# 35 gallon stocking ideas?



## Canadian731 (Jun 25, 2013)

So I'm about to start cycling my 35 and I'm still stumped with what I want to put in it, I already have a community tank, puffer tank, and a Betta tank. I was thinking a GT would be nice but I've heard that may be a bit too small for him, a red parrot cichlid is also something that interested me.

I'm not going to plant this on and I was planning on doing some sort of sand with driftwood and rocks, adding a few caves and hidey holes aswell


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## Canadian731 (Jun 25, 2013)

How many barbs are recommended? Was thinking of maybe doing 3 schools of 6 of each tiger, albino tiger, green tiger barbs.

Also has anyone used the a aqueon quiet flow filters with loose media such as filter floss and biomax


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## Livyding (Feb 6, 2013)

I have an Aqueon HOB filter that I use with filter floss and nothing else except a bit of crushed coral in a bag... It's not the greatest quality of filter.. I mostly just use it to add aeration and as a mechanical filter, and rely on sponge filters for the biological filtration, but it does give a nice waterfall type effect with lots of current and bubbles that my corys love 
(gets them in spawning mode like nothing else). 

Tiger barbs are pretty... The different colours are all the same species so you can add as many of each as you like, don't need to stick with the six of each rule. But it would look kinda cool to see all the colour varieties together I guess. I've never kept them but I hear they are notorious fin nippers so probably want to keep it as a single-species tank if you get them. 

I would not get "Red Parrots" since they're IMO just terribly deformed, inbred, probably have a lot of health issues due to the strange shape of their mouth and the constant inbreeding... Just very offensive to the puritan in me I guess, everyone has his or her own preference though! I like my tanks to look at least semi-natural...

If I had an extra 35 G tank sitting around I would do some sort of subtropical Asian tank... Lots of smooth pebbles and rocks, lots and lots of fast water flow and bubbles, stock with danios (pearls, blues, zebras, giants etc), weather loaches, hillstream loaches... I think that would look fantastic.


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## blurry (May 10, 2010)

try a discus tank?


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## jhj0112 (Jul 30, 2013)

do you have dwraf cichlids in your community tank? those are awesome! (GBRs or bolivian or apisto)??


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

if you are doing sand, rocks, driftwood, that is more for a SA biotope tank. Try a school or 2 smaller tetra, 1 angel fish, lots of cory, some hatchet, a few dwarf cichlids, a bunch of oto or a couple fancy plecos...


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## Canadian731 (Jun 25, 2013)

I have tetras, cories and German rams In my community tank so I'm looking for something different, I was thinking maybe a few angels of convicts possibly aswell


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## nigerian prince (Mar 8, 2013)

pleco tank?


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

Kinda small for pleco tank? But I totally agree with apistos as middle to bottom dwellers and choose something else for middle to top


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## Canadian731 (Jun 25, 2013)

I have a few dwarf cichlids in my 33 community, they're fun but I love variety in my tanks


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## Durogity (Jun 10, 2013)

I know nothing at all about them, but if you want no plants, but do want rock and driftwood....sounds African cichlids to me


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

I agree with Durogity! You could do Tanganyikan cichlids in a 35g or smaller Malawi like pseudotropheus saulosi. African cichlids are awesome to watch!


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## Canadian731 (Jun 25, 2013)

Would a pair of yellow labs work In a 35? I want something semi aggressive I can feed my fresh guppy fry to, they're breeding so fast


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

Driftwood and African in a small-ish tank doesn't really work. You will be dealing with ph up and down often with small water volume. 

Anyhow, for mbuna; especially yellow lab, you have to get a few, and they can get up to 6". It won't work in your tank.


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

Depends on the wood you put in the tank, not all wood affects pH and you can also drastically increase hardness of the water with buffers and substrates to negate much of a pH swing. Two labs would not work though. You would want like 8+ and would very likely have to upgrade to a 55 gal once they reach about 4-5". The reason I suggested pseudotropheus saulosi is because they stay a bit smaller but are extremely colourful (a bit rare to find some though). I have some julidochromis transcriptus julies for sale which are a little bit aggressive and stay small. I have no idea whether they would eat guppy fry though.


