# Community tank ideas?



## beautifullybrooke (Jul 7, 2012)

I have a 55 gallon with:

5 neon tetras
6 mollies (3 male 3 female)
9 guppies (7 male 2 female) 
1 clown loach
1 black kuhli loach
1 male swordfish
and an angel fish

I have had all these fish for about a year now and I am wanting to add on! I want some more neons. Does anyone have any suggestions on fish to add? And my angel fish is very docile and doesn't bother anyone at all. He was a rescue and is a sweet fishy.


----------



## katanamasako (Jun 29, 2012)

a suggestion, male guppies are usually really aggressive to each other (fin nipping mostly) if there aren't enough females. generally speaking, either no females, or two for each male. 

as for other fish, try glow light tetras, or you could try for a small school of rio von flame tetras, i have a ten gallon with six of them, they stay about 1.5-1.75 inches long, and the fronts are orange that fade to red, they're sometimes hard to find though. my fifty five has a bolivian ram cichlid, and he's mostly on his own, though he'll chase the others away from the liil patch of marimo moss that he's claimed as his own. I flattened out a ball of the stuff and made a carpet that he can't get enough of XD you could try a few cory catfish too, or glass catfish.


----------



## katanamasako (Jun 29, 2012)

by the way, that angelfish may be small and sweet now, but they get about six to eight inches long and as much as a foot tall at times


----------



## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

If you want neons, get them while the angel is small, since he/she will eat them in time. If they are adult neons, they are too big to bother with, but the usual small neons are popcorn to an adult angel. If they grow with him, they'll be where you want them, sizewise, when the angel gets dangerous.
You'll also have to start planning for the clown loach too. It isn't a fish that likes to be alone, but if you are a good aquarist who maintains the tank well, he/she will grow to potential - up to 18 inches and very barrel bodied. That fish on its own will outgrow a 55 gallon in 2-3 years (if well cared for, which I suspect it will be). Given that it's a sociable fish with its own species, it's going to be a problem. 
And those guppy females must be feeling pretty harassed. They mustn't get any peace. In the wild, the faster, colourless females have been known to dive in front of large predators so that the big fish will eat the brightly coloured trail of chasing males. They seem to feel it's worth the risk.


----------



## beautifullybrooke (Jul 7, 2012)

Thanks everyone! I am planning on a dedicated tank of angels for my angelfish so he will have lots of room and my tetras will be safe.


----------



## Cadiedid (Oct 26, 2011)

I love rummynose tetras...


----------



## katanamasako (Jun 29, 2012)

that's good ^^ I have a fifty five gallon with six angels in it right now. One's a midget compared to the others, but they're very inquisitive fish ^^


----------



## zero (Mar 27, 2012)

katanamasako said:


> that's good ^^ I have a fifty five gallon with six angels in it right now. One's a midget compared to the others, but they're very inquisitive fish ^^


isnt that way to small for 1 angel?


----------



## katanamasako (Jun 29, 2012)

they're still very small, i plan to grow them out in the fifty five then move them to a three hundred gallon tank.


----------



## zero (Mar 27, 2012)

just realised theres kulhi loaches on the list. you'll need to get more of them, they like to be in groups so id say get 5 more.


----------



## Jamestanker (Jul 19, 2012)

In my 75 gallon I have 

125 ghost shrimp
15 Swordtails
10 guppies
15 tiger barbs
4 bala sharks
1 pleco
3 Red eared slider 
25 live plants

I do 50% water change every Saturday. 

Everything works well together the turtles eat the shrimp not the fish ( most of the time)


----------



## zero (Mar 27, 2012)

ive always wanted to put fish in with my bfs musk turtles but thought they'd eat them! ive got a pleco in with them at the mo and they go to sleep in a cave together!


----------



## Jamestanker (Jul 19, 2012)

I had to train my turtles to not eat the fish. I made it much easier for them to eat shrimp by over populating the tank with easy to catch shrimp the turtles gave up on the ideas of eating fish since they could get away easily


----------



## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

I have three red-eared sliders, all of them 28 years old now. Yours will eat the fish, when they get to it. The fish will weaken. They have time. They can live with a fish for a year, peacefully and quietly, and then suddenly catch and eat it. 

If they are well-fed, they are never in a hurry, but they are always looking for an opportunity. They will strike, and they are not trained. They are just distracted, for now.

As they age, they become voracious plant eaters too - mine will eat two pounds of duckweed a week between them, and will eat try to bite the leaves of java ferns.


----------



## zero (Mar 27, 2012)

should i be feeding duckweed to my musk turtles too? not sure how old they are but there full grown.


----------



## Cadiedid (Oct 26, 2011)

Jamestanker- I was sitting there reading and wondering how you knew you had 125 ghost shrimp in the tank until I read that your turtles eat them. Then I went from picturing you counting 125 shrimp to picturing you counting backward, lol. "125.. Oops, no.... 124... wait, there goes another...123..."


----------



## Jamestanker (Jul 19, 2012)

Cadiedid said:


> Jamestanker- I was sitting there reading and wondering how you knew you had 125 ghost shrimp in the tank until I read that your turtles eat them. Then I went from picturing you counting 125 shrimp to picturing you counting backward, lol. "125.. Oops, no.... 124... wait, there goes another...123..."


I put 100+ a week in the tank. sometimes I skip a week and let the turtles catch the whole lot of them. 


My friends try and count them all the time!


----------



## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

I'd do some research before I put duckweed in with musk turtles - if they don't eat it, you have duckweed to deal with. Red eared sliders follow a sensible diet cycle - when young and growing they are predators, but as they age, they become plant eaters and opportunistic predators.
I got mine as little one inch cute turtles in 1984, for my mother who loved turtles. She had them for 18 years and then I inherited them - they aren't cute anymore, but they are my turtles. I've experimented in their tank - the only plant they don't eat is java fern, but they drag it around and try to eat it. 
I keep them in an unplanted tank with heavy filtration (they poop a lot) and good out of water basking opportunities for their shells.
BTW - beware - they are escape artists. 

I put my 'culls' in their tank - fish born with deformities like the balloon mutation or other inherited diseases that put them out of the breeding plans. They coexist for months sometimes, but eventually, even the quick ones aren't there one morning. The fish can swim in front of their noses for months, and then one day, for whatever reason, they suddenly get eaten.


----------

