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Hello everyone,

It's been quite some time since I posted on here. I've been very successful with keeping cichlids in a 125-gallon And I kept a couple nano-reef tanks but am no longer a saltwater enthusiast.

Now I'm thinking of setting up my unused 75-gallon as a community/tetra tank. Would you please give your opinions on what types of tetras and quantities I could keep? I like the looks of lemon tetras and cardinal tetras, so would like to incorporate them into the plan. I also adore cory cats, too. Please consider the below information, though, in your recommendations because I do have a challenge with hard water and high pH. In fact, I'd really appreciate if those with experience with tetras/corys in similar water parameters could tell me if they've been successful, and which species are more adaptable.

* My fishkeeping skills are pretty high and I'm good about water changes and tank/filtration maintenance.
* Filtration will be a Filstar XP3 filter.
* Water is from a well, not a municipal supply. Even after going through a water softener, GH ppm is 150 (Hard), Alkalinity is high at 300, and pH is 8.4.
* Tank will not have live plants to start, but I might switch over gradually to the "easier keepers" in the future. Artifial plants will have to suffice for now.


I appreciate everyone's feedback, so thank you in advance! I really don't care to spend money just to kill a fish, so I'm prepared to scrap this new tank set-up idea altogether if the experts say tetras can't be kept in these conditions.

Thanks!

I do not think that ceeping either lemons or cardinals are a good idea because both of them come from the amazon where the water is acidic instead of hard. You could try livebearers maybe?

-Vincent

Ok.............. I'm not an experienced fish keeper.............. but I have had experience with my own tank since this summer & it is similar to yours. I am on very hard well water also. I wanted neons & other fish that like softer water. So, before I joined FP I got a bottle of water neutralizer to make my tank neutral. I got 6 neons & they all shortly died except for 1. I also got other fish. You can check my profile.

I read that most of the fish we get, even though their ancestors were from softer water, these other fish we buy are raised in harder water, therefore we can leave our water hard & they won't have to go through a PH shock change. I let my water go back to hard & got more neons. They all lived. My tank is just natural hard well water now. Weather this will shorten the life span of my fish, I don't know. That's a debatable subject maybe. But they all look happy & healthy to me.............even the cories.
So.............. that is my side of the story!
..................................
I have a thread on here where we discussed this very subject not long ago. If you go to search & type in "ph debate" it will come up & you can read what a lot of opinions are, Have fun!

Another hard water well guy here. I used to have some Serpae Tetras and X-Ray Tetras and they did fine in my hard water. It was later that they had a conflict with a Pictus cat that grew big enough to eat them. I had to get rid of them, but they were happy! Fish Patty has a point. I agree to a certain point that most store bought fish are raised under varying water conditions at various stages before they get to the buyer. They tend to be tougher than a wild caught fish. Good Luck!

"Talk is cheap. Action can be almost as affordable"

Lemons and Cardinals are surprisingly adaptable from the standpoint of maintenance. It's breeding that generally requires more stringent conditions. Cardinals will NEVER breed in hard, alkaline water, and while Lemons are more adaptable in this respect, chances are you would have to find some that had been bred for generations in water similar to your own if you wanted them to spawn at any time.

People have said repeatedly in posts in other threads on these forums that stability counts for more than parameters nailed to a specific number. To a certain extent, this is true, but only if the fishes in question have been raised in water that is similar to yours to begin with. If you obtain fishes that have been raised in water that is markedly dissimilar to yours, then you're going to have an acclimatisation problem from the word go. Consequently, you need to check the parameters in force at the dealer's before making a choice, and if possible, the parameters that the fishes were raised in before they arrived at the dealer's.

One factor that you will have to take into account is that high levels of Calcium ions in the water will count against you if you intend to choose certain species, and have even a passing thought about them breeding. The species that springs to mind here is the Rummy Nosed Tetra - while it will, if acclimatised with care, live in hard, alkaline water, this isn't good for it because it has recently been established scientifically that high Calcium ion concentrations results in sterility in the Rummy Nosed Tetra! It's not that they won't breed, what stops them is a biochemical mechanism that renders them unable to breed if they're kept in hard water. While Rummies are probably unusual in this regard, it's worth checking the scientific literature to see if this phenomenon has since been discovered in other species. I suspect Cardinals and Neons may fall into the category of fishes that exhibit this sensitivity too.

