:) 38 gallon, 38 gallon!!!

[mike47517]

Hey everyone. Im so excited im 13 (so i rarely get upgrades on my tanks) and im getting a 38 gallon tank with filter, hood, light, heater, food, filter cartlige, and water condinter. all that for christmas!!! well my question is what should i put in it? should i make it a chichlid tank or a community tank or a species tank or what? open to all ideas. oh and as i come up with fish i like i will show you and you can tell me if its ok or not to have these fish. thanks.

 

[billijaywest]

Hey everyone. Im so excited im 13 (so i rarely get upgrades on my tanks) and im getting a 38 gallon tank with filter, hood, light, heater, food, filter cartlige, and water condinter. all that for christmas!!! well my question is what should i put in it? should i make it a chichlid tank or a community tank or a species tank or what? open to all ideas. oh and as i come up with fish i like i will show you and you can tell me if its ok or not to have these fish. thanks.

i rekon you shoul dip your hand in to malawi's not only do you feel pleased with your self when you sit there for hours watcing them you also get a sense of achievement when you see them bring there own babies up, it would cost you more of course (my tank sand ocean rock cost at the moment £75.00 and i need at least another £100 of ocean rock but its a working product
fish well ill tell you go for the pseudotrpheus genus rang and get the beauty that has beeniluding me pseudotropheus socolofi (snow white) she is beautifull. and the best thing about it you could have say upwards of 20 fish in there and let them grow to say 5 inches then exchange them back with the shop and never have to buy any thing bigger (what im doing)

:bandit:

 

[neilanh]

Sweet, Congrats!

 

[mike47517]

i rekon you shoul dip your hand in to malawi's not only do you feel pleased with your self when you sit there for hours watcing them you also get a sense of achievement when you see them bring there own babies up, it would cost you more of course (my tank sand ocean rock cost at the moment £75.00 and i need at least another £100 of ocean rock but its a working product
fish well ill tell you go for the pseudotrpheus genus rang and get the beauty that has beeniluding me pseudotropheus socolofi (snow white) she is beautifull. and the best thing about it you could have say upwards of 20 fish in there and let them grow to say 5 inches then exchange them back with the shop and never have to buy any thing bigger (what im doing)

:bandit:

I'll look into it.

 

[mike47517]

Sweet, Congrats!

Thanks.

 

[mike47517]

can i keep these fish in my tank?
Badis x2
German Gold Ram x2
Guentheri Killifish x2
Redtail Shark x1
Koi Angel x2
Pleco x1
Harlequin Rasbora x5
Koi Swordtail x3
Black Molly x3
Albino Cory x3
Red Wag Platy x3

Oh and if i do this that will leave my 10 gallon on QT. I'll use it for any fry.

 

[billijaywest]

can i keep these fish in my tank?
Badis x2
German Gold Ram x2
Guentheri Killifish x2
Redtail Shark x1
Koi Angel x2
Pleco x1
Harlequin Rasbora x5
Koi Swordtail x3
Black Molly x3
Albino Cory x3
Red Wag Platy x3

Oh and if i do this that will leave my 10 gallon on QT. I'll use it for any fry.

you could but that may be a bit over stocked,i still rekon u should look into malawi it would give you hours of enjoyment,

 

[Johnny Tuttle]

With a 38 gallon, I would vote for something like the community tank you've listed here. I'd start with a set size--say 4"--and not exceed that length. That would let a pair of GBRs and a pair of Angels be your showcase fish, and that would be a brilliant show.

I'd probably start with the three platties (well, after your mollies and your cory). Then, you could up the cories and the mollies.

Then, I'd do the harlequins or some other small schooler.

Here's where you might not like my advice. Given that you'd have 3 each of mollies, platties, and cories (and you might consider strongly going to 5-6 total cories), you'd have 9-12 fish, and those live bearers are bigger loads. Let's consider the angels/GBRs 1/3 of your tank's load. Let's take the mollies/platties/cories as another 1/3 (really larger, but you get my drift). We'd have something like 7-10" of fish left. I'd try going with harlequings/small schooler (even neons) here. With something smaller like a neon, you'd get 10 for sure.

At the slight risk of overstocking, I'd risk a pleco here. You'd have the physical space, and you would just need to take your time to maintain the tank. I'm nixing from your list, in other words, the badis, killifish, shark, and swordtails. If you do lose a fish or so, you could look at the other options, and you can keep your ear to the ground here for interesting fish not needing conspecific companionship as potential replacements.

