Need Help Stocking My 37 Gallon Tank!?
I just bought a 37 gallon marine land kit yesterday and set it all up. I Have the filter running and the heater on with the water temp at about 79 degrees. I put in the correct amount of water conditioner to dechlorinate the water. I am not going to add any fish until tomorrow(by then the tank will have been set up and running for about 72 hours). I Need Help On What Kinds And How Many Freshwater Fish To Put In Though!!!!!!!!!! Help me 
okay well i would love to do cichilds but i have been told that it is too small of a tank and that cichilds have a large range when it comes to their territory. As far as oscars that would be awesome!! but… oscars get really big so I would definitly want to put them in a bigger tank.. I was thinking along the lines of some rainbow fish and angelfish. But I would love to hear some other options!
African cichlids are your best best if you want lots of color, angel fish if you want elegance or oscars if you want something very aggressive. be sure to add any fish slowly and allow your tank to acclimate to them. it takes a while get your bacteria right so do lots of water checks in the begining especially you nitrates and amonia. look at drsfosterandsmith.com to see what fish are compatable with each other and maybe some ideas on what to choose. be sure to allow for workers also, snails, algea eaters and the likes. as far as how many fish 1″ of fish per gallon, just be sure to check max size and use that as your guide.
I am assuming you are going freshwater…
you must answer some questions first–
do you want a community with a number of diffrent species all getting along as much as possible or
do you want a more aggressive tank with some cichlids ( not all cichlids are too aggressive for community)
do you want some live plants eventually?… tell us more about what you think you want and we can better help give you some pointers
Ken
You need to cycle the tank for about a month and also add some source of ammonia before you add fish. I advise you do some research on this
How about
10 danios or white cloud mountain minnows
2 Bolivian rams
5 female bettas (read up on keeping female bettas together) OR 6 livebearing fish (guppies, platies or swordtails (mollies are too nippy))
OR 6 smaller rainbowfish
3 hoplo catfish
3 emerald catfish
and either a bristlenose plecostomus, a few otocinclus or a siamese algae eater
Depends o what you want : )
Tropical community tends to start and stay small with tons of bright colors. Live bearers like guppies, molly and platy’s will even have babies readily! Most of these though are schooling fish and need to be kept in groups.
Semi aggressive fish tend to be sold small and get big, so watch how big their potential can be. These are the fish that are usually fun to interact with. Things like a needle nose gar will need live food! This section includes things like most cat fish, bala sharks, gourami, barbs an eels. You just need to make sure you’re aware of how large each of these fish are going to get, most about 6-12 inches.
Cichlids are a wonderful choice as well. South american cichlids tend to get very large and are very aggressive. These include things like parrot cichlids, oscars and dempsy’s. Just be very careful as to how large they will get. I don’t recommend oscars b/c of how large they get and how messy they can be. African cichlids tend to stay smaller, but still get about 6 inches in length. Peacock cichllids can be very beautiful and relatively peaceful. This group of fish can range from many bright and lovely colors.
I don’t recommend goldfish, as you’ll only be abe to have 2 maybe 3 in your tank. A goldfish needs 20 gallons for the first and ten gallons for each additional one.
Plecos are a great sucker fish and can live with a wide variety of fish with no troubles. Just make sure you see what kind you get and thier full size potential. Many dwarf breeds reach about 5-6 inches, but most common plecos reach 18-24 inches and can quicklly over power your tank.
Best of luck!
seems like you got everything under control… but if you want to add live plants (which are almost always better than fake) u might want to get them first and get them rooted…also even tho the waters set up i would still do a water test…i know petsmart does it for free and its just to be on the safe side….as far as fish go start from the ground up
cleaners – plecostomus/cories/botias/loaches/other catfish/snail….plecos r good over all cleaners, cories botias loaches and catfish clean up the gravel pretty well, snails r good at cleaning everything but will be eaten by most bottom feeders and multiply!
next level the middle:D- this is most all fish if u want a semi agressive tank get silver dollars, tetras, barbs, and “sharks”, angelfish, and gouramis, pacus, eels, gobys, etc
if you want comunity fish which are easy to breed mollies (to get dalmations, silver and black get a male and female silver and black molly…u can also get dalmations that had cremecicle molly parents) guppies almost every month:P platty’s are awesome cus of their variety
then there is also your cichlids there are south american which are pretty much jack dempsys, oscars, convicts, and blood parrots these are agressive fish usually only 1-2 survive after they are adults
there are also the african ciclids more variety, always colored, and look awesome without many decorations and a blue light,
the top dwelling fish i concider as decoration cus they dont do much:P
these are the types of tanks u can make the bottom dwellers will be the same AND REMEMBER 1 GALLON per 1 INCH OF THE ADULT SIZE!
hope this helps:D if u have more questions ask me and if i cant help im sure i can find someone:D
72 hours is too soon to add any fish other than for cycle which can take 4 weeks. some good cycle fish are danios they are hardy and inexpensive. Once you finish the cycle, then maybe 3-5 anglelfish. get multiples so they don’t pick on each other(atleast 3) Maybe some silver dollars or a few of those kissing fish. Some sort of catfish for the bottom or 3-4 corydoras. Hope it helps some.
I have a 36 gallon fresh tropical that I am about to set up.
Well I thought you were talking about a salty tank at first haha.
I’d say if you’re going for an aggressive tank, look for Senegal Bichir, they look AWESOME, they’re like 17.99?
If you want a community tank get 6-8 neon tetras, 6 glofish (any color) 3-4 corydoras cats, as well as a few nice fish for the top of the tank (bettas, gouramis etc) as well as maybe 3-4 glass catfish for the mid tank, they look sick as well.
also if you want a giant fish get a pleco haha it’ll grow huge in that tank.
I would try some unusual fish like:
-1 angelfish
-3 German angelfish
-3 male Swordtails
-3 Dojo Loaches
-2 killifish
-6 marble hatchets