South American set-up

[BevW]

Hi, really new to this forum so this may have been discussed previously.
I have recently set-up a 90 gallon (largest that would fit) specifically planned to showcase Angelfish. Of course they can't be alone in there and here is where the rabbit hole opened up and swallowed me whole. I already had 3 small bushy nosed Pleco and few Cory cats from previous so they went in first to start off. I then added 8 juvenile Red Devil Angelfish (might reduce to 6) another dozen Gold Laser Cory cats were added in another few weeks. All was proceeding swimmingly so I ordered a dozen Rummy nosed Tetra for fun. Watched the setup for a couple of days and the tetra seemed very nervous so I went back and got the rest of the group, 13 more so now a total of 25 and they are much happier. While there I saw 2 Electric Blue Acara and strangely enough they followed me all the way home and jumped right in with the other kids. Guess they heard how much fun it was at my house and the food is amazing if I do say so myself. So the conundrum, all my careful planning went out the window and now I have no idea what if anything I can add to this playground? I should add that this is fairly well planted for a young set up but plants still need to grow, has a fair amount of wood the keep Pleco's happy. I was leaning to Apistogramma as I want to keep this all South American fish. Any suggestions? I am running a Fluval FX4 filter

 

[Andy Sager]

One of your bigger issues is going to be that if you don't quarantine your new fish, you may very well end up with a very sick tank or even possibly a very dead tank. Nobody thinks it will happen to them until it does.

The best way to have community tanks is to stock it in layers, i.e. Top, middle , bottom. It sounds like you have the bottom layer of your tank pretty well full when you consider that all the fish you listed are going to grow so that rules out Apistos. Your Angels will occupy the middle along with the rummynose and the Angels will grow to occupy most of the middle even tho the tank is as large as it is. ( I assume it's a 48" long tank. ) So that leaves you with some top fish and you need to be careful not to get any fish that the Angels can eventually try to eat. Fish such as the Silver Hatchetfish make for an interesting surface fish since their shape makes them near impossible to eat for any fish with a small mouth. You just have to have the tank fully covered as these fish will jump. There are also species of Moenkhausia type Tetras ( i.e. Red Eyes, Diamond, etc) that have stocky bodies and swim more at the middle/surface. The stockier body makes them not easy to eat. The thing with these Tetras is that they should be in larger schools to reduce habits of fin nipping other fish. Most of the other top level fish( i.e. Pencilfish, Killies, Minnows, Slender varieties of Tetras, etc) are good food fish for larger Angels.

Hope this helps.

 

[BevW]

Thanks Andy for the advice but Plecos, Cory's and Angelfish had been in my home for a few months. The Electric Blue Acara and Rummynosed came from a small store and had been quarantined by him. I am however going to set up a tank for that reason as I know all retailers are not as fussy as he is. Could you advise what I should do for that. I have a 10 gallon with no occupants, do I keep it running, plants, gravel or bare bottom?

 

[Andy Sager]

Thanks Andy for the advice but Plecos, Cory's and Angelfish had been in my home for a few months. The Electric Blue Acara and Rummynosed came from a small store and had been quarantined by him. I am however going to set up a tank for that reason as I know all retailers are not as fussy as he is. Could you advise what I should do for that. I have a 10 gallon with no occupants, do I keep it running, plants, gravel or bare bottom?

Me, I use separate tanks for quarantine and for medicating.
For quarantine, I set up a tank that is just a miniature version of your main tank. Cycle it then I keep the water parameters, the feeding, lighting and water change schedules the same as your main tank so that any new fish can have the time to adapt to your schedules. I quarantine fish for at least 60 days if they stay healthy or longer if there is illness during that period.

For a Hospital tank, I just use a bare bottom, heated tank with a piece or two of PVC pipe or fitting for the fish to have some security. No need to cycle the hospital tank because most meds have a water change schedule included in the treatment. No lights either so that the fish is more subdued and rested so that healing can be it's only priority.

For a quarantine tank, you can use items like Fritzyme #7 or Fritz Turbo 700 to cycle the aquarium rapidly as these are live cultures so they work immediately. ( I find the Fritz products to be the most reliable as long as you keep them properly and use before the "use by" date. ) For the hospital tank, that can be broken down when not in use. As for live plants in the quarantine tank, I prefer to just use plastic so that there is no need to use any other products to keep them alive that can alter the water parameters. The fish won't know the difference unless they try to eat it.

Hope this helps.

 

[Colin_T]

No dwarf cichlids with blue acaras. They both occupy the same area (the bottom part of the tank) and blue acaras will kill or at the very least, harass smaller cichlids.

I would leave things for a few months and see how things settle down.

Depending on the original Corydoras you have, and how many you have of them, you might want to increase their group so it contains 8-10 of that species.