recommended cichlids for 55-gallon?

[Freshwater Fish Lady]

Personally, the undergravel filter thing is not the greatest. I believe they trap more bad rather than filter it.
I have the same tank set up in my bedroom. I also have the red tail shark, hes awesome, tinfoil barbs get monsterous! Trade him for a way smaller one and that should work for now!

That's my impression too at this point ... I've spent a lot of elbow grease, vaccuuming the substrate, trying to get the tank cleaned up ... looks very clean now (and I got the nitrates down) but ... would you recommend I temporarily take the fish out and remove the under-gravel filter? I'm afraid I might really mess up the balance of the tank. BTW, I did see 12" or so tinfoil barbs at a LFS and they sure looked like they had red tailfins, contrary to lots of references I checked that said tinfoils get really big but the redtail tinfoils get up to 8".

 

[franchise513]

i would get rid of the tinfoil, even if they do get 8" they like to be in schools so its not a good place for him. I would get rid of the pleco too.

Pick up some some dwarf cichlids, i like rainbows(i think thats there name) maybe get some rasboras, some of my favorite school fish and get some cory cats

 

[Freshwater Fish Lady]

Well, your responses prompted me to look again into the maximum size of the redtailed tinfoil barb and the redtailed shark (Epalzeorhynchus bicolor). For the barb, here's the write-up I initially relied upon, on AnimalWorld.com:

"The Red-tail Tinfoil Barb can be confused with other members of its genus, especially the almost identical Tinfoil Barb Barbonymus schwanenfeldii. Though both these tinfoil barbs have a black marking on their dorsal fin only the Tinfoil Barb has red on this fin. The Red-tail Tinfoil Barb also is also missing black submarginal lines on the caudal fin.
"It is important to know which of these two species you are getting. One of the main reasons is the difference in size. The Red-tail Tinfoil barb is a much smaller fish and so is much easier to house. Though both of these fish get quite large, the Red-tail Tinfoil Barb will only reach about 8" (20 cm) while the Tinfoil Barb will rapidly acquire a length of 14 inches (35 cm) and is considered too large for most aquariums."

And here's a new, contradicting one I found from Fishlore.com
"Its been proven false that they [the redtailed variety] don't get bigger than 8"."

I really couldn't find anything else re: size for specifically the redtail tinfoil, although I really have the impression that I did find several 8" references at the time I researched it. Oh well. I know that I've found a ton of conflicting info on the Internet re: basically all of the fish I've read up on.

I definitely read that the redtailed tinfoil barbs are schooling fish, but after I got the tank and ended up with only one left, I opted not to try to add 2 more, since it seemed to me the tank was barely big enough for just the one. At this point, he's thriving, very beautiful colors and he does what I call a "happy dance swim" in the evenings; I nearly hand feed him. The redtailed shark's colors have gotten magnificent since I cleaned up the water ... the original owners told me the water needed to stay "kind of dirty, like the lake water the fish normally live in". Oh boy. Of course, the nitrates were off the chart. So it's with great pleasure that I am seeing the shark, the barb and the gold gouramis all very healthy and happy.

Ok, so I have this emotional hang-up about taking the tinfoil barb to an LFS; for me, it's HIS tank... maybe I'll just hang on and go with my plans in a couple years to put a nice BIG tank in my basement, and put him in there then. However, I really don't necessarily want to fill up even the bigger future tank with 3 tinfoils ... any thots on this?

Thanks so much again for your replies.