My Mom Wants a Community of Colourful Fish (HELP)

[Shenanigans]

Personally I would sit down with her and look through fish on a site like liveaquaria or petsolutions to get a better idea of what she likes. Many times I've had people simply wanting colorful fish get excited about "unusual" fish like apistos. An interesting pattern, body shape etc can go a long way to excite people. I find that most of the time when people ask for colorful fish, it's because all they can picture are the dull, common fish offered by petco.

Once you have an idea of other things she might be interested in, you can look around aquabid or other places for species you both can get excited about. I think everyone here already gave a great starting point for specific suggestions

 

[adamsfishes]

Someone said discus. That tank is too small for discus unless it was the only species of fish and you are willing to do a ton of maintenance.

Of course you could try a matched pair of discus in your community, but those are several hundred dollars.

 

[Wailua Boy]

I would stock a African cichlid tank. You have the colors with a high stocking density, not to mention the breeding behaviors.

 

[Frank Castle]

So I have a 4 feet by 18 inches wide tank, so that's a 65 gallon if I remember correctly.

Anyway, my mom tells me no single monster fish for her but a community of Colourful fish.

This is my tank, I want both of us to be happy about the outcome. I want to give her the community of Colourful fish but at the same time I don't want fancy guppies and platys or goldfish which I won't get the satisfying interactions from.

So dear members, what kind of mini or medium sized colourful monster community can I create in this 65 gallon tank?

Please give me your suggestions and recommendations. I would love to have both bottom dwellers and actively swimming mini / medium sized colourful monsters. THANK YOU!

48" x18" is actually the footprint for a 75 or 90 gallon....what is the height?

 

[Thekid]

65 gallon is 36"x18"x24".

Is the tank 21" or 25"? If the tank is 25" it's a 90 and if it's 21" it's a 75.

 

[adormydero]

Don't forget to show her the livebearers! THE perfect mom fish.
...Mother's day gift?

 

[Sarcosuchus]

Thank you for the kind replies guys. The tank is 48 inches in length, 18 inches in height and width.

Yes I prefer something unique and colourful as well. African Cichlids are a good suggestion, Anglefish and Discus are perfect too. I would have to create a proper aquascaping if I want to try a little mix, not forgetting bottom dwellers.

 

[Hoplo]

I was struck with the same dilemma a couple of years ago, and after much protesting I built a tank I thought that I would find boring, but in the end have really grown to like, and found to be really cool.
It is a heavily planted tank, with only a large number of small schooling tetras (cardinal, rummy nose, etc) in it, with a few fancy pleco's (green phantom) in it only because I couldn't help not having an oddball to two in it.
I know only having small tetras in it sounds lame, especially for a place like this, but I found that the change in pace from my big cichlids and poly's was real nice and found that I spend a lot of time looking at that tank, and really enjoyed the challenge of creating a nice planted scape.

 

[kno4te]

Rainbow fish is another colorful choice.

 

[HumanBean]

Small imitation gar x 2 plus small color full feeder minnows and tetras. There will be a replacement opportunity once one gars left in the tank.
Referring to those small gar characins