Moderate budget, advice needed

[Paix]

I work at a boarding school (But we'd never call ourselves that) and at my work, the students live on campus. They have teachers at the school, and "houseparents" when they come home. I am a houseparent. I spend my days and nights taking care of 10 unruly middle school girls, trying my best to keep them safe, while teaching them social skills and the basics of life.

I have a $1,500 budget set aside for home improvement. My partner and I are considering purchasing a large fresh water aquarium. We currently have a 30 gallon aquarium with guppies, and the students enjoy them a good bit. We are thinking a larger, more diverse and well thought out tank might be a nice addition to our home. So on with it! Why am I here talking to you?!

Issue that needs solving: I need considerable help deciding how to go about spending this budget.

Goal: Create the most interesting and beautiful aquarium possible while not wasting money.

Preferences:

I'd like a healthy environment for the fish.
I want the water and tank to be clean and clear.
I want most of the foreground to be lined with short plants, possibly glosso, or it's newer mutant cousin. (I tend to enjoy beautiful plants more than beautiful fish.)
I want to avoid costly upkeep expenses.
I want to avoid spending more than a couple hours a week cleaning the tank.

---

What I've found so far:

Classifieds in my area are not helpful. I live in central South Dakota and hardly anybody lives here. (Those that do must not like fish)
Because of this, I've been left with searching the internet and the nearest Petco/Petsmart which are a two hour drive away. While I was initially interested in a 60 gallon tank, it seemed a little bit small to me. Then I saw a 125 gallon tank at Petsmart. Now that's what I had in mind! The tank which comes with some lights and a cover cost $310 and the stand cost $260. It looks sturdy and well built. I'm not married to the 125 gallon tank idea, but that size tank is what I imagined when we first discussed the idea. So I continued to look around and theorize. Let me first say, I'm no expert, in fact, I have no clue what I'm doing. But I tried to use simple reasoning to theorize what I might need in addition to the tank. I theorized I'd need plenty of filtration. I theorized the larger filtration systems would make more noise, which would drive me crazy. I theorized that going overboard on the filtration might keep the tank clean. So I added to my list, three 60 gallon filters. I moved on to heaters, and added two 90 gallon heaters. (It sometimes gets a little cold in our home) Next I considered lighting, I figured the lights the tank came with would not be sufficient for a tank full of live plants. I really liked the LED lights, but can LED lights be UV? I'm not sure, either way, I added about $150 of lights to my idea. So here is a quick MS paint sketch of what I had imagined:



As far as aquarium decoration goes, I'll have to work on that later, but in short, I want no fake plants in my tank, plenty of hiding spots, but not a lot of clutter.

Before I began theorizing for a larger tank, I came up with this list for my fish:

20 Zebra Danios
10 Tiger Barbs
6 Redfin Tinfoil Barbs
3 Red Tail Sharks

But now, if I go with the larger tank, the options are nearly limitless, so I need help here too.

Preferences on fish:
I really like schoolers.
I like having fish combinations which force most areas of the tank to be occupied at any given time, rather than everything being all clustered together.
In general (some exceptions may apply) I want to avoid having large or expensive fish.
I love fish chases, but not fish abuse or death.

So questions:

What do you think about the 125 gallon tank from petsmart? (Remember, buying used is hard in my area)

What do you think about my filtration, heating and lighting?

What are some plant ideas?

What are some fish combination ideas?

Will all of this cost a fortune of time and money after everything is set up?

Am I foolish for considering this task?



Thanks everyone!

[MLBfan]

One option is to get a nice school of silver dollars, they don't get TOO big and the are relatively peaceful, so you could also keep other fish, but I don't think you can keep plants with them. Since you are planning such a big tank there are many options: Angelfish, a lot of different schools of fish, some peaceful cichlids?

There are so many different possibilities.

[Bigge3415]

Most cichlids don't to well with plants.

[Brhino]

On the Petco tank: sounds like a pretty good price for a new tank and stand of that size.

On filtration: research canister filters. They're good for larger tanks, they're excellent filters, and they're nearly silent. They cost a bit more but for a tank that size it's definitely worth the money. I wouldn't do there 60 gallon filters. I would do an aquaclear 110 (a hang-on-back filter but a good one at that) and a canister filter rated for 100+ gallons.

lighting/plants: since you don't want a ton of maintenance, you probably want a "low-tech" planted tank. that means moderate lighting, no CO2 injection, which should yield moderate plant growth but nothing too crazy. It does make it hard to grow some of the more demanding plants, though. I'm a fan of the coralife T5 light fixtures myself. Don't know much about LEDs for a planted tank.

