New aquarium

[Rolle]

First of all, non native english speaker.

I’ve been thinking about starting up a tank for a while now and would appreciate some advice.

I’m leaning towards a size between 54-100 liters (14 -26 gal approx) with a fine substrate like sand and live plants, rocks and some mangrove. Water is more on the hard side.

The question is how to populate it, I’m thinking something like one ancistrus, a few corydoras, a school of neon tetras and one or two siamese algae eater.

Would they go well together or do you have any other suggestions?
Sorry for wall of text and thanks in advance.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Welcome to the forum. I'm looking forward to how your hobby progresses.

Aquariums come in all sorts of sizes. Neon tetras are fairly active fish and need 600mm length. While a standard 15 gallon/ 60 litre aquarium is thus length many are non standard. I have a 57 litre aquarium that's only 410mm long. So the 100 litre aquarium aquarium is going to more likely to give enough swimming space for a group of neons.

I had to look up what an ancistrus is. BN pleco. I think with with the siamese algae eaters you would have a lot of algae eaters for 1 smallish aquarium. A 100 litre aquarium is on the small size for a single SAE so I would skip those and stick with the pleco. I would go to the larger end of your 54 to 100 litres scale for the pleco too.

Corys and tetras are social fish and do better in groups. 6 fish of each species would be a good minimum to work with. I would look at a smaller size cory, like panda corys maybe.

So, if you went to the larger end of your 54 to 100 litre aquarium proposal you could go with your BN pleco, 6 panda corys, and a nice big group of 10 to 12 neon tetras. I think that would be a great set up.

And your English is perfect.

 

[Rolle]

Thanks for your reply. Yes I figure a 100 would be better. I’d guess a bigger volume would be less sensitive too?

Yeah, think that would be what I’ll go with. I need to read up and plan more before it becomes a reality though.

Would a dwarf gourami fit in too or would the total population become too big?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Standard response on dwarf gourami.

Its estimated that 1 in 3 dwarf gourami sold in the aquatics trade is infected by dwarf gourami disease. It's untreatable, once symptoms manifest 100% fatal to dwarf gourami, can be passed to other fish who will asymptomatic, and once it's in your aquarium the only way to get rid of it is to break everything down and sterilse everything, so you could never put another gourami in there without it getting infected.

So it's a risk. I wouldn't do it without a significant quarantine period, but its your risk. Other small gourami species like honey gourami are less likely to carry dwarf gourami disease, but there is still a chance. If you really want a gourami, I'd go with a honey. I've never had a problem with them, but that's not to say nobody has had a problem.

If you wanted something more centrepiece'ish and less risky, maybe a small number of platys, or a bolivian ram?

 

[Rolle]

Oh, that pretty much rules it out, thanks for the heads up! I want happy and healthy fish

Okey, yeah, that was my thought, some kind of center piece. My ideal would be something where all “fits a purpose” eg alage eater, bottom feeder, mid layer school an so on. I’m leaning towards your suggestion in your previous post and maybe a ram at a later stage. Platys seem really nice but as far as I understand they multiply quick.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Platys seem really nice but as far as I understand they multiply quick.

Only buy males.

 

[Rolle]

Thank you, I really appreciate your advice.