If you're interested purely in maintenance, you have a fairly wide choice of fishes that have been domesticated. Lemons fall within this remit. Possible other choices include Red Phantoms, Black Phantoms, Pristellas, Flame Tetras, and at a push you could probably include Head & Tail Lights, Garnet Tetras and Rosy Tetras. I'm restricting my choices to small fishes here despite the fact you have a 75, because with a 75, if you stick to small fishes, you could have BIG shoals. Which, when you see them in action, will blow your socks off.

Because I'm more fortunate water wise than you, and have water supplies much more closely geared to these fishes, I would, if blessed with your empty 75, set about creating a giant version of my Panda Fun Palace - 30 Cardinals and 30 Pandas, which would leave me space for something like 30 Rosy or Lemon Tetras too. That setup would be a BLAST.

Now in your case, I'd choose somewhat less sensitive Corys than Pandas given your water - go for something that's been domesticated long term and is more likely to tolerate your "challenging" water parameters. If you do, go with a decent sized group - say 12 Bronze or Peppered Corys. This will still give you a decent latitude for your Tetra shoals.

If you're looking for something a bit bigger and more spectacular, then you could run with Congo Tetras in a 75. Which may - however, I emphasise here may, it's something you should consider as experimental - adapt to your water. Given the price of those things, if you don't fancy the risk that an experimental acclimatisation to your water won't work, give them a miss. Unless you can find some that you KNOW have been raised in water similar to yours (yes, I'mback to provenance again!) and have thrived, you might want to look elsewhere.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Hi again, everyone. Hope those of you in the US have had a nice holiday week. I appreciate everyone's opinions. I have decided not to go the route of the 75 gallon, and instead have set up my unused 20-long. With a small tank, I will be able to use RO water to achieve appropriate parameters for the tetras and also enjoy more plant varieties than I could with the hard water. I just didn't want to risk large (expensive!) schools of tetras and corys that might do poorly in our well water, and there's no way I can easily do RO on a 75-gallon tank.

I've had biowheel filter hooked up for a while to my established cichlid tank for a fishless cycle, and just recently introduced a group of 12 cardinal tetras and a set of plants to the tank. These cardinals came from pretty hard water at the chain petstore in town, so I took quite some time aclimatizing them to the soft, slightly acidic RO water. So far everyone appears to be very happy and they are eating bloodworms like champs. I did have a couple losses, but I fear that's to be expected when getting Cardinals from these larger chainstores. I cringed while watching the store employee bashing the fish around with the net and carelessly overturning the plastic decorations in the holding tank.

Anyway - I have a shipment of "easy life" plants coming from Arizona Gardens tomorrow, and will wait another couple weeks and then see about a group of cory cats. And then that should do it.

I'm really fortunate to be able to take seeded gravel and filter material from my cichlid tank if worse comes to worse and I get a cycle spike. But so far so good!

Thanks to all, and wish me luck!

Kendra

Well...................people always seem to surprise me.

Good luck with your new tank!

I wouldn't blame the chain store for your cardinal deaths. I would blame the ph change. They don't like that. Like I said............. when I put 6 neons into neutral water, 5 died. Later when I put 8 neons into my hard well water, all lived.

I know what you mean about the employees terrorizing the fish! I cringe every time also, the way they needlessly chase them around. I guess fish catching takes practice. Last time I went with someone & they wanted a couple of guppies. The guy takes a net & starts hitting the water! (first time I'd seen that!) He did it a bunch of times & I was about to ask why he was doing that, when I heard him say, "get down, get down!" Then he asked what fish this guy I was with wanted, when all the fish were going nuts swimming around crazily cause he had got them all stirred up! >:

Anyway.............. when you get bored with with your 20 gal., I have a suggestion. Go ahead & set up your 75 gal. with your well water & add just a few tetras & a few cories. When you see how well they do............ you will add more & soon you will have a nice tank with lots of happy fish! If it's anything like mine anyway! Just the other day I saw a couple glolights zooming around the tank like crazy! It looked like a mating thing to me & I could have sworn I even saw them actually spawning! And they are only supposed to do that in soft water. But there were even fish around the area afterwards acting as if they were eating things off the bottom. (like eggs?)

