[EricaRuth]

Hello all!

I want to re-stock a 40 g that I have. Years ago, I had it set up as a Lake Tanganyika cichlid tank. I, regretfully, left it at home when I went to college and it wasn't kept up. So, the survivors are 2 syno. petricola and 1 (possibly a few more) multi shellies.

I want to break away from cichlids. I'd love to have an active community tank, and if I can, leave the surviving synos and multi\s in there.

My pH is >8 (we have well water)

I'd love advice on what kind of fish you think would be appropriate. So far I am leaning towards gourami or dwarf rainbowfish with smaller schooling fish like cherry barbs and tetra. (Welcome to suggestions for tetra. I do like neons but I worry the pH is too basic)

I'm welcome to any and all suggestions, thank you!

 

[henningc]

Neons are a bad choice because of P.H. A school of harliquin rasboras or penguin tetras may look nice. Cherry Barbs usually need more depth than a 40 brooder. As for a gourami, just about any will work. I like Pearls and Moonlite the best. A large male Pearl is hard to beat for color. Dwarf rainbows would work fish as well.

 

[loveschool]

Hello all!

I want to re-stock a 40 g that I have. Years ago, I had it set up as a Lake Tanganyika cichlid tank. I, regretfully, left it at home when I went to college and it wasn't kept up. So, the survivors are 2 syno. petricola and 1 (possibly a few more) multi shellies.

I want to break away from cichlids. I'd love to have an active community tank, and if I can, leave the surviving synos and multi\s in there.

My pH is >8 (we have well water)

I'd love advice on what kind of fish you think would be appropriate. So far I am leaning towards gourami or dwarf rainbowfish with smaller schooling fish like cherry barbs and tetra. (Welcome to suggestions for tetra. I do like neons but I worry the pH is too basic)

I'm welcome to any and all suggestions, thank you!

My tank has very high pH ~8.2 and all my neon tetras (7 of them) are doing just fine. I also have several Harlequin Rasbora and tbh I like them better than the neon tetra since they school relatively tight together most of the time (unlike the tetra)

 

[Lucillia]

What sort of colors are you looking for? Would you prefer schooling? Community? A mix? Livebearers? Also do you plan on doing live plants? There are still a good chunk of fish that you can do and you can try to acclimate for your pH as well. Its not easy but it can be done. Based on what you choose you can build the tank around them. Some fish like to be kept very warm, like rams. Some like to be colder like white clouds and danios. Is it a 40g tall? or a 40g breeder? This can make a difference as well. Some fish like horizontal swim space over vertical. Do you know what the parameters normally are besides the pH? You probably have great alkalinity, I'm jealous since I have 0 in my tap water. Gouramis are fantastic! I don't know too much about the more specific ones but a great type that stays small enough and is very docile are the honey gouramis. But remember with gouramis they have the labyrinth organ so they will spend almost all of their time near the surface of the tank. They don't want the surface water to be like white water rafting. They also seem to really enjoy dense floating plants. The nice part about gouramis is that they seem to be pretty hardy (thus far for me!).