75 gallon (un)planted tank stocking suggestions...

[Tim Wheatley]

So I'm really torn on my new 75 gallon... I have access to a very nice fish store which will let me trade in/out any fish I want, so really I have no limits on what I can keep until they grow too large and I have to trade them.

The tank is heavily planted with Amazon Swords. For the lower half of the tank you can't actually see the background. I can certainly move the plants, but would like to find something which will fit in as-is. Actually, forget that... Maybe just 'the right fish' is important...

There's plenty of options I have considered:
5 x Red Bellied Piranha.

or

1 x Common Pleco
LOTS x smaller fish, Neons?

or

Stingrays?
FW Puffers?
Severum?
Oscars?
Arowana?

I don't know what to do... I actually think I need to buy about five more tanks to be happy... lol At some point I want to keep all these fish...

So many fish, so few tanks...

 

[Bubble_B0y]

piranha are boring imo.
your tank is too small for an arowana and stingrays.


I personally would create a Discus community tank.
since you like severum, they are compatible with Discus

I also like the Freshwater pufferfish idea. But not many fish are compatible with them.

 

[Tim Wheatley]

I love Piranha colors. The gold, red, silver and black are great IMHO. They don't move much, but then neither do my Silver Dollars. Plus, I've researched enough to know they're not the monster Hollywood likes to portray them as. Not interested in them for the feeding show.

I had an Arowana before, traded him when he got bigger than the depth of the tank, good LFS down the road. But yeah, I will wait until I can start building tanks for those bigger guys I think. I'm starting to get quite settled with what I have, and with 5 tanks over 55 gallons I'm getting some good experience for a monster build...

I went to the LFS today and decided while I was there to narrow down to a few fish. I did some google searching (thanks iPhone!) on each one and while I could have put a few of the bigger fish together, I ended up going with a fish that will never be nice enough to have a tankmate, so he's getting the 75g all to himself...

Got a beautiful and very responsive Tilapia Butterkoferi. Super, super aggressive, large, but nice to my hands and face so far. I'll be moving the Amazon Swords out tomorrow and replacing them with some floating plants he shouldn't be able to mess with too much.

 

[Bubble_B0y]

silver dollars are nicer than piranha imo.
And they are related!
Especially the red-hook silver dollars and spotted silver dollars.
There are so many varieties...
When silver dollars are schooling, its one of the best displays in an aquarium!

They are not so active with the lights-on.
They like dim, subdued lighting. Just natural light from a window, or room lighting is sufficient.
Tank lighting usually scares them or makes them shy.

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Hm... That's a good idea... I have pretty bright lights in my SD tank and they are quite shy... But I have lots of plants in there, too, which need the light (and which the SDs don't eat). Really would like them to be more active...

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Just wanted to update with my experiences with Tilapia Butterkoferi, which is what I took home from the fish store: He's insane.

I'm fine with digging, uprooting plants etc. Infact I wanted him to decide how to arrange his tank, I would just grab the plants as he uprooted them, but here's what this fish did, and why he's gone back to the fish store. Figured posting might help someone else in a search or something...

He tried to attack the heater. If it didn't have a burn cover over the top of the glass I am sure it would have broken.

He attacked the filter outlet and pulled it off (fluval fx5).

He pulled up EVERY plant (which was expected).

He dug, and dug, and dug. Expected this, but he did it a LOT.

He ran large stones, pond stones, straight into the side of the tank. This worried me a lot, didn't need a busted tank...

He tried to attack my hands and face through the glass.

He tried to attack my hand INSIDE the tank. Extreme.

So basically I did research on the fish, and the opinions I found ranged all the way from placid to insane, so I had to give the fish a shot. But clearly mine was on the insane end of the scale. Attacking inanimate objects, etc. I'm sure someone is going to love that fish, but not for me...

 

[HUKIT]

You should have sent him to live at my house, he would fit right in with the rest off my Glassbangers.

 

[Tim Wheatley]

So are they all like that? From what I found it just sounded like I was unlucky enough to get one of the worst.

I ended up getting a Vulture Catfish, still working on what's going to go in with him as a tankmate.

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Just wanted to let u know he is still for sale at animal island in midlothian if you did want to grab him. They had him priced at 40.

 

[limojica]

I have two Butterkoferis (10 inh) in separate tanks. One is crazy like this one...the other is pretty calm. They are both VERY different. The crazy one, Emily, was returned to the store several times for killing tank mates (was living in a 55 gal with two oscars). So I kept Emily alone until my 90 gal crashed. Now I have Emily in the 90 gal with a few African's and all is fine so far. It's been a week. I put the calmer Butt in the 55 gal (Emily's alone tank) with fish she grew up with (Larger Africans) and she chases them like crazy. I know it's because the space is small so today I am going to purchase a larger holding tank (75 gal) until I can return her (Sam) to the 90 gal. Seems these fish need lots of space. Unfortunately I have one space for tanks so I have limitations on size. Emily and Sam can't be together because Emily tries to kill Sam so I have to have two tanks to keep them. Love these fish. They have bright personalities.