Advice for an oddly-shaped aquarium

thespiff

Hello all,

I'm looking for advice on stocking my 30-gallon tall hex aquarium. I initially bought it to fill with schooling fish, and had a school each of neon tetras, harlequin rasboras, rummynose tetras, and spotted cories. The neons all bit the dust when my heater broke and kicked the tank temp up to near 90 F. I recently replaced those neons by doubling the size of my rasbora school, but apparently they brought disease to the tank and down went all of my rasboras and rummynoses. Also my beta.

At this point I have a medium-sized leopard Sailfin Pleco, 6 spotted cories, a Pearl Gourami which is probably about to succumb to the same disease which killed everything else, and a Kribensis that got ejected from my 55 gal for bad behavior. Lots of tall plastic plants for decoration. I'd really like to take this tank in a new direction. I've never really been happy with it. I keep it on a counter top where you can view it from just about any angle, yet I never feel the urge to look at it. The tank has a very tall water column for its size, over 24", but none of my fish occupy the top half.

I think I want to ditch the plants and go to a rocky tank, but I don't know what would be suitable for that tank size and environment. I've thought about shell-dwellers, but I don't think they'd ever make it to the top of the tank. Anyone have any suggestions for stocking this unusually shaped tank?

jaysee

I have a 30 hex - you can look at pics in my aquarium info and I think there's a video too. I am adding guppies to occupy the top portion.

TexasTanker

I agree with jaysee. Guppies and several of the other livebearers are very fun to look at and do inhabit the middle and top of the tank. They are also extremely hardy and can survive lots of mishaps. My kids have seemingly been testing that statement, so I know.

thespiff

I appreciate the suggestion. But I'm looking for something a little more exotic than the basic hardy kid-friendly fish. My tanks ought to be the centerpieces of my apartment and I don't think I can get there with guppies. Thanks again for the advice though!

iamntbatman

Your gourami doesn't hang out near the top? Strange. Floating plants should give top-dwellers some incentive to hang out up there where they're supposed to.

Festivums would also be a cool choice in a tank of this shape, as they're sort of like smaller versions of angelfish (thought not quite so extreme in the verticality). They'll make use of the vertical space though, especially if you get some tall plants in there.

thespiff

Yeah, the gourami hangs out up top, that's true. But he's almost 3 years old and looks like he's gonna join the mass-die off in this tank as well. And anyway he doesn't have the cool factor I think I'm looking for.

I think I want to go apistos around the bottom and transplant my Koi angelfish over to be the centerpiece. Get a nice piece of manzanita, flip it upside-down and plant it with low-light plants, make it look like roots and tree stump are growing up the back of my tank. Lots of good hiding spots for the apistos down in the "roots" area. Maybe a pair of apistos, the angelfish, my cories, and a small school of tetras.

Going to be a while till I get this rolling though, I may put up a project thread here for folks to follow.

southamericancichlidguy23

more exotic hmmmm two rams what else 2 vejitas hmm im thinking of two more ..... rainbow tetra all they do is swim all around the tank that should cover ur whole tank