centre piece fish for tank

[steeledarren]

hi there, i have recently moved house and just started my tank up again, its a 55 gal cube, i am busy doing a fishless cycle, i want to stock the tank with a school of peppered corys 5 or 6 and a group of kuhli loaches 4 or 5.

what i want are some ideas on a school of active fish to finish off the tank, i was going to go with tiger barbs, but i know they are a bit agressive. what are my other options, i want a bit of colour but for them to be active, any ideas?

also any ideas for other fish, thanks

 

[Tropical boy]

To be honest you could go for a large school of tiger barbs as the corys and loaches are mainly bottom dwellers I can't see the barbs bothering them to much. You could have a smaller school of Denison barbs as the tank is big enough although these carry a high price tag her in England. Other then that you could try a pair of less aggressive cichlids. I have kuhli loaches and a severum and although he is a lot bigger he pays the loaches no attention at all. Good luck hope to have helped

 

[tyspot1000]

I wouldnt put tiger barbs in at all. Even if the corys and loachs are bottom-dwellers, Ive had them nipped at before from Tiger barbs, but I guess it depends on the individual fish.

You could do a school of harlequin rasboras (Rasbora heteromorpha), a small school of neon tetra (Paracheirodon innesi), and a single Pearl gourami (Trichogaster leeri)

 

[nereksnad]

i personally have bad experiance with the so-called tiger barbs.

the guy at the store, sold me them, along with some red platy wagtails, unfortunately, they began biting the platies, so i returned them to the store.

it's been month now, and the platys are happy, and the wonds have been healed. and hopefully the tiger barbs got a new home.
but they're like piranhas, i supose. atleast it was impressive to see them attack the peaceful platys..

 

[XimeD]

The thing with tiger barbs is they need to be in groups of at least 6 (IME) and that way they keep the aggression within themselves. Like tyspot mentioned it can depend on the individual fish, if you do decide to get TBs and you get a bully I would advice exchanging that one. I agree that it is iffy but with a big enough school of barbs it might work IMO. In short, if you are absolutely set on those barbs, you could try a school of maybe 7 or 8 (you can mix the common variety with the albino and the green varieties).

I have a school of 6 TBs and they don't bother any of my other fish, including an oto.

If you want colorful fish you could also look at boesemani rainbows, they also need to be kept in schools but are not aggressive like the TBs. I havent kept them but would like to, I read that they are not that colorful when you just get them from the LFS due to stress and young age, but that once they settle down and get closer to adults their colors really come out.

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Not in my experience, ximed.

I had 17 Tiger Barbs at one time and they always had aggression bad enough that certain fish would not work with them. They were quite merciless and reminded me very much of a piranha style of attack and nibbling. It is simply possible that the individual personalities or the combination of male to female ratio you have is perfect. Most people won't have that experience with Tiger Barbs in my opinion...

 

[Tim Wheatley]

And to answer the original poster: Serpae tetras:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/twheatley/5391118333/in/set-72157625839528230/

 

[XimeD]

Not in my experience, ximed.

I had 17 Tiger Barbs at one time and they always had aggression bad enough that certain fish would not work with them. They were quite merciless and reminded me very much of a piranha style of attack and nibbling. It is simply possible that the individual personalities or the combination of male to female ratio you have is perfect. Most people won't have that experience with Tiger Barbs in my opinion...

Yeah, I admit you have a point. It might well be I got lucky, but do you think there is no chance his set-up would work at all? (I am not trying to argue my point just would like to hear your opinion on it, I absolutely agree individual experiences will vary and I did say it was iffy)

 

[Tim Wheatley]

I'm actually of the opinion that Tiger Barbs need a species only tank in most cases. I wrote a pretty in-depth fish profile (see my sig) which lists all the fish which shared a tank with them at one time or another and what happened with each. Tiger Barbs I believe are very, very restrictive. I usually only want to write profiles for fish I feel people don't have ennough info about.

I actually think an awesome fish he could have would be Serpae Tetra or (if compatible with kuhli loaches - I have never kept them so don't know) he could have a decent amount of Neon tetras. Issue with Serpae's of course is that they don't move around very much, but do school. Even some bright platies might be cool, they'll fill a lot of tank space.

 

[mudraker]

If you don't keep plants, a small school of silver dollars is spectacular in a 55. They shimmer and shine, and school beautifully and are generally peaceul with other fish. Just heck on plants. They get fairly large and fill out a big tank nicely. Picture you see just don't capture their shine.

 

[amesdrew]

My serpai's are very active, and are also big fin nippers! I have 6 and at least one is always on the move, usually after another tetra or a zipper loach. (They both looooove algae wafers.)

Usually they only go after other serpai's but you have to have a group for it to spread out aggression. Good, tough fish though. Against green plants they can't be beaten color wise.

In a 55 you could have quite a group... Just saying.

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Hmmm... Interesting about fin nipping from Serpaes... Still, great to hear someone's experience of them doing that. Haven't seen that with mine though. Fish are funny, huh?

If you don't keep plants, a small school of silver dollars is spectacular in a 55. They shimmer and shine, and school beautifully and are generally peaceul with other fish. Just heck on plants. They get fairly large and fill out a big tank nicely. Picture you see just don't capture their shine.

Usually that's because people use a flash. Here's some of my SDs, and I agree they are great fish, but they get pretty big too... Maybe too big for a 55? They are gorgeous fish, I love the orange coloration some types get (I'm absolutely certain one day scientists will realize Silver Dollars aren't a single species, the colorings and fins vary too much...)

Silver Dollars | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Great, huh? Mine also don't eat my plants at all. They are probably too stuffed with food to eat my plants because the SDs are in with an Oscar and they clean up after him... So their main diet is actually Cichlid Gold!! lol

 

[kc2ped]

My serpai's are very active, and are also big fin nippers!

I had serpai tetras years ago and also remember them as being nippy fish. This time around when I wanted something with that form factor I went with black phantom tetras.

 

[steeledarren]

thankyo, since reading all your posts i am gonna try some bosemani rainbows, and maybe a dwarf gourami, have any of you had any experience with either?

 

[DragonFish71]

We keep a school of 24 TBs with JD's, giant danios, clown loaches and various catfish. The TBs behave themselves.

Now on to the bosemani rainbows.
When we got our 80g it was already stocked with bosemani and turquoise rainbows. Since we were turning the tank into a BW system we had to re-home the current fish, but in the waiting to re-home them, I enjoyed the month we had them. They were very active, beautiful and not very aggressive.

 

[amesdrew]

My next (larger tank) will be a rainbow tank. They are extremely colorful and awesome to watch. Look at the pacific gertrude blue eyes, they are smaller but awesome. Also, look into congo tetras they are also on my next wish list!

 

[XimeD]

thankyo, since reading all your posts i am gonna try some bosemani rainbows, and maybe a dwarf gourami, have any of you had any experience with either?

Yay im gonna vicariously through you since boesemani rainbows are on the list of fish for my next tank (god knows when that will be). Would love to see pics of your fish when you them