Ideas On Fish For Freshwater Community Aquarium?
by Aquaboy on Sunday, January 2nd, 2011 | 5 Comments
I recently purchased a 36 gallon bowfront aquarium and am still debating on which fish to get. I already have 6 zebra danios in the tank and was thinking about getting 7 neon tetras, 6 cherry barbs, and 3 cory catfish. Will the tank be overstocked? If not, any other ideas?
white cloud minnows are always good, they are school fish so you can have a few of them and they will zip around the tank together. Plus they are pretty hearty they dont even need heaters in the tank and they only cost about $1.14 each.
It’s not a good idea to stock calm tetras like neons with very active fish like danios and barbs. It sounds like this will be an active tank. A school of danios, a school of barbs – that covers the middle and top. How about some more corys so they have an nice group?. Maybe a bristlenose pleco for an all around fish – he might help with algae too.
I have cardinals in an active tank and they are fine, zipping around all day. I would highly recommend Pakistani/Yo-Yo loaches – -these are hilarious and i can’t get over them. They get into holes you never new existed. I would get 4.
Sounds like an awesome tank! Some of my personal favorites are Mickey mouse or red wag platies, white cloud minnows (very hardy!), and celestial danios/ galaxy rasboras. Good luck with the tank!
PS: if you wanted, you could put 6 cories instead of 3 to make a proper school
You have a nice size tank and sounds like you are going to go with community fresh water fish. The rule of thumb is one inch of fish per gallon of water so that would afford you 36 inches of full grown fish.
Barbs are community fish however they are known as fin nippers and some tend to be more aggressive than others. Now that you have the barbs, you should avoid anything with long fins such as a male betta or long fin tetras. The neon tetras are fine but are small fish especially for that size tank. Catfish eat algae and if your tank is newly set up, you dont have enough algae yet for them to feed on. These are just general rules. I’m sure there will be people out there to say things didnt go that way in their tanks but even us as humans or our other pets have different personalities as well. Like I said, general rules. I might suggest platys. They get along nicely in community tanks, come in many colors and versions, and are relatively hardy fish. Males and females could potentionally mate and give you baby fish as they deliver live fish. It will be cheaper for you to get smaller fish and wait for them to grow. Buying larger fish to fill your tank could be costly and if this is a new tank, you wouldn’t want to start that way and lose them. Also, A nice touch, take photos early on to see how much your fish have changed and grown. A general way to get fish to kind of spread out through your tank meaning upper, mid, or lower swimmers would be to see their mouths–if the lower lip aims up they are top swimmers, upper lip aimed down they are lower swimmers, and fish that have both lips even they are middle tank swiimmers. Although here again, fish can do whatever they want to do.
Enjoy your tank and fish.
They are fun to watch.
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