i have a 30gallon tank and i want some scooling fish

[guppy]

Red crystal shrimp are freshwater but i'm not surewhat they cost, glass shrimp are cheapest and get along well in tetra tanks, wood shrimp are bigger but still safe in a small fish community and in most places are around $6 each. The main thing to remember is to take your time so your filter media will adjust to the bioload, if you go to fast you can get an ammonia spike that will kill off your fish. Very few fish breed in smaller community tanks and even the ones that do like guppies and zebra dianos will mainly lose their fry or eggs to thier tank mates.

 

[Miles]

Silver Dollers and clown loaches grow to 6" he could have a couple in a 30gal

Uhh Is that how big clown loaches in England get? Clown Loaches get up to 12", if you take proper care of them. Silver Dollars only get 6", but are as big around as a dinner plate and should have a 6 foot tank to fulfil the need for swimming space.




If you want a schooling SA Community tank, heres what you wanna do (I sure do have alot of pre-planned tank ideas, I should write a book.)

12-20 White Clouds - Cheap, Hardy, cycle your tank.. Use neons if you want, but you will end up buying more later because they are sensative.

6-10 Hatchet Fish - Schooling Top-Dweller, will give your tank movement towards the top..

6-10 Cory Cats - Try to get Julii, Reticulata, Panda or one of the types that actually shoal well togethor.. I have noticed Albinos and Emeralds are kind of in their own world most of the time..

Now you will want a colorful 'centerpeice' fish.. For a tank like this, depending on the size of your White Clouds/neons, you have a few options. I would say a Betta fish is your best candidate.. Next I would go with one of the neon Dwarf Gouramis. These fish wont take the time or energy to chase around entire schools of fish. However, their presence will cause the schooling fish to bunch togethor tighter, because the larger fish is a threat. Even though the larger fish dosn't have the capability of killing one (maybe), it makes the schooling fish feel threatened, and they should shoal togethor. People do this with Discus and Cardinals quite often.. Takashi Amano uses hi-fin sharks to do this in his planted tanks.

As some final additions.. You could add some 'oddballs' such as a group of Kuhli Loaches, or a single peaceful loach. Go ahead and try glass shrimp, but they will eventually disappear. They might reproduce, but I doubt you will notice a population explosion. You are better off going with Amano or Bamboo shrimps..They are larger and hardier.

You could also add some extra flavor to your tank with some of the smaller Pleco species. Bushy-Nose, as well as any other Pleco that will stay under 6" will be a nice addition. The more colorful, the better..

Hopefully that helps!

 

[Miles]

o yeah .. Don't forget. The more fish you have, the more you feed. The more you feed, the more maintanence you will need to do. That means more water changes! Keep that in mind when buying fish, but also keep in mind to properly school a fish, the bigger the school the better!

 

[guppy]

Miles, what do you think of the set up I suggested, I did this for my niece 3 years ago when she was ten. It is still going strong and while she has lost a few fish to age she replaced them with the same kind. Glass shrimp seem to last about 2 years but at $2 ea they can be replaced. The scissor tails top out around 5" and do seem to get a kick out of sometimes scattering a school of other fish. The pygmy pandas will cruise together across the tank in little leaprog movements like a flock of starlings through a backyard.

 

[Miles]

Guppy.. I liked your selection of fish.. but remember what the guy was asking for.. Just a few schooling species. They will have a better schooling effect in larger groups, usually. With smaller increments, you can get somewhat of a 'hodge-podge' effect, which is what most people think of as a 'full community tank'.. I guess it depends on personal preference and what route this guy would like to go. I am a fan of fewer species, more quantity.. This method also reduces stress for schooling fish which should make them hardier, and live longer..

ahh True Glass Shrimp, not ghost shrimp.. Yeah those will work way better Expensive shrimp are a waste IMO. Throw in a few bucks of ghost shrimp every month, disposable cleaning units.

IMO, I would not go with Scissortails or Giant Danios (even though they are great fish).. They get fairly large and the size of them would limit your options for other tankmates (Bioload, Aggresion, etc..) All the others you listed work great. I was just trying to make a list of cheap, inexpensive, hardy fish that will last a while and are a nice mixture of color and movement. You could definately replace the WhiteClouds with something nicer such as Cardinals, Glo-Lites, Serpaes, Bloodfins, Flames, Blues.. your choice! Just keep in mind, the larger the body size of the fish, the more bio-load.. For beginners this can be a tough one to understand, that is why I usually reccomend nice, small, cheap, white clouds.

Any Corydora that will school is an awesome choice!

 

[sandtiger]

Silver Dollers and clown loaches grow to 6" he could have a couple in a 30gal

Clowns preper to be in groups and grow over a foot. It take some time as they are slow but unless he eats them they will outgrow the tank. As for silverdollers...6" schooling very fast fish sounds great for such a small tank...I disagree with you.

 

[rweedon]

man every time I want to correct somebody or give a good idea there is miles already got it why don't you give some of us a chance huh? good job miles well said all of it...

 

[guppy]

Thanks for the feed back Miles, I see your point. I also liked the setup you mentioned in the empty tank thread, any tank containing clowns, african butterflies, and pike charicins are more than alright with me. All three rank high amongst my favorites. As an aside, lately both geisha girls and white clouds have been hard to find in this area.

 

[DanDanUK]

I would avoid the clowns in a 30g if you want enough variety of fish to form several schools, although they grow fairly slowly they will get a foot long. A combo that I have used and enjoyed was 5 each of Scissortails and giant dianos, six each of silver hatchetfish, zebra dianos, cardinals, and head+taillights, and 8 each of pygmy panda cory cats, glowlight tetras, and lemon tetras, plus a dozen neons. Give your 30g a dark background and dark fine grain gravel with a couple clumps of elodea and maybe a stand or two of corkscew val with good lighting and I think you will like the effect. All of these fish will school by species and they offer enough diversification that they will use all the parts of the tank. Even the cories move around as a squadron. Your tank will always offer motion and interactions to watch and for relatively little money to set up and maintain you will end up with a tank full of living jewels. No monsters though. You will get to keep a lot of fish for a tank that size and they can all be fed flake food or small pellets. You can also add each species seperately over time starting with the cories and neons, then the hatchets, then work your way up as you can afford it going from smallest to largest.