Our School Lobby Tank - 55g

uciski

Hello!

Thanks for all the help so far!

I am the new fish keeper of the elementary school tank - I have finished cleaning the inside gravel/heavy algae and outside lime/mineral with the razor, done the recommended filter change for the Pro II canister filter.

I found great homes with over 100 gallons for the large red hook, spotted Silver Dollar, kissing fish and Jack Dempsey (had it right).

I left the gold gourami in the tank by itself and am thinking of adding new fish.
It's a male gold gourami - adult and from what I read they only live 3 or so years... (IS this true?)
I was going to get a female gold, but this one is most likely 2 already... ?? should I get a mate or not?
are they a fish that needs to have a tank mate?


My ph is a 6 currently, no ammonia and I am working on the nitrates
and I am going to slowly bring ph up to a 6.5 ph and proper water condition with recommended stuff from Tropical Isle.


These are some of my favorite fish:
angel fish (pair) (will they do alright in a 55?) it's 21' tall.
harlequin raspbora
blue Neon Tetra
Neon Tetra or Cardinal Tetra
blue or gold rams 1 male 2 female
Clown Loach group
Zebra Danio
platies

ADVICE ON WHAT TO PUT TOGETHER IN OUR TANK?
FEEL FREE TO ADD FISH THAT WOULD WORK WITH ONE OR SOME FROM MY LIST
What can I safely have in the 55g tank from my list ? recommended numbers welcome. (most school)

** I know rams/angels may not get along unless I have enough hiding spaces for the rams

I WILL NOT ADD ALL THE FISH AT ONE TIME.
which would be best to add 1st, 2nd, etc... ??


the gravel I have is a pea stone - will the loaches be ok with this?
I could add a area of "sandy" for them. not the whole tank, but area specially for them??


Thanks for reading all of this and in advance for any opinions/suggestions!!

Calmwaters

Ok lets see were to begin. LOL First I would not add anything to the tank that would raise the ph if its a chemical thats a bad idea. It would be better to leave the ph as is and get fish that will work with that PH. Now on to the fish the clown loaches will get way to big for the tank. I would not do a pair of angels I would only do one or a group of 5 but that would not leave much room for other fish. The reason I say a single or a group is because if you just have two one may constantly bully the other if theres a group the aggression will be somewhat evened out. Also I have read that angels and gourami together are a bad idea and some angels will make snacks of Neon Tetra. What I would do if I were you and I am not is leave out the Clown Loach and angel, I would however do a group of say 12 neons and 12 harliquin rasbora, and a group of say 9 of some type of corydoras my personal favorite of the corys are the albino which are very common and the false adolfos which are not so common. The albinos are very active and are constantly looking for bits of food in the gravel. I have all of these as well as other fish in my 55 gallon and they look really nice together. All of these are shoaling fish so need to be in groups and look beautiful when they are swimming together.

aura09

Since your new at fish keeping def go for a peaceful tropical community :)
i recommend your neons being in a school of minimum 6
Some good rule of thumbs are 1 inch of fish per gallon of water because overcrowding will cause lots of ammoina and kill the fish :( so take max size of the fish in consideration. that is a neon can get 1.5 inches so thats 9 gallons for those little guys :) remember to only add 3 fish at a time for every ten gallons id just go with 4 or 5 in your tank to be safe cuz its really stressful for them :( 1-3 fish for new tanks! you should wait 7 days between adding fish.
hmm what else ..i agreee no angels or clowns for you haha.
do 10% at least a week water change for new tanks until your cycel is good to go! and do water changes 2-4 weeks after that like 15% or i do 25% should not go any more then 25 tho.
good luck :D

Calmwaters

First welcome aura09. Second you are partially right in most of what you wrote but I do disagree with a few things. First the inch per gallon rule is not always a good way to judge if atank is over stocked you have to look at the individual fish for instance you would not want a single 10 inch fish in a 10 gallon tank as it would not have room to move around. ; ) As for the water changes 10% in a tank the size of hers will not be no were near enough to lower ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. I would suggest at least 20% once a week not every not every 2-4 weeks. From what i understand this is a tank that has been up and running for a while so she should not have to worry about the cycle. The rest of what you said I agree with its a good idea to add a few fish at a time but if you can you should also quarintine the new fish for at least 2 weeks in a different tank to make sure they are not sick before you add them to the existing tank. It does not even have to be a tank it could be a large rubbermaid container or even a bucket. If you are interested I can tell you more on how to set up the temp home for the fish.

burnsbabe

I'm agreeing with Calmwaters that the 1" per gallon thing is going to get you nowhere. It's overly simplistic.

From what you've stated that you'd like here's my 2 cents.

The angels do need to be in a school, five minimum. I wouldn't go so far as to say that that mostly fills your tank up though. Get five little ones if you're into the angels and be prepared to rehome/return to the store if and when they get larger and pair off. Once two have formed a mated pair, having just the two won't be an issue. Keeping them with a Gold Gourami though might be an issue. It depends on the temper of the gourami in question.

Rams are fantastic. Before you grab some of the Blue Rams though, I'd suggest you take a look at their cousin, the Bolivian Ram. They're nearly as beautiful (more so in some, well cared for and happy specimens) and a lot more hardy. I've done two in my 55g (fairly certain they're a boy and a girl now) You can get up to 4 I suppose. If they happen to all be boys though you may be downsizing the group. Ideally you'd get lucky and have two of each. Those rules would generally apply for either the Bolivians or the Blues.

The Clown Loaches do get too large as already mentioned. The Zebra Danios are VERY active, and don't really jive with the mostly sedate nature of the other fish mentioned. Finally, the platies are livebearers and like a basic pH rather than the acidic pH you have (you're sitting at 6).

To finish things up you could do two small schools or one large one depending. If you get the angels I'd do one school of the harlequins, probably 15. If you don't go with the angels then you could do 12 harlys and 12-15 cardinals. They tend to end up as midnight snacks for the angels, so bad idea of you do get them.

I know some people are going to disagree with me and that's fine. Under this scheme as long as it's well filtered and preferably planted with live plants as well as weekly water changes of 30-50% you'll be good. I tend to do large water changes. Once I drag out the hose and start mucking around it makes sense to me to do 50% instead of the 20 or 30% that so many people like.