Interested in silver dollars...

[Carefree_Dude]

I've seen plenty of photos of silver dollars, and I think it would be cool to eventually have a shoal of them. I have a few questions:

How many are recommended for a group?

What color varieties are there? I've seen ones that are barred, have red fins, etc.

how expensive are the fancier varieties than the normal ones?

Is there any fish they shouldn't be kept with?


any general info I should know?

 

[dscort]

i would say atleast 3 in a group, the more the merrier. keeps them from freaking out so bad, but they still occaisonaly hit the glass. i have a shoal of 9 in my tank. the smallest 2 are about 3 inchs long and the largest is about 6 inches long. eat anything but one of mine gets constipated if i dont give enough veggies to them. most of mine love to do the mating dance w/ each other. had eggs laid once. cant comment on other varities b/c i have the common sd, except for 2 spotted.

 

[Racersk]

I have 5 in my 90 (upgrading to a 125 next week) with oscars and poly's. Standard variety. They scavenge any crumbs my oscars leave and I have noticed some of the bigger ones would nip at the oscars when I wasn't looking.

My group ranges in size from 3-5" and they often flash how 'big' they are to the oscars if they get rowdy...Bichir's completely ignore them.

 

[DMD123]

I have 5 total in my 120g, 4 of the Red hook types and 1 regular sd. The fish do very well with my 10" Midas who on occasion uses them for target practice. They are total hogs when it comes to food. I have been thinking of adding 2 more when I get my 210g set up.

 

[ferretfish]

i have a wide bar silver dollar they get about nine inches. and are really cool

 

[wantokeeptrout]

They're not recommended with african cichlids but they're pretty tough and can live with most SA cichlids, they're not huge fin nippers either but they have different personalities so be careful before mixing them with angelfish. the only variaties that My LFS gets are regulars and red hooks. the red hooks are quite a bit more expensive.