Stock my tank!

[frizzlefish]

(freshwater)

--29/30 gallon homemade stainless steel tank with a brown wood-like painted finish on the outside 3 sides. glass is only in the front
--aquaclear 70(300) or higher?, going to try out this one because you all seem to love them!
--for substrate - sand or pale colored gravel- white/beige
--would love a huge piece of driftwood that fills most of the tank
--plants? - probably go with plastic - tall grasslike or corkscrew val types, long in the back corner behind the wood.

I'm picturing the base of a tree's roots with grass behind it and smaller grasses/mosses in front.


My brain can see the tank but not the inhabitants!! What would YOU put in this tank?

(I have to get something in it QUICK or my brother will re-claim it for fishing minnows in his dirty basement! LOL)

[NeonJulie]

My formula is... pick the centerpiece fish first, followed by a schooling fish, followed by bottomfeeders.

I'm beginning to highly recommend the good things I've heard about White/Golden Cloud Minnows. Hardy, lovely, moderately active unlike their fast-pace danio cousins...

Anyway, maybe your brain can better get an idea of some inhabitants based on that - envision your big, fat-bodied fish, then pick the schooling fish, and bottom feeders. I usually try and contrast the colors. If my big fish is Orange, I go with Blue schoolers, and vice versa. I try not to put all the same type of colored fish together. (Like all gold tone fish, or all blue fish.)

But really I'd considered the practical factors too... pH/Hardness/temp. Everyone says that everything is so bred, but you might decide later that one type of fish really is better off in a specific environment. (Especially since we have no way of really knowing whether the fish you got is captive bred or not.)

[frizzlefish]

Well, my husband would like something that gets larger than say, my little neons, but then again he would like colorful too.

I on the other hand wouldn't mind this type of scaping for a tank full of male only platys, mollys, or swords - or something along those lines.

I've even been thinking about peacock cichlids but then I'd have to add rock and/or more holey driftwood. Trouble is, I think himself would get bored with a one type fish tank.

That's where I thought you guys may have some interesting thoughts on the matter, places my mind didn't go! (scary as that may be!)