Starting Over

[Stewy]

Hello All,
New to the forums and an intermediate fish enthusiast. In my late teens and early twenties, I got hooked on freshwater tropical tanks and had a blast with them. As time progressed, friends/life/marriage/work, I got rid of the four tanks that I was running and got away from the hobby. Time progressed and eventually had a couple wonderful boys. About two years ago on a trip to the aquarium, my son asked me "Dad, can we keep fish at home?" Well, it was all of the excuse that I needed to jump back into the hobby.

I went out and bought a 60 gallon and stand and started the long process of setting everything up. Had some issues right off the bat and my LFS pro eventually narrowed it down to bad gravel. Once the gravel was removed and replaced, the tank cycled and grew into a nice guppie/cory/neon habitat. One day I decided to change some color in my guppies and added a new trio of adults. One week later, all that remained in my tank was three neons, three black neons and two bristlenose plec's. I gave up and let the tank suffer for several months. To this day, I am not sure what happened. All of the parameters tested normal and no illness/disease was noticeable. Because of this, I gave up on guppies but have recently started re-stocking my tank.

At the current, I still have the two bristlenose plecs, the three black neons and due to my sons determination that they were the coolest, two Dalmatian mollies and three swordtails. My current plan is to turn the tank into a peaceful and balanced community tank. I am planning on adding a couple pearl gourami's and some schooler's. Any ideas or recommendations would be wonderful and I am looking forward to being a part of the forums.

 

[melosu58]

Welcome aboard. We are glad you found us here at AA.

 

[Piratechest]

My personal favorite are barbs. When it comes to school. I have 4 tiger barbs, 3 albino tiger barbs,and 3 green tiger barbs. I hear from multiple people that they will not school. But it's not the case for me. They also hang out with 2 platy's and a molly

 

[henningc]

Barbs are cool, but tigers may be a problem as they are aggressive. I had a school of regulor and albino Cherry Barbs and they looked great. You could do 8 or so. Odessa Barbs for Selectaquadics.com are just unreal with color. If tetras are your thing and you want to be different, try 8-10 penguins. Very cool fish and eye catching. You could do both the Cherry Barbs and Penguins.

You also need soemthing for the bottom. If you want something flashy add a pair of Kribs, one reg, one albino. You could also go way too odd and go with a blue crayfish or CPO crayfish. The CPOs would not endanger the fish. Red Cherry Shrimp would look very nice as well. If there are enough hiding places of structure-stuff-on the bottom the shrimp will reproduce on their own. You could also go with that old standard corys. I have everything mentioned in different tanks.

As for your livebearers mollys and swords you are about maxed out. Mollys carry a large bioload due to their need for plant material in their food. The mollys and swords should get to be 4" adults unless already stunted. Futuer fry will grow that large if they survive. You still have a lot of options to finish off the top water region. You could go with Endlers or Least Killies as they have small bioloads and can't interbreed like your swords and mollys. You could go with a dwarf gourami, I would recommend pigmy types of gouramis. Pigmys will allow you to have 2-4 fish.

 

[Stewy]

Barbs are cool, but tigers may be a problem as they are aggressive. I had a school of regulor and albino Cherry Barbs and they looked great. You could do 8 or so. Odessa Barbs for Selectaquadics.com are just unreal with color. If tetras are your thing and you want to be different, try 8-10 penguins. Very cool fish and eye catching. You could do both the Cherry Barbs and Penguins.

You also need soemthing for the bottom. If you want something flashy add a pair of Kribs, one reg, one albino. You could also go way too odd and go with a blue crayfish or CPO crayfish. The CPOs would not endanger the fish. Red Cherry Shrimp would look very nice as well. If there are enough hiding places of structure-stuff-on the bottom the shrimp will reproduce on their own. You could also go with that old standard corys. I have everything mentioned in different tanks.

As for your livebearers mollys and swords you are about maxed out. Mollys carry a large bioload due to their need for plant material in their food. The mollys and swords should get to be 4" adults unless already stunted. Futuer fry will grow that large if they survive. You still have a lot of options to finish off the top water region. You could go with Endlers or Least Killies as they have small bioloads and can't interbreed like your swords and mollys. You could go with a dwarf gourami, I would recommend pigmy types of gouramis. Pigmys will allow you to have 2-4 fish.

Thank you for all of the input. I am considering dropping the Mollies into a friends tank and sticking with the Swords. I had also thought of the shrimp and I am leaning towards the Cherrys. My biggest decisions are still in the mid/high levels for my other swimmers and I appreciate the input on the barbs. I will definitely check into them. Thank you again for the input.