“Large” fish, planted tank?
- Thread starter Aquarium2212
- Start date
Consider the malabar or malayan leaffishes or maybe even african leopard fish which prefer a lush planted tank. For south american cichlids a group of Mesonauta would work i think.
The blue acara will mangle your plants especially if you keep a group of them.
The blue acara will mangle your plants especially if you keep a group of them.
I’ve kept Electric blue Acara before and plenty of people have no problem keeping them with plants. I think if you look at the plan and the Way I’ve described how things will be planted, they will be fine no?
No oscars in a planted tank period.
Electric blue acaras, or any other acara for that matter would work just fine, if you're not keeping breeding pairs. They will obviously dig if they're breeding. My amazonarum uses to dig multiple pits for their fry concurrently. All the black/brown (cichlasoma), blue (andinoacara), and yellow/red (aequidens) acaras get about 8", sometimes bigger in males. There are some exceptions that stay a bit smaller and some that get a bit bigger (like green terrors which probably would not work in this case) but for the most part acaras would also fit the bill well. I'll do a bit of research into the Australian market for you to see if I can find anything else.
Shame to hear snakeskin gourami can't be imported. I will say regular threespot gourami also get about 6" but I'm assuming you want something that fills the space a bit faster.
Thanks for the info
sounds like the best plan so far. Digging shouldn’t be an issue if there is no room for them to get down the back to the stem plants right? Thinking maybe a group of 5/6/7 to start with as they’ll likely only be a few inches at most?Yeah I came across snakeskin gouramis a few weeks ago and thought I’d finally cracked the code haha
I wouldn't get that many just because of the chance of a breeding pair coming out of that.Thanks for the info
Yeah I came across snakeskin gouramis a few weeks ago and thought I’d finally cracked the code haha
You sure they're illegal to import? I couldn't find anything about any anabantid other than climbing gourami and ctens on any list. I gotta say I felt bad reading that list of banned fish and fish that they're considering banning. Felt disgusted even having that file in my phone, had to delete it.
Ah
I’m in Tasmania so options are incredibly limited. There’s only like 3 aquarium stores that can source fish for me and they’ve all said it’s banned here. I’m paying $3600 for a 5ft tank. It’s the biggest one anyone in this state can source and that’s the normal price haha
Ah okay, how many would you recommend? Could I do some Angels as well?
I’m in Tasmania so options are incredibly limited. There’s only like 3 aquarium stores that can source fish for me and they’ve all said it’s banned here. I’m paying $3600 for a 5ft tank. It’s the biggest one anyone in this state can source and that’s the normal price haha
Welcome to Australia, your hobby is about to get very expensive and frustrating.
Tasmania is probably the hardest place to source any fish in the whole country too, lucky its such a cool place and so many other things to do.
Angels and acaras would work together in a tank that size.
You should look at getting fish sent over from here in Melbourne, a lot of shops do ship around the country, just make sure you are home on delivery day during the cold tassie winters.
Yup, it’s certainly caught me off guard
luckily I don’t mind forking out for such a great hobby, don’t think the mrs is too impressed tho hahah. I’ll look into seeing what I can get shipped 
So far I’m pretty torn between two options.
-EBA, Angels, Congos & maybe down the line some damn expensive (Denison barbs)
I’m very impatient, so like the idea it’s pretty easy to get hold of some big angels right off the bat.CONS- Denions - expensive, only sourced small. EBA’s - potential digging, breeding aggression etc.
-Discus, cardinals - the classic aqua scape.
CONS - a good $1500 for a decent shoal. Keep switching between thinking they’ll look amazing in a big, new, glossy $4k aquarium. A piece of art. Then again, they can be a bit boring and hiding in the corner at times.
I’ve spent the last 5 years trying to achieve the perfect set up, starting to think it doesn’t exist
