# Species only suggestions



## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

I had an unfortunate fertilizer overdosing accident that took out a the majority of the stock in my 84g tank.

I'm thinking of restocking it with a single species and looking for suggestions.

(so far the survivors, a pea puffer, mystery snail, few neons, few ottos, lots of ammanos, GBR possibly others still hiding).....

A few of my initial thoughts from previous stock:

Rummy Nose - awesome schoolers
Neons or Cardinals stand out!
CPD's - pretty and free since i was breeding them

but am looking for other suggesions of what you would do for a large species only tank. Im more of a fan of lots of little fish rather than a few large ones.


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## datfish (Sep 7, 2012)

Maybe you could consider threadfin fish, some of them are really attractive and I don't think any (I don't know about puffers, to be honest) of your fish are intense nippers under most circumstances.


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## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

Red line torpedo barbs aka Denison's Barb. A school of them looks awesome. I've never had a chance to keep a school of them but I hope to one day. They grow to a decent size and are very active. 84g tank would be perfect. They are a little pricey though


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## mikebike (Sep 8, 2010)

I love my Plecos and Cories 
BNPlecos don't grow lage and you can have a few in that size tank

Cories are fun to watch and are active.


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## jhj0112 (Jul 30, 2013)

I guess it depends on which area of your tank you want to cover.. If it's middle-top of the tank, then I would say a school (large like 50+) of rummynose, cardinal. Or as Jbyoung suggested torpedo barbs.. if you want something on the middle-bottom, I would say plecos, a school of cories, OR APISTOGRAMMAS!! lol


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

APISTOGRAMMAS look pretty cool, Rummys/cardinals also were on my list
Would cories dig up all my DHG? the substrate is eco complete.. may be rough for them?
thread fin fish - a new nice looking thread fin rainbows on google search.


Sadly my BNP was one of many to bite the dust... on the plus side i think it wiped my BBA!.. i did a 2 large water changes last night and 1 today..so hopefully the water is clear.. i still may wait a day or two before i re-stock.. and decide on what to go with!


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## dino (Aug 29, 2011)

Cardinals, torpedoes, rams maybe


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## hp10BII (Apr 23, 2010)

If you're open to rescaping/redoing your tank, I would set up a single tropheus colony. Lots of hyper activity, some with brilliant colours and you can see colony and maybe spawning behaviour. I think you have hard water and they require hard water. I have 1 tropheus colony, I wished I had more tanks for more variants.


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Other then moving a few plants I don't think I would do to much rescaping

Here's a new shot for reference. I gave it a big trim when I did a water change at lunch


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

Beautiful tank! How about a group of wild green or wild blue discus?


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Discuss are very pretty but I don't think i can commit to the excessive water changes that most on here seem to do.. my once every week isn is enough on that front (i have way to many of tanks!)


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

The water changes for discus are only really required when they are young. I had water changes after 1 month on my 180g planted when mine were bigger


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

1 or 2 discus with a bunch of cardinals or rummy's could look pretty cool!


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Cardinals make a good snack too for the Discus =)

I had 8 discus and 175 cardinal tetra with many places to hide and so on... I lost about 60 of them as snacks!

Bigger Rummy nose would be a better choice in my opinion


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## carter8089 (Mar 8, 2011)

tropheus are the greatest fish of all time.
i have some for sale if you like.
jamie
Tropheus Bemba Tiff - YouTube


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## jhj0112 (Jul 30, 2013)

it looks like cories may not work in your tank.. it's totally my opinion but apistogramma aggassizii pair and another apisto pair ( like borelli or panduros) with bunch of cardinals or pencilfish would be nice!! have you tried dwarf rainbowfish? those are cool and tight schoolers... OR you can add more GBRs or another kind of dwarf cichilds( golden, gold face electric blue, bolivian rams)


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Discus are better if kept in groups of 4 or more


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## AdobeOtoCat (Dec 10, 2011)

Do archer fish. Riparium with a stick. Put crickets on the stick and watch them shoot .

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Hahaha just what I need .. Crickets catapulted across the room


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## Foxtail (Mar 14, 2012)

A big school of lemon or diamond or candy cane tetra with a group of rummynose.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

If you buy some big discus (5"+) you do not need to do lots of water change as long as you do not feed beefheart or messy food. You can just feed them pellets/flakes, with some FDBW once in a while.
We do lots of water changes because they are small and we do not want them to be stunned, plus we feed beefheart which brings ammonia way up very quickly so frequent water changes are needed.
Problem with smaller discus in a planted tank is sometimes a 3" will just stay 3", usually with a football sharp, may be a very big eye to body ratio and the color could be very dark, sometimes lots of pepper marks or dark bars; so barebottom is preferred to grow them out as they will have less stress. But some people have been successful in growing out discus in planted tanks, even with CO2, although that requires lots of work and experience. If you buy a bigger discus you do not need to go through the grow out stage as the hard work has been done for you. So, they are more expensive but much less hassel.