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

Substrate can stable ph, but not keeping it high. Wood, sinking driftwood will soften your water; therefore, lowering your ph. Unless you want to keep african at 7-7.4 ph, go ahead, put all the wood you want in your tank. Then you need buffer often to keep your ph high. It is much easier to do african tank, at your tank volume, without wood.

Just my 2 cents.


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## Luke78 (Apr 24, 2010)

Care to share what wood doesn't lower the PH in an aquarium? Curious how you came to this conclusion.



Steve said:


> Depends on the wood you put in the tank, not all wood affects pH and you can also drastically increase hardness of the water with buffers and substrates to negate much of a pH swing. Two labs would not work though. You would want like 8+ and would very likely have to upgrade to a 55 gal once they reach about 4-5". The reason I suggested pseudotropheus saulosi is because they stay a bit smaller but are extremely colourful (a bit rare to find some though). I have some julidochromis transcriptus julies for sale which are a little bit aggressive and stay small. I have no idea whether they would eat guppy fry though.


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

Well, burnt wood doesn't lower the pH, boiled wood causes very little change in pH, and african mopani driftwood has been known to lower pH, raise pH, and not affect pH depending on where you get it from. Wood chips apparently raise pH as well but I don't know anyone who uses them in their aquarium. Using crushed coral with driftwood should essentially negate the effects of the driftwood as well as the hardness of the water becomes too high for the driftwood to change.


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

Steve, using crushed coral even without driftwood will not boost your water to a higher PH which African cichlid prefer. Because of our soft water, the crushed coral barely stable the ph at best 7.4. Now if you add driftwood in the equation, you are going to have to use buffer. And ph is constantly lower also by bacteria as well.

I tried just about everything to put in the tank. Wood lower your ph period. The only exception I can think of is petrified wood which is more or less fossilized; even that will not increase your ph. Mopani will not increase your ph. I really don't know where you get that information from about wood increase your ph. If you have any douc. to support that, please correct me.

Another thing, crushed coral will not keep your hardness enough for your African; not with our water being so low in KH and GH. 

one or 2 piece of wood in a 75g might not be much, but the same 1 or 2 piece of wood in a 35g can affect the tank much faster.


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## Potatohead (May 27, 2013)

Buffering is super easy and cheap, not sure why people think it is a huge problem. If you want to keep Africans in the tank you can but they will have to be small.


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## Canadian731 (Jun 25, 2013)

my pH out of the tap is about 7.2-7.4, if I were to do africans id probably do some crushed coral in a ac20 and run media in the other filter. But I was also thinking it may be nice for 3 angelfish aswell


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

Well, I have africans in a 30 gal with crushed coral, aragonite, and lava rock which unbuffered goes to 7.6 pH which is acceptable for africans. I buffer my water to 9.0 though. I checked up african mopani wood online and there is mixed information about it, some people say it raises pH and some people say it lowers pH so maybe I'm wrong. With a buffer though I can't see how it would change the pH enough. Anyway, I was really just trying to give the poster more options since he doesn't appear to want to do SA or community.


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## Livyding (Feb 6, 2013)

Actually I sort of agree that in some cases driftwood won't lower the PH significantly... I collected and cured and boiled most of my driftwood, and after hours and hours and hours of boiling the bejeezus out of a piece of wood, and constantly changing the tannin-brown water from the pot, it gets to a point where it just doesn't turn the water dark any more, or change the colour of the water at all. 

If a piece of DW isn't releasing tannins when it's put in the tank, then I don't see how it can lower the PH.

That said, I imagine that there isn't much in the way of wood in the Rift Lakes.


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

That is true if you have a pot big enough to boil wood for hours and hours. Without the tanning released in your water, it will no longer lower your ph.

Another way is have your wood in your tank long enough. I have a piece of driftwood in my tank since 1997. It no longer releases any tanning. However, I have a piece of Mopani as well since 2008, it still releases tanning. So if you can wait, this will take a while. And both pieces are too big to fit in a pot


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## Durogity (Jun 10, 2013)

Sounds like we need a communal HUGE pot that people can borrow to boil driftwood....like I'm talking HUGE!!!