On the fish you mentioned:
Zebra Danios are small, hardy, energetic fish. A big school of them would look quite nice.
Tiger Barbs are a little bigger, semi-aggressive. They're well known for nipping - each other in a big school (which should not be a problem), other fish in a small school (which is a problem). 10 would be a healthy number, and zebra danios would be fast enough to keep away, but if you want tiger barbs you'll want to avoid slower, more delicate fish like gouramis or angelfish.
Red-Tailed Tinfoil Barbs are much bigger than Zebra Danios and Tiger Barbs. A 125 gallon tank would be big enough for them but I'd be concerned that the danios would get eaten - you're talking about pairing 2" fish with 8" fish.

I would suggest you decide first off if you would like a whole lot of small fish (think 2-4" mostly) or a moderate amount of larger fish (think 6-12" mostly). There are plenty of interesting options either way.

After everything is set up and running, time and money investment should be fairly minimal. As a comparison I have a 75 gallon low-tech planted community tank. I spend about a half hour once a week doing a water change. Once every several weeks or so I might spend more like a full hour to include pruning plants, scraping algae, tinkering with the filter, that sort of thing. Monthly costs aren't bad either - 40 gallons of water added to my water bill, fish food and water decholorinator when it runs out. A properly set up fish tank can easily be maintained on less than an hour a week.

[nikelodeon79]

Most cichlids don't to well with plants.

Not true, many SA cichlid species do very well with plants.

I don't have much time to respond, but I'd LOVE to fill a 125g tanks with some small schooling species... just imagine the HUGE schools you could have!!! Giant schools neon tetras, harlequin rasboras, etc... fantastic!

Scrap the HOB 60 gallon filters and get a canister filter or two. I'd recommend a couple of Rena XP3s.. great filtration, easy to use canister.

[William]

If you like plants and low maintenande i would def consider a rainbowfish tank. Stunning colors, friendly to plants and will spawn. Some fry will survive in a well planted.

[Strider199]

"3 Red Tail Sharks". I've never had more then 1 per tank due to their territorial behaviour. But then again I've never had a 125 gallon tank. Be careful with these.

[Paix]

I'm a fan of the coralife T5 light fixtures myself.

I would suggest you decide first off if you would like a whole lot of small fish (think 2-4" mostly) or a moderate amount of larger fish (think 6-12" mostly).

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll look into those lights and the canisters, thanks!

I'd like to stick with smaller fish. Since I don't own any of the fish in my list, I don't have to stick with any of those. I love the idea of multiple large schools of small fish. Do you have any recommendations?

Giant schools neon tetras, harlequin rasboras, etc... fantastic!

Scrap the HOB 60 gallon filters and get a canister filter or two. I'd recommend a couple of Rena XP3s.. great filtration, easy to use canister.

I'll look into that filter, thanks! I too would love to see giant schools of different small fish. As far as fish appearances go, I don't really care what they look like, but my students would appreciate a variety of colors and shapes. Can you think of a complete list you'd consider getting for a 125 gallon tank?

If you like plants and low maintenande i would def consider a rainbowfish tank. Stunning colors, friendly to plants and will spawn. Some fry will survive in a well planted.

They sounds neat. I'll add them to the list of consideration, thanks!

"3 Red Tail Sharks". I've never had more then 1 per tank due to their territorial behaviour. But then again I've never had a 125 gallon tank. Be careful with these.

I did not know that. I guess I'll need a different algae eater. I said three because I thought "there's no chance a single shark can clean a 125 gallon tank" Do plecos eat other fish? (Live ones)

Thanks for everyone's help so far, keep it coming!

[Brhino]

You don't NEED an algae eater, that's a common misconception (and red tailed sharks aren't algae eaters anyhow). Algae can be managed by properly balancing your tank setup and, when needed, a bit of manual labor on the part of the fish keeper.

Anyhow, I tried to make a rough list of all the possible schooling fish but there's just too many. Danios, tetras, barbs, rasboras, livebearers, rainbowfish, corydoras, loaches... those are just groups, many of which have several different commonly available species within. Not every one is compatible with every other one or suitable for your tank, but there's a lot to chose from when building a peaceful community tank.

My suggestion would be to visit whatever stores you're thinking about buying fish from, taking a look at their selection and making some notes on what you like, and then coming back here or elsewhere on the internet and doing some more research. DO NOT RELY ON PET STORE EMPLOYEES FOR ACCURATE INFORMATION ON FISH COMPATIBILITY OR STOCKING. They're often flat out wrong.

A word on plecos - there are scores of different species. The most commonly available are referred to as common plecos. They get big - even by the standards of your tank - and they're not great algae eaters. If you want a pleco to go with a bunch of small schooling fish I would suggest seeing if you can find any bristlenose plecos. They don't grow to more than 4-6" and unlike their bigger cousins they are good algae eaters (though you still have to feed them yourself as well). They won't pick on any other community type fish. They do sometimes squabble amongst themselves but in a tank your size you'd have room for several.

[ldoerr]

I would definetly look into a LARGE school of Harlequin Rasbora. They are beautiful. Give them a shot. I promice that you will love them. Everybody on this sight that has them LOVES them. They are very peacefull and stay in the top 1/3 of the tank. They school very tightly most of the time.