Help me stock my first 55g

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Nutty Opossum

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Oct 29, 2014
Messages
11
Location
Wisconsin
Hello everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster. I would first like to say thanks to everyone, I've learned a lot lurking and I think I'm off to a good start with my new tank.

I currently have a 10g with
5 neon tetras
1 mystery snail
1 ghost shrimp
35? Cherry shrimp (breeding like crazy)

My wife and I recently purchased our first house and I finally have the space to keep a bigger setup in my office (work from home, aquarium helps keep me calm lol)

Plan is to migrate my current tank to the large one but am stuck trying to decide on additional fish. A couple musts I have decided are a pair of gbr. The mystery snail is my wife's favorite so I'll be getting a few more in different colors.

I know with my cherry shrimp that I'm fairly limited and some will get eaten with almost anything I add. I feel like some population control is good with how fast they are breeding currently but just don't want them wiped out. The new aquarium (currently fishless cycling) is dirt and capped with Eco complete with the back painted black. One medium/large piece of driftwood, around 40 plants currently (will be moving 5 green temple plants, moss ball, small driftwood, and Java moss from old tank as well), and some rocks.

So, here's where I'm stuck. Some possibilities so far have been
Bosemani or dwarf rainbow fish
Dwarf gourami
Diamond tetras
Endlers
Kuhli loaches

I like the idea of having a fair amount of different species, and am trying to stick with brightly colored or contrasting fish to stand out from the plants and black background. Definitely open to other fish and critisism about anything.

Thanks!
 
I am fairly certain that gbr will eat your shrimp, although I have never tried keeping them together that I can remember.

Endler are very tiny and will also limit your stocking as so many other fish can eat them.

I would consider keeping a small tank for shrimp if you really like them. It is going to be difficult to keep them alive with other tankmates.

Also, keep in mind that some of these small fish that appear interesting in your 10g tank will practically disappear in a 55g due to the size.
 
I'd rather only keep one aquarium running. Do you think the shrimp would get decimated or just not have population growth? I'm planning on waiting till the shrimp colony gets to about 100 before adding the gbrs.
 
With the shrimp, endlers are good to add, and idk if the GBRs will eat them or not. I would research that before doing anything with the GBRs


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Boesemanis are nice and 55 gallons is typically the smallest recommendation for them, however I would suggest not going in that direction. They really need a larger swimming space since they should be kept in groups of five or more. I took three from a guy who wanted to "get rid of" his tropicals for cichlids and I feel like my 55 is too small for them to truly have enough space (especially considering my other stock)
Good luck!
 
I agree with egghead about the boesmanis. Dwarf neon rainbows would be a much better choice.
 
That's kind of what I was thinking after looking into them. Anyone have any suggestions on other possible tankmates I didn't list?
 
In a 55, you can have diversity of species...but don't go crazy. No Noah's ark theme! :)

You can break the tank down into regions and stock fish that will occupy those areas. A 55 is a nice size tank, so I would make sure to not keep minimum school sizes. So you have top, middle and bottom. In the 55 I used to have, I had kept one top school, 2 middle schools and one bottom school, plus a pleco for the perimeter and cichlids for the centerpiece. Mine was a semi aggressive tank - giant danios, tiger barbs, Colombian tetras, zebra loaches were my schools, plus a clown pleco, Bolivian rams and chanchito cichlids.
 
Aquaholic haha Noah's ark! That's what happened to me when I first started the hobby and I regretted it. I kept taking in fish people didn't want and ended up with so many single fish they had a hard time finding their place. Good advice!
 
With small fish, do big groups.

I've seen big groups of Neons. Like 30+ those look great.

Big group of Cories.

10-15 C sterbai for example would look great.

Dense area of plants and wood and rock for the Shrimp. Maybe Mosses.

Black background. Sand bottom. Live plants.

I love smaller fish.

I just went to Aqua Forest in San Francisco. Try telling them that you have to use big fish in big tanks. LOL

They use large schools of small fish and lots of plants.



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