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First off, I'd like to say HI to everyone who's been here all the while I've been "gone" from FP ... life's been quite full.

So here's the thing. I have a 29 gallon tank that has been problematic at best. I recently decided to start over with the tank as I was battling a green hair algae problem for quite a while. The tank's at work so I would get it under control and then have to go away for a business trip and when I would return it would be as bad as ever ...

Looking for stocking ideas for a "low maintenance" tank. The water here tends to go to a low Ph (6.5) so hard-water fish are out. The tank is undergoing a fishless cycle so I have a couple of weeks to decide.

Thanks and it's good to be back!

I'm assuming by low maintenance you mean non-planted and will rely on either rock work, driftwood or plastic plants as the aquascaping.

You could go with a single angel fish, a school of say 8-10 cardinals and a school of some type of cory's for the bottom clean up.

All of these fish are low Ph compatible and would make a nice display also.

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

Actually, I think it'd be easier to do a planted low-maintenence tank than anything else. Use ADA substrate or eco-complete, use lots of wood, crypts and java ferns. Create a hardscape, tie the ferns to the wood and plant the different crypts around the base of the wood etc. Use your imagination. Get some kind of lighting in the 1.5ish WPG range. Don't stock too heavily. Get some Amano shrimp, a few otos, and large school of something small, say 15 or so small rasboras or neons etc. The big thing is, plant heavily from the start. Lots of ferns, lots of crypts, not a lot of light. Then the other big thing - no water changes, not weekly, maybe once every month or so. The idea is to keep CO2 low and constant - fluctuating CO2 can lead to various algae blooms, especially BBA. Plants will grow slow but they will grow - they'll take a lot of nutrition from the substrate - and algae should be kept to a minimum so long as you don't disturb the bottom.

For more info see Here

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Back in the saddle!

You're low PH shouldn't stop you keeping hard water fish. In fact it simply means you can keep fish from just about any PH range.

Raising the PH is a lot easyer than lowering it, simply use a lot of calcium based rocks and watch you're PH skyrocket.

You could probably have some kind of rift lake set up in that tank and as long as you kept the stocking down you'd be able to do it with relitavely low maintenance.

Having said that, if you do have low PH water you could always take advantage of that and keep some of the more colourfull fish that appreciate lower PH, i'll give you a list of examples when i finish work.

Failing that i'm sure Cali will find this thread and give you about 10x as many suggestions

Hey thanks ... actually I've been thinking of the "low maint." heavily planted tank for awhile ... The tank already has some gravel (from prev. setup) and some rocks for hiding places. I'll add some eco or fluorite (or maybe even plain soil) and heavily plant the tank before I stock it.