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## Livyding (Feb 6, 2013)

Durogity said:


> Sounds like we need a communal HUGE pot that people can borrow to boil driftwood....like I'm talking HUGE!!!


Well I didn't have a huge pot, so I just broke the wood into smaller pieces and then later arranged them in my tank to look like one piece.


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

I think most people should have a pot big enough to boil a piece of driftwood to fit into a 30 gal tank =P As for like a 180 gal tank or something obviously that would just be way too big


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## jhj0112 (Jul 30, 2013)

in my case, i put the driftwood in a 5G bucket for 2 weeks with daily water change before i put it in my 90G tank. it does not seem to effect water parameter or color of water (i wish it does as almost all fishes in my tank is SA fishes).


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## Durogity (Jun 10, 2013)

Steve said:


> I think most people should have a pot big enough to boil a piece of driftwood to fit into a 30 gal tank =P As for like a 180 gal tank or something obviously that would just be way too big


Hence the need for our HUGE communal pot! Like an old clawfoot tub over a fire....<--------- that right der's a good idear mmhmmm


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## Canadian731 (Jun 25, 2013)

So ive decided upon 3 angels and a plexo of some sort, thanks for the ideas guys, closing the thread


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## Livyding (Feb 6, 2013)

Three angels is a terrible idea. They will be fine as youngsters, but when they reach sexual maturity they'll kill each other. Put in either a single angel, a mated pair, or six or more.


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## Canadian731 (Jun 25, 2013)

ive seen 4 angels fully grown living happily together in a 40g, but id rather not chance it now that I think about it, maybe ill go for a pair plus a pair of clown plecos, im going to have lots of hiding spots so I imagine that there wouldnt be too much aggression between the 4 of them


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## Livyding (Feb 6, 2013)

If there's at least one male and one female of those four you can bet there will be plenty of aggression. I have eight angels together in one of my tanks with lots of hiding places, with two pairs, and still some of them get beat up occasionally. With aggressive fish or even semi-aggressive it's a fact that you need six or more to spread the aggression so no one gets beat up too badly. Even a proven mated pair can turn on each other if they get put in a new tank and they suddenly decide they don't like each other. You can improve your odds by giving them "targets" (similar or the same species for them to bond together in their hatred of them) but it's always a bit of a gamble...


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## Canadian731 (Jun 25, 2013)

Well I'd definitely get them as juvies, my experience with dwarf cichlids at least is that my trio isn't aggressive towards any of their tank mates, even my neons which I have read can be a problem. Worse comes to worse I can always remove one of the angels and replace with another fish like some sort of gourami or a school of rasbora/larger tetra


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## Livyding (Feb 6, 2013)

Dwarf cichlids are cichlids too... I'm guessing that yours are juvies. If you have a M/F pair, once they start brooding there'll be plenty of aggression, believe me. Personally I've never bred dwarves, so I can't speak to exactly how aggressive, but I'd bet the farm that a pair of angels will kill your third wheel. I strongly suggest you do the conventional thing here, buy six juveniles, wait for them to mature and pair off, and then rehome the others.. Or try your luck with a proven pair, or stick with a singleton. 

It's up to you of course, just my two bits...


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

or if you can tell, get all male angels. Keep in mind even female will breed with female (one female will act as a male) so if you have all females, you will still have aggression issue.


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## Discus rookie (Sep 12, 2013)

Hi,
Anyone here know when I can purchase some babe Discus fish in greater Vancouver area? 
Thanks!!


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

Try Rick at Canadian Discus farm. He is a sponsor here as well. You don't want to get baby baby though eventhough they are cheaper. They requires more time spending, water changes, food...


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

Probably wouldn't want anything less than 2.5 or 3" if you're new to discus keeping. He (Rick) has pictures of everything on his website and can answer any of your questions via e-mail. In the future, try to make your own thread instead of hijacking someone elses! xD


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