wonder why dealers persist in selling more aggressive fishes when these two are absolute paragons of civilised behaviour in comparison!

If you don't want Cichlids, then you could run with Labyrinth Fishes. And again, I'm going to encourage you to seek out an unusual one. Betta imbellis is known as the Peaceful Betta. Why? Simple - it doesn't fight. You can put a male and two females in there and they'll behave themselves. They grow to about the same size as the more usual Betta splendens, but are easier to integrate into a community setup. In fact, you'll find that they are, again, superior to many of the trade staple Labyrinth Fish species in many respects, and again, you'll end up wondering WHY the trade staples are offered for sale when there are far better choices available for community setups. Failing that, I would try and seek out the Honey Gourami as being a nice, small, relatively innocuous Gourami species (at 2 inches it won't be a major load on your filter) and whose males are utterly gorgeous. Get a male and 3 females, and you could soon see the patter of tiny fins.

Finally, get yourself 6 Otocinclus algae eaters. Again, nice and small, and if acclimatised with care, could be a feature of your aquarium for the best part of a decade. One of mine lived for over 9 years in my aquarium. Plus, Otocinclus are diligent workers that will munch happily on algae and won't turn big and nasty like CAEs (whoever called that fish the "Chinese Algae Eater" should be locked in a padded cell ).

With the stocking recommendations above, you will end up with an aquarium that looks spectacular, and above all is fairly easy to maintain. The stocking will be fairly light in a 55, and thus give you room for manouevre later on if you decide you want to take on some more demanding fishes.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002