I have a tank thats roughly 6 feet long and 2 feet wide (it used to house polys that I have moved to another tank), right now its planted (but not heavily) and has a lot of floating plants. I plan on making it heavily planted, and it already has a lot of caves/hiding places (more than 8 caves). I want to house a tropical dwarf species of channa with the snakehead attitude intact. What are my options, and of those options how many can I keep in the tank?
Need your opinions/suggestions
- Thread starter Jungle
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you have lots of options in that size tank , one thing i would question is can you keep temps down to sub trop , if not then you are looking to have full tropical species
here are some suggestions that i would use that tank for.
sub-tropical
maculata , poss auranti , asiatica , ornatipinis , pulchra , sp five stripe , stewarti ,
tropical
lucia ,melasoma , africana , obscura ,insignis , large varient of bankanensis , poss pleuro ,
to be honest the only ones i would stay away from is micro , maularoids ,marulia ,straita and barca. it would be the bare minimum for pleuro and auranti that are kept in groups , as pleuro likes more lenght and auranti become aggresive in any thing less than that lenght
amount - as always i would start out with around 6-8 fish and thin out as reqd or if a pair forms , the ones with the most attitude would be pleuro have that snakehead menasing look and are allways on the prowl and look fantastic in a group
cheers col
here are some suggestions that i would use that tank for.
sub-tropical
maculata , poss auranti , asiatica , ornatipinis , pulchra , sp five stripe , stewarti ,
tropical
lucia ,melasoma , africana , obscura ,insignis , large varient of bankanensis , poss pleuro ,
to be honest the only ones i would stay away from is micro , maularoids ,marulia ,straita and barca. it would be the bare minimum for pleuro and auranti that are kept in groups , as pleuro likes more lenght and auranti become aggresive in any thing less than that lenght
amount - as always i would start out with around 6-8 fish and thin out as reqd or if a pair forms , the ones with the most attitude would be pleuro have that snakehead menasing look and are allways on the prowl and look fantastic in a group
cheers col
It's probable that I'll go full tropical since that's the most practical thing for me to do in our climate, and since the tank is outdoors I'm not sure how effective a chiller will be (plus the fact that they're really expensive). If I ever get to setting up some tanks in my room again I think I'll consider getting the aurant's as they'll at least share the airconditioner with me. I had micro's before and when they got too big my uncle let me dump them in his the pond that surrounds his house (now he's kinda pissed at me coz they're killing all of his hi-fin hammerheads), but he still let's me put the fish that get to big in my tanks in his pond. Thanks for the advice tropheus, I'll probably look into getting some pleuro's now since with all the sh's you've taken care of I'm pretty sure you know what you're talking about. I do have one question, why did you say I should stay away from striata's? Are they typically more intolerant of each other than other channa species, because I've heard that auranti's and ornati's are the ones that really hate others of their own kind.
hi mate straita are genrally very aggresive fish , depending on verient ( straita is a species complex) and the fact most will grow to 3ft in the aquarium , obviously if you have a pond to put anything that is outgrown its home then size is not so important in this case. i would say straita is way more aggresive than aurantis.
you could look into maculata , even though they are sub-tropical they have been introduced in many places around the globe and have established in full tropical waters ,which would suggest they are very comfortable at most temps.
lucia would be a great addition in tropical temps , as would obscura and africana , pleuros would work for a long time but may eventually need a larger/longer tank for no other reason other than they like to swim and sometime ram the glass if tank lenght is too small .
good luck with what ever you go with
cheers col
you could look into maculata , even though they are sub-tropical they have been introduced in many places around the globe and have established in full tropical waters ,which would suggest they are very comfortable at most temps.
lucia would be a great addition in tropical temps , as would obscura and africana , pleuros would work for a long time but may eventually need a larger/longer tank for no other reason other than they like to swim and sometime ram the glass if tank lenght is too small .
good luck with what ever you go with
cheers col