Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron_S
Nice fish. I really dig the cichlids and the rams!
My partner and I have a 55 gallon tank with 4 frontosa's and 4 yellow labs. It also harbours 3 cory cats, a gold algae eater and a clown loach. A couple of zebra snails as well.
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That is horribly wrong for so many reasons. You're keeping the equivalent of a bearded dragon and a GTP together.
Frontosa= pH > 8 gH > 9 temp 79
Clown Loach pH < 7 (CRITICAL) gH < 6 (CRITICAL) temp 85 (SUPER critical)
Your clown loaches will never reach full size and will eventually peter out and die. Frontosas stunt and do not live their full life span unless they are kept in a minimum six foot by two foot tank. Ideally eight foot by 18" as they can exceed 12". Clownloaches, similarly, can exceed 12".
Also, cory cats should not be kept in groups smaller than 12 for their psychological wellbeing.
What you need to do is remove everything that's incompatible with what you want to keep, and clown loach and frontosa are not on your option list for that size tank. I know a lot of people say otherwise. I gave a lecture at a zoo and worked in the aquarium section in a petshop and was also good friends with a renowned expert on loaches who has written several books (Martin Thoene, Clown loaches, TFH). I know what I'm talking about. In any event you also have to lose the golden algae eater by when it hits full size as it will become aggressive to other fish. They eat other fish's skin when they are adults, not algae.
Humane options:
Keep the yellow labs, build a tank around them, add other compatible fish, like another group of mbuna from lake malawi. You want to go to
Cichlid-Forum.com and post in the lake malawi section. Good choices would be several different male peacocks and a couple of synodontis catfish.
Option B:
Keep corys. Add 10 more. Build a south american tank. Add a pair of angel fish, a trio of rams, and a group of tetras.
In Toronto if you want to go south american you want to talk to Harold at Menagerie Petshop. Parliament and Wellesley. If you want to go African Cichlids, talk to Mike at Finatics on Kennedy south of Eglinton. Harold can also help you set up the proper environment to grow plants if you're interested.
My daughter has a 20 gallon with giant danios, a pearl danio, dwarf fire gourami, clown loach, 4 cory cats and some guppy/endler hybrids.
danios are too fast for gouramis and frighten them. Clown loaches in a 20 gallon is cruel.
This setup would get you kicked off a lot of fish forums if you even mentioned it. You REALLY need to get it together because the setups you have are not conducive to good health or calm animals. I've bred more fish than most people have kept and many people consider me an expert. You're not doing nice things for your fish.
This is the proper way to keep fish
Movie_0007.mp4 video by 111olbap - Photobucket
You put things together that don't bother eachother.
Movie_0001-2.mp4 video by 111olbap - Photobucket
Here at 34 seconds, the baby nanoluteus gets too close to the black paradise, and the black paradise wiggles to inform it, and the nano leans away in submission. That's the most 'fighting' you should ever see.
Movie_0009.mp4 video by 111olbap - Photobucket
Here at 20 seconds, the bristlenose pleco has had enough of the nano stealing it's food, and opens its tail as a threat. Since the fish both speak the same language, the nano understands and goes away. Fish speak several distinct languages both in clicks which are inaudible to humans and with body language. A malawi cichlid's 'get lost or I will hurt you' is a convict cichlids 'i want to mate'. This causes MANY beat up convicts when they are kept in malawi tanks.
Sometimes things outright kill eachother. Assassins won't kill trumpets. They will kill ramshorns. If I put ramshorn snails in there that'd be irresponsible.
I do find it quite amazing how beautiful some tanks are setup though
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