Hexagonal aquarium

Ami

Hi folks,
I am thinking of buying a 40-55 gallong aquarium and have been looking at 2nd hand tanks in my area. I've seen some hexagonal tanks for sale. I am under the impression that small (2-4 inches) fish will like a long tank...is this true? Or will a hexagonal tank work just fine? I plan to have cardinal tetras, zebra danios and cory-cats...may be fancy guppies instead of cardinal tetras.
~Ami

Romad

Hi Ami,

The danios wouldn't appreciate a hex tank as they are really zippy swimmers. Have you thought about some angell fish? They would do ok in a hex. because of their swimming patterns.

I had a 45 gal. hex for a few years and had all sorts of fish in there that didn't work. I didn't know that until I joined the forum and read up on everything.

Good luck with your search and welcome to TFK.

Byron

I concur. "Swimmers" such as all danio and barb species need length; quieter fish--and cardinals and guppies are such--are fine with vertical rather than horizontal space. Pencilfish are another group of fish that are ideally suited to hexagonal tanks. Pencils and cardinals would be beautiful and truly compatible, they occur together in many parts of their habitat. Provided you have soft slightly acidic water, as most are wild caught. Angels are not compatible with these though, the smaller fish will be seen as food when the angels are up to their 6 inch max, and probably long before then.

Byron.

Ami

Hmmm...the pH of the water here is actually around 8. Do you think cardinals or neons would be OK? I was thinking of setting up the 55 gallon with 15 cardinals, 5 corycats and 3 black mollies.

Byron

No, I would not attempt cardinals in that. I would assume the hardness is also high, pH corresponds to hardness so more mineral hardness generally shows up in high pH. And cardinals being wild caught from streams with no measurable hardness and a pH of 4-5 will not last in hard water.

Livebearers will be fine, right at home. Molly are of course livebearers, as are Guppy, Endlers Livebearer, Swordtail, Platy. And there are various other smallish to medium fish that also manage very well in such water. The rainbowfish come to mind, though they are also "swimmers" so the tank length is more of an issue. But Celestial Pearl Danio, Emerald Dwarf Rasbora, and some other Cyprinids like medium hard water.

Corys are largely soft water fish, but the more commonly-available species are tank raised and have been for many decades and thus adapted to medium hard water. Corydoras paleatus, Corydoras aeneus, and several others including varieties of these are tank raised. The rarer wild-caught species would not manage though. We have fish profiles, most all of what I've mentioned are included. Click on the shaded names to see that profile, or use the second tab from the left in the blue bar across the top to go to the profile section.

Ami

I have finally found a 55 long tank. Would neon tetras or harlequin rasboras work with our conditions?

I'll go through the fish profiles you mentinoed.
Thanks

Byron

Do you know your water hardness? You can find this out from your water supply folks, many have a website with water data posted. Depending upon the hardness, the pH might lower naturally. And the hardness is just as important anyway.

That's a nice tank as it has length, I had one long ago, you can have a nice stream display with that.

Byron.