# Opinions re: surface fish please



## Hbird (Jan 7, 2012)

Hi All,
Have a heavily planted fw tank (20 g tall)with the following inhabitants: 8 glowlight tetras, 6 cardinal tetras (husband's favs-doing fine despite water parameters), 2 oto cats, 2 parotocinclus, lots of fw snails (breeding solely to feed the GSP puffers over in their brackish tank) <g>. 

Looking for a few fish to occupy the surface , but ph is 8.3 and all I see about hatchet fish are they prefer soft/acidic. Weekly 25% water changes keep things very kosher as far as ammonia/nitrites/nitrates :fish9:but can't do anything about alkalinity/hardness; we're on a limestone aquifer and have well water. 

Any other choices besides the hatchets that might be easy to obtain? Or do you experienced folks think they'd be ok?

Thanks in advance!~


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## luananeko (Aug 27, 2010)

I'm not familiar enough with hatchet fish to say how they'd do, but Guppies and other livebearers are known for being comfortable in high pH/hard water tanks. Careful if you get both males and females though, as in the Guppies case they will happily overpopulate quickly if you don't have a plan for their fry. If you don't want fry, you can also keep all males as long as you have 5+ so they don't get too territorial in the absence of females.

Some other options would be Rams (depending on your water temp, as they like things 80 degrees or higher), Rainbowfish, or possibly Angelfish (you'll want to research on their aggression tendencies, as I don't know if they'll leave the glowlight tetras alone).


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

If your goal is a straight up surface dweller, there are a number of options. I'll warn you though - they can be hard to see if your tank is too low. You really need to look up a bit, or you'll buy a bunch of fish you'll rarely see.
If you to the petstore, study fish mouths. It'll usually tell you where a fish lives. Pointed down, like a cory, is a bottom feeder, straight ahead like a rainbow is a midwater fish, pointed up like a hatchet or Betta is a surface creature. So you may find some surprises to look up info on in the pet store.
The only exception I know is a molly, which has a surface mouth but likes midwater- even in the wild, they are a few feet under the surface.

There are no surface Cichlids, and I can't think of any Barbs. 

Hatchets won't love your water, but will adjust. Golden wonder killifish get a bit large, but are glued to the surface. So are rocket killies (P. annulatus) which stay super small. A lone betta would work. If you can get real Colisa chuna honey gouramis, they'd be ideal, but the larger hybrids most stores sell under the honey gourami name are often nasty things, behavior-wise. 
Wild guppies will spend quality surface time, but the bigger the tail, the more drag and the more likely they are to stay lower, so cultivated ones are so so. 

Your hardness will be bad for bottom hugging rams, and angels are mid-water swimmers. 

The surface is poorly represented in the stores, because it can be hard to see those fish.


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## Hbird (Jan 7, 2012)

Navigator Black,
Thank you...yes just wanting something for the surface. This tank sits fairly high so is visible 'looking up,' and thinking of the strata involved; tetras in mid-level, otos & pitbull plecos on the bottom (sort of, anyway) needed something for the top--it's my water 'worry' that bothers me most, want the fish to be 'happy' if that's possible for fish! 

Thanks again for your advice!


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