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

That explains why they are so pricey. May be a little on the steep side if they need to be kept in bigger groups. 

I'm still leaning towards neons/cardinals or rummy for a larger school. Discus still tbd. Would they actually snack on all the small tetras? And prob my ammanos


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

They may eat your smaller tetra but rummy nose should be fine. I do not know if they will eat your ammano. Your oto may suck their slime coat though. In my opinion, just discus, with a big school of cories, and a school of rummynose would get along very well and look very nice.
A group of 6 or more discus is usually recommended but you can keep just a pair of adult if you want to. 
Some people like wild discus, there are a few members here who have tank journels with their wilds.
Discus are expensive and are a bit more work, but they are not called king of the aquarium for no reason. 
Anyway, good luck and please post some pictures of your new tank when you have it set up. I am sure it will look very neat and beautiful with whatever fish you eventually decide to keep, judging from the picture you have posted of your old tank.


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

for 84g, 100 cardinals, 100 rummynose, 24 corys, a few oto... 5-10 rams... nice biotope community.


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

My bank account quite afford that many! 
But Rummys and cardinals are up there on my list! i may have to do a mix again


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

If you went with discus that were wild discus you could not keep small tetras with them since they are predators of discus in the wild. If you go with domestic discus you may be able to keep full sized cardinals and rumynose but some may get eaten. Ever thought of getting bleeding heart tetras or something bigger with them? You could do 5-6 discus and a school of 20+ bigger tetras


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## greenfin (Nov 4, 2013)

OH NO!!!
Poor you! That's awful! What happened?
Hey! how about some angelfish? Ha! wink wink! They're just little!

Anyways. I have always wanted to try hatchet fish. Don't know much about them but they look cool. They hang out near the surface, maybe? 

Loved my rummy nose. They zipped back and forth a lot. 

I like my bleeding hearts too. They kind of find their sweet spot in the current and hang out there.


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Well I kept getting asked for pictures of how i soldered the underside of my auto dower so i took the top board off to take a pic and i put it back on (with the pins shifted.... shouldn't have rushed to do it before work).. needles to say the pumps were running all day and dumped all 3 bottles of ferts into the tank. It was a sad day! 

One though is to do a ton of neons since they are cheap locally..or stock it with my plethora of CPDs from my prior breeding project.. other thought it to do about 30 cardinals / 30 rummys.. which i would prob have to order in.... Mix? pick one... something else? i'm all over the place.. i do want to decide soon while my tank still has a strong colony of bacteria.. if i wait to long it will start to shrink on me.


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## greenfin (Nov 4, 2013)

What if you put in a bunch of your CPDs (I wouldn't mind some, they're nice!) to keep the bugs going. I plan to order a bunch of new fish when my tank is safe...
I hear you on the neons. Humming and hawing about cardinals but worry that they're too sensitive? Need to learn more about them. Not that any fish is dispensable but the neons are easily available in Kelowna. I know I'd like to get more rummies and that means ordering. 
So, couldn't tempt you with some angels?


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

haha still not sure on the angels... Im a big fan of lots of little fish rather than a few big.. but well see..also toying with the idea of one or two big ones.. could make the others school more 
What kind of angles are they?

So what do u think
CPD, Neon, Rummy or Cardinal.. or a mix  ..(and maybe one or two bigger something..tbd)


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## greenfin (Nov 4, 2013)

They are a colour pattern I can't describe. Mom = plain silver/black stripe. Dad = black marble, bits of orange, bit of greeny-turquiose
Fry = a mix of the two colours. Kinda cool looking. You saw them in my plant nursery. My angels never bug the other fish. They bug each other a lot at spawning time! They were babies when they went in with all the little neons etc.

I have the 4 angels and 6 bleedinghearts but I wouldn't mind a huge school of one fish as a contrast to these two kinds. My husband says the rummynose remind him of PT Mustang fighter planes from WWII. Well, he also refers to the bleeding hearts as Bingo Dobbers and the raspboras as pork chops! Hey, there's another fish, harlequin rasboras.


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Any other suggestions?


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