Stocking ideas

[DRteugelsi]

Due to the fact that I'm extremely new to planted aquariums, I am interested in some ideas for stocking my tank, plant wise and fish wise. I really would like to keep a group of bolivian rams or german blue, any ideas for clean up crews? I heard amanos shrimp may work with rams but if not would bamboo shrimp do the same kind of diligent clean up amanos would do? I also was considering some Otto cats and a panda garra. Any suggestions would be helpful.

 

[Kittiee Katt]

What size is the tank? High tech? Low tech?

Peeps are gonna need some more details if you want suggestions. Otherwise you may end up with suggestions that are not suited for your tank or circumstances.

 

[DRteugelsi]

Yeah, I was in a hurry on that post. Sorry. But it's a 29 gallon. Has t5ho. I'd say I want to stay on the lower tech side due to it being my first highly planted tank.

 

[Hendre]

otos are real good for planted tanks. rosy barbs are also really nice for colour and activity

 

[Fat Homer]

Yeah, I was in a hurry on that post. Sorry. But it's a 29 gallon. Has t5ho. I'd say I want to stay on the lower tech side due to it being my first highly planted tank.

How many bulbs of T5HO you got and how many watts???

I ask coz normally high light will also mean you possibly need Co2 (liquid or injected) to help your plants out along with some ferts...

 

[DRteugelsi]

I was going to do a dual at 50 watts

 

[Fat Homer]

That sounds pretty much like it will put you into the high light category, which means you'll need to make sure that you have enough plants at the beginning to outcompete potential algae growth...

It may also be worth considering the speed in which different plants grow, coz slower growing plants such as anubias are likely to use a lot less nutrients compared to faster growing ones, but may also be prone to havig algae growth on the plant itself due to its slow growing nature...

 

[DRteugelsi]

Too be honest I'm just looking for suggestions I don't even have the tank set up so I mean what are some beautiful/fun plants and fish to keep in a planted tank

 

[Hendre]

I got some fancy guppy males 2 hours ago. I love them already and they are super pretty

 

[Fat Homer]

Too be honest I'm just looking for suggestions I don't even have the tank set up so I mean what are some beautiful/fun plants and fish to keep in a planted tank

Doing a low light tank with crypts / anubias / bucephlandra could already look amazing as thise plants come in a wide variety of sizes and colors...

Then you could either do a betta / a comm tank