Ideas/advice for my 5ft Setup

Just to comment on Vis' post, be aware that Tiger barbs and Gold Tiger barbs are both aggressive fin nippers. They will go for fins even if they are short finned!

Regards
G!

 

Hi Big G

Seems that the tiger barbs are a bit more restraint in a group.
Fin nipping is more a problem if there are only a few.
But then again you never know how fish will react in an
environment.

Seen a few barbs together in a tank and they seemed Ok towards each
other.

But do keep in mind that its a possibility.

 

Ja, that is supposed to be the case, but in my experience, it didn't matter how many there were, fin nipping still occured.

As you say though, each environment will produce its own 'consequences'

Regards
G!

 

Another thing. Is Barbs not [FONT=&quot]alkalophiles? In other words, they prefer alkaline environments, like cichlids. I am referring to azurekoi's selection. I did a bit of googling on it now, but it seems to not really be a factor.
[/FONT]

 

@ Tom.K - we sometimes stare ourselves blind against pH and hardness... most of our fish are highly adaptable to water parameters,having been bred and kept for countless generations in the hobby....
We regularly land shipments of wildcaught Amazonian fish/tetras in Gauteng with its hard water,with slow aclimitization allmost all of these guys make it from the LFS to the hobbyists home aquarium...

Yes,obviously any species will be much happier in a system that aproximates its natural conditions best,but that does not mean we should not keep a certain species "just because the book sez so"...


Loved reading some of the other sugestions - seems we have a lot of Faves in common @Vis and @Big G...lol

 

Just don't mention the Gobies! Hehe!

G!

 

Gobies? Anybody say Gobies? Where? What kind? Where'd you gettem? are they Hypseleotris? Big lol!!!

O.K - we all have our faves(think all of you now my predeliction for the goby family) - but yeah @WaRnOOb - if you lucky enough to find some interesting freshwater goby...why not add them as well - can promise you their antics will provide many an hour of fascinating watching....he,he

 

Just to add my 2c about tiger barbs, I started with 5, they where terrible fin nippers and where very aggressive, I got another 5 and was sitting with a school 10 however they still were very aggressive and all my other fish which where larger then them went into hiding and that was that.

The tiger barbs where still small, so not wanting to wait for them to grow any larger and pose a real threat I moved them out of the community tank. I don't think tiger barbs are worth the risk in a community tank.

 

i think a person can pull it off IF you provide them within the CORRECT TYPE OF COMMUNITY, bearing in mind that tiger barbs are known to be semi aggressive so you should know what you getting yourself into when you choose them for a community tank.

it woud be important to make you sure that you house them in the correct numbers and with other semi aggressive tankmates, such as silver tip tetras, serpae tetras, red eye tetras, buenos aeries tetras or any number of other semi aggressive fish. housing them with more peaceful fish would certainly cause problems i would aggree tho. so fish selection would be important here if you want to make it work. but you can make it work.

personally i have found that a semi-aggressive tank just seems so much more active and busy, especially if you can house them in large enough numbers.

 

I wish I knew that when starting out, hehe never listening to LFS again. oh well now I have happy discus instead

 

Rosy Barbs are relatively pleasant, barring when you stick your arm in to clean the tank, they nip at the soft spots on my arm and they really do make it sting...

Other than that they leave my other fish alone.

 

I always like to do a couple of larger "show" fish. Some kissing gouramis would look awesome just make sure you feed them properly. Then I would fill in the different levels Sterbai corys for the bottom about 50 different types of tetra in schools of 20 or so. Though you might need to revise the number of tetras depending on their size. if you can find proper SAEs they are always nice to have. My advice is always to stick with a few species and get the biggest school possible

 

Hi all,

Cleaned my tank yesterday, looking brand new again. lol.. even vacuumed the inside to get rid of every single last grain of sand and drop of water.. lol.

Anyhow, getting excited about the tank and what I can do with it now.

Thanks so much for all the info and ideas, I'll be sure to do some research.

Just a quick question..

I saw these beautiful dwarf gourami's (think that's what they were labled as) at a LPS just now.. how does one keep these, can they be mixed with tetras, etc, etc?

Just have a look:

 

Hi Warnoob

Yeah,Dwarf Gouramis are great little fish - just make sure they are healthy.... Most of the ones we get in LPS's come from the East and are raised in anti biotic conditions... they have very little immunity to anything...

 

OK how about swopping the tiger barbs for ruby barbs then?