Stocking suggestions for a 125g
 

I really am the king of good craigslist deals. This past Thursday I bought a 125g tank with glass canopies, strip light, various decor and other items including medications and test kits, a never-been-used Eheim 2217 and a wooden cabinet stand for a total of $150. Go me!

Anyway, it's sitting empty right now because the girlfriend and I aren't going to bother filling it until we move in mid August. We've already looked at different stocking ideas and there are pretty much two that we've come up with:

Community tank, probably heavily planted with well-secured plants with:
1x largish geophagus, probably g. surinamensis
Two groups of a dozen or so corydoras
A couple of smaller pleco species such as maybe one each of clowns, bristlenose and rubber lip
Several different smaller cichlids, such as a ram, an apisto or two and maybe some keyholes
Three or so different groups of tetras, probably including rummynose
Hatchets for the upper levels

Or a cichlid tank with:
A tiger oscar
A jaguar cichlid
A jack dempsey
A green (or maybe red?) terror
Maybe some type of larger syno

Of course, the second option would require no live plants and I'd probably decorate with lots of big rock formations and driftwood. In addition to the canister that came with the tank I'd probably also slap a couple of big HOB's on there. All of the fish would be introduced as small as possible to avoid aggression.

Does anyone else have any other interesting ideas? We also considered doing a Rift Lake tank but I think we both like the personality of the American cichlids more than the African ones. We also considered doing an Asian biotope that would be similar to the South American one, only with loaches instead of cories, barbs instead of tetras, danios instead of hatchets and maybe some gouramis instead of dwarf cichlids, but we shied away from the idea because having some sort of cichlid in big community tank just seems sort of...essential, I guess.

And no, I don't wanna hear that we should turn it into a reef :-P Our first saltwater tank will probably be something on a more manageable scale before we go pouring money into a tank this big.

Congrats on a killer deal. I've always thought a tank that size would be well served to have a healthy Bala Shark in it. Those guys are so impressive when they are at full size. Big enough to make a meal out of ;)

Killer deal, Jim. I'd go with a heavily planted tank with large schools of tetras :-)

PS. I also like idea of loaches & barbs, go figure.

Awesome find! I've always wanted a 125, just don't have a place to put one right now. I would do an American cichlid tank similar to what you listed.

I just went and read up on the jaguar cichlid. What a cool looking fish. They certainly seem like they have "personality plus". :-)

I would go with a community tank and put some schools of all kinds of tetras, some guppies, and watever other peaceful fish you find at ur LFS

nice find.
the choice is a hard one,as i like the suggestions you have come up with.
as i last resort you could flip a coin i guess.
i love rummy nosed tetras,and as a large shoal they look awsome,so i guess
theres my two cents worth.

How bout a planted Discus tank? Could still house some of the dwarf cichlids.;-)

I think we've decided on going with the larger cichlids. We settled on them for a couple of reasons:
1) We both really like the personalities of these fish.
2) We felt it was important to have fish that were large enough to really justify having a tank this big (the community fish I listed under the other option would work in much smaller tanks).
3) We're on a budget since we're moving into a new place and the girlfriend's going to actually be paying for school (at least part of it) starting in August so we don't want the added expense of upgrading the lighting in order to go planted. Not to mention how much more expensive it would be to stock the tank with large numbers of small fish. Think about it - if the community tank had two groups of 12 corydoras, at roughly $4 per fish that's $100 in corydoras alone, not to mention the several schools of other fish. Four or five large cichlids could be purchased as juveniles for about $20 total. Also, we'd save money on buying plants in the first place.

yes you make perfect sence to do that,and you get to watch your fish grow over time.
good luck to you both :)