I'm not sure I'd start into the bigger cichlids now--these are fish that could well survive into your university years, and you're getting a beautiful new tank. I myself went with the smaller fish so that my new tank (21g) wouldn't seem too small, too fast. Those shell dweller tanks that folks post here are rather beautiful--those might be your best cichlid option if you do end up not getting angels and rams.

 

[jrp1588]

I'm partial to angelfish myself. If it were my tank, I'd probably get 5 or 6 koi angels, and wait for 2 of them to pair off, then sell the other 3 or 4 back to the LFS. From there you could probably put in a couple rams, 5+ rasboras, 4 or 5 cories...maybe some rummynose...a small pleco of some sort (rubber lip, BN, gold nugget). It's not really recommended by most people, but I've never had a problem with neons and angels together.

My $.02, I've had livebearers and angelfish together before, they got along together just fine, but I never liked the look of them together...it just felt weird for some reason. but hey, to each his own

 

[mike47517]

With a 38 gallon, I would vote for something like the community tank you've listed here. I'd start with a set size--say 4"--and not exceed that length. That would let a pair of GBRs and a pair of Angels be your showcase fish, and that would be a brilliant show.

I'd probably start with the three platties (well, after your mollies and your cory). Then, you could up the cories and the mollies.

Then, I'd do the harlequins or some other small schooler.

Here's where you might not like my advice. Given that you'd have 3 each of mollies, platties, and cories (and you might consider strongly going to 5-6 total cories), you'd have 9-12 fish, and those live bearers are bigger loads. Let's consider the angels/GBRs 1/3 of your tank's load. Let's take the mollies/platties/cories as another 1/3 (really larger, but you get my drift). We'd have something like 7-10" of fish left. I'd try going with harlequings/small schooler (even neons) here. With something smaller like a neon, you'd get 10 for sure.

At the slight risk of overstocking, I'd risk a pleco here. You'd have the physical space, and you would just need to take your time to maintain the tank. I'm nixing from your list, in other words, the badis, killifish, shark, and swordtails. If you do lose a fish or so, you could look at the other options, and you can keep your ear to the ground here for interesting fish not needing conspecific companionship as potential replacements.

I'm not sure I'd start into the bigger cichlids now--these are fish that could well survive into your university years, and you're getting a beautiful new tank. I myself went with the smaller fish so that my new tank (21g) wouldn't seem too small, too fast. Those shell dweller tanks that folks post here are rather beautiful--those might be your best cichlid option if you do end up not getting angels and rams.

so your saying my total fish would be:
3 mollies
5 corys
3 platys
2 angels
2 GBR's (German Gold Rams is what i want. is there any other difference between them and GBR's besides there looks?)
10 neons (dont angels eat neons?)
1 pleco ( what if i replace the pleco with some ottos how many ottos could i get?)
26 fish sounds good i like it. Do you know of any fish i can sub so that i can get the 2 Badis?

 

[mike47517]

I'm partial to angelfish myself. If it were my tank, I'd probably get 5 or 6 koi angels, and wait for 2 of them to pair off, then sell the other 3 or 4 back to the LFS. From there you could probably put in a couple rams, 5+ rasboras, 4 or 5 cories...maybe some rummynose...a small pleco of some sort (rubber lip, BN, gold nugget). It's not really recommended by most people, but I've never had a problem with neons and angels together.

My $.02, I've had livebearers and angelfish together before, they got along together just fine, but I never liked the look of them together...it just felt weird for some reason. but hey, to each his own

your saying my total fish would be:

2 angels
2 rams
5 or 6 rasboras
4 or 5 cories
5 or so rummy nose
1 pleco
what about my mollies?

 

[jrp1588]

My angels don't eat neons, german blue and gold rams are pretty similar, and I imagine you could have 5 or so ottos for every pleco...and I was just saying what I would do with a tank. A few mollies would be fine as well

 

[mike47517]

My angels don't eat neons, german blue and gold rams are pretty similar, and I imagine you could have 5 or so ottos for every pleco

thanks. what about my mollies?

 

[jrp1588]

I must have edited after you posted, if you want mollies, throw a few in, should be fine

 

[mike47517]

Thanks.

 

[Johnny Tuttle]

Angels are listed as predatory of neons, but it's a very common aquarium combination, for sure.

The gold and the blue rams are equivalent for planning now.

See the reaction jrp has just given you about mollies here? I think that's a strength of having this is as a vibrant community tank: you have some freedom and forgiveness to get in a few fish of a different type, as long as you treat the GBRs and Angels as your biggest fish.

I don't know much about badis. Likely, I'd scratch the platties for them. That's something you might consider doing in my original suggestion list: platties and mollies are both heavier on the bioload than neons or the other smaller schoolers.

 

[mike47517]

ok thanks