Need help populating a 500 Gallon Freshwater Tank

[J.Mcpeak]

The mbu and the South American puffer colomesus are freshwater.
As for plecs, they don't all need wood! The genus Panaque and panaquolus are obligate wood eaters, many are omnivorous, some are strict vegetarian.
Although most rasp on wood it is considered that the wood fibres are coincidentally ingested in search for the actual food preference.
Pseudacanthicus, Leporacanthicus, Scobinancistrus are typically carnivorous.
The type of tooth or combinations of tooth type is THE clue as to what your plec will most likely eat.

Edit. Looks like acrylic tank to me.
Pictures of the drainage and pump show the white cover film, this is not normally applied to glass stock sheets.

 

[Worthington]

Hey Guys,

Quick Update. Had a very good guy from a high end store stop by and look everything over. He said the tank was cycled and that levels were fine. No3 was a little high, but not dangerous yet and we would address before it became a problem.

He suggested picking up two FX4s to make things easier and they arrived today -will be installed by the end of the week.

We picked up a larger pleco which we were going to use in our 1500 gallon water feature outside but parked him in the tank "temporarily" then realized he's probably going to be impossible to get out of the tank lol.

Going to pick up a school of tetras, he told us that if we get them early on while the tank is new to everyone and they are younger that they will see the tetras as fishmates. However if we add some later on down the road, those will get eaten and as soon as they realize they are food, rest are in trouble. That noted, we will be picking up a school of those tonight and likely 4-5 sharks (not sure which kind yet).

Here's some recent photos of the tank:

https://goo.gl/photos/5aLja6KhQacNBztQ7

 

[Worthington]

Just posted with a link but it won't be up until approved.

In the meantime, yes it's acrylic. We were also told by the guy who came over that no puffer will work, it will kill everything which is a shame because that would be a neat fish to see.

I addressed levels in my other post, but since it's not up yet, no ammonia, no2 and elevated (but not yet dangerous) No3 -which will be addressed with some of the things he's helping us do this week.

 

[Worthington]

So last night we added the following:

2 Tiger Barbs
4 Green Tiger Barbs
2 Albino Barbs

2 Black Rainbow Sharks
2 Bala Sharks

9 Columbia Tetras

30 Large Neon Tetras

2 Threadfin Acaras

The guy thought that right now if we added the smaller guys they might see them as tank mates while they are still young and new to the tank.... As of this morning less than half of the tetras are left and only 4 barbs.

Lesson learned, we will replenish with larger barbs this time -the Columbians are fine and the larger barbs are nearly their size so I suspect they will be fine.

What I enjoyed most about the neon tetras was how they move around in a school. The columbians do that too, but would be nice to have two separate schools moving about the tank. Question is what to replace the neon tetras with that's large enough that the oscar won't pick on them.

We have had two of the colorful glow fish in there that really aren't that big (although significantly larger than the neons and small barbs we got) -but still half the size of the columbians and those have done just fine so I think that's a good frame of reference for size right now.

 

[Delapool]

My experience with angelfish is to get really good nice size fish from the start. Even though a bit more expensive. Anything neon tetra size is unfortunately seen a prey even though the adult fish might get quite big.

I agree on schools - the larger you can get the school the better I think. In mine I like around a dozen which works for 150gal and I can count them to check.