Suggestions for a FW setup?

doublette · #1 08-09-2006, 11:20 PM

Have you thought about Rainbowfish? They swim at all levels of the tank, are active, not shy and most of all - beautiful fish! We have some Banded Rainbows (Melanotaenia trifasciata), Boesemani (Melanotaenia boesemani) and New Guinea Reds (Glossolepis incisus) in our 135G with a pleco, clown loaches and balas.
As for decorating...very interesting things can also be done with driftwood and maybe a fake plant or two.
Debbie

SeaHorse_Fanatic · #2 08-09-2006, 11:33 PM

Yes, I love my Rainbowfish too. I have Red Irians, Bosemannis, Turquoise & Neon Dwarfs. I also have a small school of Long fin Rosy Barbs & Congo Tetras. These are all nice, colourful fish that should go well with what you already have.

Anthony

Cap'n · #3 08-10-2006, 02:59 AM

The large clown loaches are going to make it difficult to keep smaller schooling fish. I like the ideas of rainbowfish and especially the silver dollars. Add in a pair of severums and you have a similar setup to the one I am planning to change my tanganyikan tank to.

What about a pair of firemouth cichlids? Not the school you were thinking of but they would go great with the loaches and would be very visible.

Delphinus · #4 08-10-2006, 08:23 PM

Cool, thanks for the suggestions. yeah, maybe "schooling" isn't quite what I meant, I meant something that "doesn't sit on the bottom and hide all day long".

Midgetwaiter, I keep my temp around 23. I didn't realize that the two loaches were incompatible (at least in the water temps they prefer). You can tell that the butterfly loach likes fast flow. I dunno, I've had this guy at least 5 years or so now. I haven't a clue what he eats, never comes out for food, but I see him at night darting about. I kind of wonder if I did go to a cleaner setup whether he'd have a harder time, maybe he's subsisting on the cyanoslime I get growing on my plants all the time.

Yeah, I know my loaches are pretty wee all things considered. They are pretty comical fish, it's too bad they make keeping any kind of snail impossible. Every now and again I'll throw some excess snails out of my outdoor pond barrell into the tank for them to go nuts on. Kinda mean to the snails I guess but there are hundreds of them in that barrell anyhow, they hitchhiked in on some cattails, the cattails never lived through the winter but the snails sure did.

midgetwaiter · #5 08-10-2006, 11:16 PM

That's a comfortable temp for the butterfly but lower than most people keep clown loaches. A big part of that is that the clowns seem to resist ich better at those temps and being scale less and wild caught that's always a bonus. If you aren't having trouble though don't mess with it.

StirCrazy · #6 08-11-2006, 01:03 AM

First, you should find the clown loaches a new home as that tank is way to small for them.. at that age they should be 12 to 14" long, but all that aside why not fix the problem for the live plants instead of scrapping them? got to be some reason why they don't do well.

Steve

Delphinus · #7 08-11-2006, 04:10 AM

If someone could tell me what I was doing wrong for the plants, I'd be all over it. Seriously, I've given this a go for a few years now, it's just degrades way too fast. I've tried CO2, no CO2, more light, less light, more flow, less flow, more fertilizer, no fertilizer, etc. etc. etc. etc. When I ask people for advice on how they keep their FW setups top-notch, usually I get vague answers like "oh I don't really do much."

All things considered, I'd rather have the loaches than the plants anyhow.

12" to 14" long at 5-6 years? Ok they're not that big yet but they're big .. and growing still ... agreed they need a bigger tank, but that's sort of why I was wondering if say a 48" 50g would be a better choice than say a 36" 65g (Ok maybe I didn't come out and ask that specifically yet, but I am now, wouldn't a 50g but 48" tank be better than a 65g but 36" tank? Given that I don't want to go heavier than say 70g total water volume in the spot the tank occupies.)

midgetwaiter · #8 08-11-2006, 08:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

First, you should find the clown loaches a new home as that tank is way to small for them.. at that age they should be 12 to 14" long, but all that aside why not fix the problem for the live plants instead of scrapping them? got to be some reason why they don't do well.

12 to 14 is pushing it a bit, I think his are a pretty resonable size. IME clowns don't get up to that foot size until about 8 or 9 years

As far as the plant issues go, what were you using as substrate? Plants just don't thrive in sand or gravel, a nice planted tank is setup with that in mind using a loam mixture or something like eco complete right from the get go.