Ideas for stocking 200 gallon tanks?

[Eric L]

I recently set up 2 180 gallon tanks that both have a 30 gallon sump and alot of hoses making it an estimated 200 gallon system each. I want some input on stocking one of them and choosing the best catagory for the other.

Tank A: Cichlid tank

Right now the only things that I really want to keep in the tank are an oscar and a school of 3-6 silver dollers but I am looking for South/North american cichlids thats are not as big as an oscar. So far I have firemouths, Green terrors, or a texas cichlid in mind. What are some other cichlids that I could put in there and if it were up to you how would you stock it?

Tank B: ?

So far I have run through a couple ideas, first being a discus tank with a histrix ray. I am not a huge fan of discus but if they fill up my tank with a ray without causeing harm to the ray then that would be great.

Second is a large community tank (little boring but it would be alot of little fish with alot of colors). This option is mostly because I could buy about 90 fish which would be great and big colonies of fish would create numerous treats in the way of fry for my oscars.

Third, this is a little risky but a highly understocked tank with a histrix ray and a couple cichlids. I want a stingray but I dont really want mega tempramental discus to deal with so this is where this option comes from

Forth: Another cichlid tank. My favorite fish are north/south american cichlids but if I already have one big tank with them I think it would be good to keep something else also.




Thanks for you helps in helping me decide,

Eric

 

[water_baby83]

SW reef tank. You get it all, bright colors, huge diversity possibilities, schooling fish, and a million corals, crustaceans, nudibranchs', etc., etc. to choose from. You will never be bored with a reef tank. That's what I would do.

--EMi

 

[Eric L]

Thats what I was thinking for a little bit but then I decided it would be best to get the experience of handling big FW tank then move on to SW later than to try and take on both at once.

 

[fatsolomon]

thats a good idea, i did fresh for a while before i dove into salt. it just gives you a better idea of what to do when things go wrong (commonly refered to as experience)

is far as stocking goes, id put come convicts in the cichlid tank, they breed easily and they look great. for the other tank i would say that africans are far too hard to keep in a tank that big, they are less agressive when they are cramped. if it was me i would get a couple dozen red bellys. they are awsome and pretty hardy.

 

[AngelicGreenTerror]

If you put discus in with a hystrix, I'd be more worried about the discus then the ray. Stingrays have been known to prey on discus in tanks. With cichlids, you could always have around 9-10 Firemouths, 10 Convicts, and you might as well add either Swordtails or Platies as dithers for them. I'd start with about 4 female swords/platies and 2 males, and soon the tank will be overrun with them, but that means snacks for the cichlids.

 

[Vitaliy]

Silver Aro with 3 Dats and some catfish.

 

[Jason_S]

here's what I would do:

tank 1:

1 oscar, 1 severum (preferably H. efasciatus but these are pricey) or 1 uaru, 1 chocolate cichlid, 6-8 silver dollars and a lima shovelnose.

tank 2:

colony of frontosa (preferably 2 males and say 6 females), 6 daffodil brichardi (hopefully lots of fry for the frontosa to snack on), and 1 synodontis angelicus or decorus.


tank 2 is actually a similar setup to what I currently have in my 55. the fish are small and will eventually be moved into my 150. now for the record, I'm just now really starting to get into tanganyikans so someone will have to confirm that tank 2 would work (and then I'll know if I should expect problems in the future ).

 

[rallysman]

Honestly I think a massive community tank would look awesome.
a couple hundred neon tetras should do


Dats and and an aro would be the cats ass too

 

[HarpoGarza]

How about 1 tank of nothing but dither fish? 30 Buenos Aires Tetras, a dozen silver dollars, 100 neons, 2 dozen cory cats. That would rock the mic.

 

[rallysman]

How about 1 tank of nothing but dither fish? 30 Buenos Aires Tetras, a dozen silver dollars, 100 neons, 2 dozen cory cats. That would rock the mic.