Biotope Center Piece

[michael15]

I have a 21 gallon and I plane on stocking it with silver hatchet fish, leopard corys, and rummy nose tetras but I have no clue what centerpiece fish I want I was going to go with a pair German rams but those seem pretty hard to keep so I no clue on what to get.

 

[bettaowner]

Maybe a pair of apistogrammas?

 

[NigelK8485]

Flag acara pair? Or a keyhole...but I don't know how it'd do with the rummynose. Are you dead set on hatchetfish? Those things are so poorly bred.


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[Gillie]

Well from the fish you've chosen it looks like you are shooting for a Brazilian Amazon setup. There are several species of apistos that would fit into that tank, but the only issue would be the silver hatchets in a tank that size. You might want to instead shoot for marbled hatchets they are much smaller.

But if you want a really nice centerpiece I would suggest Dicrossus maculatus and despite what is said about care, they aren't any harder than any other SA dwarves.

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[michael15]

I was going to go with guppies at first but the marble hatchet looks nice to and I really like the looks of the Checkerboard cichlid I might go with a pair of those or the flag acara.

 

[44Paps44]

what makes you say the Rams are hard to keep?

 

[michael15]

People always talking about how they are for experienced fish owners and they Need every thing perfect or else they will die. Plus I wanted to get more experience in before I get them. Another question is what plant to get?

 

[Gillie]

People always talking about how they are for experienced fish owners and they Need every thing perfect or else they will die. Plus I wanted to get more experience in before I get them. Another question is what plant to get?

Bah, most of the time people are buying bad farm stock rams instead of from a dedicated breeder, which makes the rams that die easily are weak in the first place. If you were to order rams from yunite on aquabid or ebay you would have no problems as long as you kept up on maintenance.

As far as plants it really depends on how much of a biotope you want, most creeks and ponds where your chosen fish are found are littered with wood and leaves with sparse if any aquatic plant life aside from floaters.

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[bettaowner]

I agree with Gillie. I've never had a bad experience with rams and I've never met anyone with a bad experience. You'll read they like a certain pH but really it comes down to acclimation and parameters. If you acclimate them slowly and your parameters don't swing too much you shouldn't have any problems.


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[Coursair]

I think a nice group of Rummynose makes a great Centerpiece.

This whole centerpiece fish concept to me is just silly.

Scape your tank. Stock it intelligently and watch the show.

I'll take a nice group of small fish over a single large fish every time. Esp in smaller tanks.

My group of CPDs in my 10g are my "tiny trout" [emoji106] I love watching them and my tiny Cory habrosus.




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[Brookster123]

If you can obtain locally bred rams or quality bred rams and your tank is stable along with your skills.. shouldn't have a problem with them.. 90% of the rams I've seen are hormone blown and ready to die...

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