Anyway, if for some odd reason it doesn't work out for you, if you only bought a few fish to begin with, you won't loose much money. But since it's worked for me, I'd say at least give it a try!

Hey Fish Patty - Thanks for your encouragement. And wow! Congrats to you on what sounds like a very successful setup in your tank!

I did test the chain store water. And I think you're onto something. I saw a group of cardinals at a small LFS that is generally known for very good quality and has been in business for 30+ years. The cardinals were in neutral pH water, the employees made sure to point out the water requirements to me, etc. But these cardinals were not doing well at all... a few dead in the filter intake, etc. I went to the big chainstore and their cardinals were active, brightly colored, fat, and thriving. (I know they had been there at least 2 weeks because I had been eyeballing them as candidates for my tank.) And they were in water as bad as mine, per my test strips. So I shrug my shoulders. At least at that point I knew to acclimate them for a considerable amount of time. Of course the chain store employee said I could just "dump them in" to my tank since our water temps were the same. HAHAHA!!! Bless them!

You know how it is with multiple tanks and "bigger is better" syndrome in fish keeping. I'm sure at some point I'll drag out that 75 gallon. Meanwhile, it's cozy in the barn. But part of the 20 gallon logic is also because I really want to try my hand at planted aquarium. I'm trying all of this on a smaller scale before I drop mega-bucks into populating a larger tank. I'm stunned at how much I've spent already. It's easy to forget that just because you have tank/filtration/gravel, etc., doesn't mean you don't still drop mega bucks on fish and plants. Eeek! I'm REALLY glad I'm not trying to stock the 75 right now. Maybe some day when I'm rich! Or maybe I'll be very successful with my 20-long and have lots of plant cuttings (and perhaps some surviving fry???) to start populating the 75-gallon with! The plants are coming from the easy-life package, so they should do just ok in hard water, too!

But don't worry... as soon as I get that bug to try the big tank, I'll be posting with all my updates and progress.

Kendra

Yes, once a fish has acclimatised to a given set of water parameters, chances are it will be better off remaining with those water parameters during intiial acclimatisation, with a slow migration toward different parameters being the way forward if you want to breed fussy fishes that won't breed in the existing water. So don't worry TOO much about your parameters being 'wrong' to start with if your initial stock has been raised in the same or similar water, and consider a migration to alternative parameters over a period of time ONLY if you're thinking of breeding fussy fishes such as Cardinals. If you're not thinking of breeding those fishes, or you're thinking of taking on board species with less demanding breeding requirements (e.g., Lemons, Rosies, Silver Tips) then you have less work ahead of you.

The fishes I would AVOID if you're thinking of breediing Tetras for the moment are:

Neons
Cardinals
Rummy Nose Tetras
Black Neons
Ornate Tetras
Bleeding Hearts

Fishes that are more adaptable and more likely to spawn in your existing water when they are happy include:

Lemons
Rosy Tetras
Silver Tips
Flame Tetras
Serpaes (though these are evil, mippy so and sos)
Pristellas

All of the above have been domesticated for generations (Lemons were first spawned back in the 1930s for example) so they'll present you with fewer issues. Rummies are BIG problem fishes for breeding, even more so in some respects than Neons and Cardinals, because they become sterile in hard water, and even if you manage to persuade the parents to spawn, the fry are a pain to raise because they're the slowest growing of ALL popular Characin fry. Rummies are definitely a hardcore breeding challenge. Neons and Cardinals are also well known for their specialised requirements (i.e., total darkness for the eggs) and Rummies too prefer dim lighting for their breeding aquaria.

Among the "intermediate" species that could work are:

Head & Tail Lights
Garnet Tetras

These can be a bit of a challenge spawning wise, but again they've been reasonably well domesticated, so will present fewer problems than the 'hardcore' challenges.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002