Stocking a 20 Tall

Have a 20 gallon tall (24" x 12" x 16") riffle tank I'm working on stocking. Current residents are just 2 Greenside Darters. Substrate is gravel ranging from almost the size of sand up to 1/3 the size of my palm collected from my local creek. Decor is large rocks formed in piles to create caves and crevices and a sponge filter. Filtration and aeration is a sponge filter rated for a 50 gallon. Lighting is standard T8 (I believe) and is on from 3:00-9:00 PM plus tons of ambient room light coming from outside. Temperature ranges from 64 in the winter to 76 at the hottest summer days, it's 74 right now. pH is 7.6, maybe a tiny bit higher but not by much. Water changes are 33% weekly but I'm willing to do up to 50% weekly.

Other than the darters I already have I'm looking for a few more fish.

• Another Pair (2 more fish) of another species of darter that lives in riffles in southwestern PA.
• 5-6 minnows of the Cyprinella genus that live in riffles on southwestern PA.
• (If any more room) 5-6 shiner or dace species that live in riffles in southwestern PA.

I'm sure I have room for another pair of darters and a cyprinella school but I don't know if I have room for another school of shiners or dace in addition so please let me know whether I do or not, I've been told on nanfa that I do but just want to make sure.

So please let me know what species of darters and minnows I could add that meet the above specifications, thanks!

PS, I'm looking for a good powerhead to create decent flow but I want one that won't create heat in the water so probably one that isn't submersible. It also can't be to expensive. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Bump.

Ok well since the only native fish website that had prices I could afford doesn't have any SW PA natives right now it's pretty much down to me collecting my fish. And with my terrible skills at collecting fish (lol) I'm probably just going to go a good stretch of my other local creek and see if I can catch some decent fish. I'm great at catching darters, just not minnows so the stock will be something like this.

2 Greenside Darters
2 either Rainbow, Banded, or Orangethroat Darters
5-6 of a local dace or shiner AND 5-6 fish of a different local dace or shiner species
OR I'll just do 7-8 fish of only one species of local dace or shiner

Acpape0 said:

Sweet ... Post some pics along the way !


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Will do! Here's a video I took for youtube the other day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3BlgzsgtrU&list=UUHpT14dz8K8Ygtjp3kT_noA

The owner of my LFS said he had a rainbow darter pair come in with feeder shrimp the other day. He took them home since it's illegal to display them in LFSs in pa but he said said I could have them off him free of charge

Went to my LFS today. The owner and my friend got some natives in with feeders so he gave them to me. I was originally told he just had rainbow darters but this morning I was told he also found two shiners in the mix. So I picked up 2 male rainbow darters and 2 unidentified shiners (I believe they're longnose shiners though).

Ok so I think I know what the minnows are. The people on nanfa seemed to think the smaller one is actually a female Bluefin Killifish and there was debate about the larger one but I think it's a Pugnose minnow. Neither really fit into the PA native riffle theme so I may or may not end up putting them in my 30 tall eventually.