Stocking option for upcoming tank

[tyler_medeiros]

So im working on setting up our 29 gallon again and want to make it a moderatly planted tank.
I was thinking of doing sailfin mollies and/or giant danios.
What would be a good number for each or both?
Alao are they plant combatible?

Also in the 90 gallon i have:
1 - 3 inch female confict
1 - 6 inch male blood parrot
5 - 4-5 inch Silver dollars
2 - 2-3 inch Clown loaches.

Is there any more room in 90 -110 gallon for anymore fish.
Preferrably one more small cichlid?

Thanks for any help
Tyler and Amanda

[t_chelle16]

Personally, I wouldn't add anything else to the 90.

As for the 29, are you wanting to breed the mollies?

Giant danios would get too big for a 29 gallon tank (they get around 6" and are pretty fast, active swimmers. They'd keep bumping into the glass.

With mollies, I'd allot about 3 gallons each (so in a 29 with just the mollies, that would be 9 - 10 mollies). If you don't want them to breed, I'd maybe try all males (might have some aggression issues, but w/o any females, it might not be so bad) or all females and get rid of any fry they might have (since they'll likely already be pregnant when you get them) fairly quickly so they won't continue to breed. If you don't really mind them breeding, I'd get at least 3 or 4 females for every male and stock it a little more lightly to begin with because they'll multiply and fill up the tank eventually.

-Chelle

[tyler_medeiros]

Ok so we were looking around at the pet store for some different fish to put in our 29 gallon. We really liked the golden rams and Blue Rams.
Could we put 2 gold Rams, 2 blue Rams and about 6 rummy nosed tetras in the tank. And possibly a couple Cories.
Also we are doing a planted tank, what is the ratio for the wattage of the bulb to the amount of gallon of water.
Thanks
Tyler and Amanda

[t_chelle16]

I think that stocking might work (a little on the heavily stocked side, though). You'd probably have better luck with a single pair of rams. Less bioload and less risk of aggression.

And for lighting, it really depends on the plants and I think using CO2 might have an affect too. But for a simple set up with low light plants, 2 - 3 watts/gallon should be fine. I had 3/gallon on my 20 and the plants were growing almost too quickly and I had a bad algae problem. I cut it back to 2/gallon and it's doing much better.

-Chelle

[tyler_medeiros]

OK so a single pair of rams will be fine. However we saw golden algae eaters at the LFS today and the were really nice. Also we saw YoYo Loaches. Would there be anyway to add a couple of either of them to the tank.

I heard with planted tanks you should have lots of bottom feeders and algae eaters. Is this true?

Also is it true that with a planted tank there won't really be a cycling process? The plants will absorb any of the ammonium and nitrites in the tank preventing a spike.

Today we finnished getting all of the equipment and got the tank set up. We are going away this weekend so theres no fish in it yet but next wednesday we will hopefully start adding some fish.

So far we want:
1 pair of Rams,
4-6 Smaller Tetras (Rummy nosed, Penguin) something like that,
2-4 Peppered Cory Cats
And maybe the GAE or YoYo
The numbers can be changed if nessesary.

Thanks
Tyler and Amanda

[tyler_medeiros]

so what do yout think of that stocking list
Thanks
Tyler and Amanda

[Aqueous]

I'd leave out the GAE, they're the albino form of the Chinese Algae Eater and has a tendancy to become aggressive and territorial (especially towards their own kind) when they get older.

[t_chelle16]

Yeah, I'd leave out the algae eater. They're mean and get somewhat large.

I think the rest sounds okay. The rams will take up about 7 or 8 gallons worth of bioload
4 cories will take up about 8 or 9 gallons
and 6 tetras (larger group is better) would take up about 10 or so gallons

Bringing the total to around 25ish gallons worth of fish.

-Chelle

[Shineillusion]

Just in case you haven't totally ruled out the mollies, I thought I'd throw in a couple of comments. Mollies are brackish water fish, and really do best if there's some salt in the water. It's something you have to keep in mind when chosing companion fish, because not all fish will tolerate the salt.

And one other thing. Being live bearers, it might not work to keep all females. Many times, when live bearers a kept in all female groupings, one of them will undergo a sex change, and become male, even if they've given birth. I've had it happen when my male died, and suddenly, one of my females (who had previously given birth) changed into a male.

One other thing I have to add. Not all algea eaters are aggressive. I have one that's around 6 inches in length, and he never bothers my other fish.