Largest fish for 85 gallons?

[Hendre]

If you want a solo fish that will get huge and still be relatively happy in an 85 get a lungfish. And it's an easy fish to take care of.

In a 4ft I'd say no, unless you can get a gilled African lungfish. A member here imported some recently

 

[TheMoneyTank(TMT)]

If you want a solo fish that will get huge and still be relatively happy in an 85 get a lungfish. And it's an easy fish to take care of.

Lungfish get 3ft plus

 

[Hendre]

Lungfish get 3ft plus

Yes. While both relatively inactive and tough I'd say a well filtered 6x2x2 would be much better for long term health.

 

[Kipsoar]

Polypterus! 4ft restricts you, but some polys are a good fit!

Welcome aboard

Totally forgot about those guys! I had a Senegal when I had my cichlids and he was neat. Thanks!

 

[Kipsoar]

Ery Ery

These pics shamelessly stolen from Google image search:View attachment 1280858View attachment 1280859View attachment 1280860View attachment 1280861

That looks awesome. Never seen one at my LSF and I don’t know much about them. Only problem I see is that big mouth. I had a 9-10” sleeper goby that attempted to eat anything, including an almost softball-sized parrot cichlid. I could always keep him by himself but I find that gets a little boring after a while. I’ll definitely look into that!

 

[Kipsoar]

If you went oddballs some options suitable include
Silver dollars (12-15cm)
Striped pike characin (15-20cm)
Leopard bushfish (12-15cm)
Rainbow snakehead (15-18cm)
Red fin wolf fish (18-22cm)
African knife fish (15-22cm)
Synodontis Angelicus (15-25cm)
If you want more community options
Torpedo barbs (10-12cm)
Yo yo loaches (11-15cm)
Snakeskin gourami (15-18cm)
Scissortail rasbora (10-12cm)
Congo Tetras (7-9cm)
Upside down catfish (8-10cm)
If you want any plecos some options include
Zebra plecos (8-10cm)
Green/blue phantom plecos (18-22cm)
Gold nugget pleco (15-18cm)
Flash pleco (12-15cm)
Bristlenose plecos (10-15cm)

Definitely have to do some research now. Thank you!

 

[J. H.]

There are plenty of medium sized haps, like nimbochromis that could work, if you kept the stocking low.

snakeskin gouramis reach 25-30cm

When grown on farms and in the wild, they hit 12" in two years, but in aquariums, they rarely break 8".