Stocking Plan for a new 75G

[Balance]

What do you guys think about this....

8-10 Rainbows (varied Species)

4-5 Gourami's (I'd love some input on what species to use)

4 Cory's (not sure what kind)

1 Blue Lobster

2 aquatic frogs (i know nothing about the frogs though)

let me know what you guys think!

I was also thinking of putting a small school of tetra in there also, Maybe 4-5 Priscella or Bloodfins.

Thanks!

 

[valdok]

well, froggies typically produce a lot of waste, although they eat a lot of food. blue lobsters eat smaller fish they can catch, personally i'd never put a lobster in with my fish, unless the fish were quite large. I'd shy away from the frogs and lobsters if I were you. the rainbows will be good with the gouramis and cories. gourami species i'd go with are:

Blue gourami (Trichogaster tricopterus) - they get to be around 5 inches long. Most are a light greyish blue with two dark grey-blue spots on its body. They'd be my first pick.
Pearl gourami (Trichogaster leeri) - a cool colored gourami that gets to be about 4 inches long. Has pearl-like specks of white on its golden body with a black stripe down the center.

Basically any decent sized cory school would fit, I'm a fan of Julii.

 

[fishysmell]

Sounds good but I'd keep a school of all the same kinds of rainbows or at least two 4 fish schools if you want two different kinds. I just think they look better and the fish are happier that way. You can get some crazy cool rainbow schools off of www.aquabid.com. If your intent on different kinds, you can get a set of a bunch of different kinds of male show rainbows on there too. I think those lots are sold in the "other" category though, not sure why. Check it out.

I agree w/ voldok, no frogs or lobsters. Bad idea in my opinion.

Just a note on bloodfins, I got 5 for my 10 gallon the other day and they are very paranoied fish. Extremely edgey and shy. They don't like action. I put my hand in to get rid of some BGA and now one is looking sickly and laying on the bottom. I guess my hand on the other side of the tank was too stressful for him.

 

[Balance]

thanks for the info on the frogs guys!

i've never kept any frogs before, and dont know much about any of the aquatic varieties. My wife really likes them though

do you think i'd really have much of a problem with a blue lobster going after gouramis or rainbows though? I was more concerned that he might go after the Cory's.....

also, would cory's mix well with loaches?

 

[Cichlid-Man]

sounds good.

 

[fishysmell]

I don't see why corys and loachs wouldn't work well together except maybe when it comes to having enough food. Other than that I figure they'd be fine. Keep the food coming and they'll be fine.

Yes I would worry about tetras and corys getting snagged by the lobster. Large gouramis and rainbows would probably be fine...probably. Lobsters get pretty big besides. My lfs has a 6 inch blue lobster. I wouldn't trust him with anything besides oscars or something twice his size.

If you really want frogs throw em in but just keep up on water changes. If you plant the tank pretty heavily you could probably do it fine. Otherwise just set up a 10 gallon w/ or w/o a filter/heater and put frogs in there. You'd see em more anyway.

 

[catfishmike]

dem lobsters will eat yo fish up no seriously crawdads don't belong in a fish tank.i don't like to mix corys and loaches some people have good results with both types of fish but i see too much agression from the loaches for passive peaceful corys to put the two together.the exception to this is khuli loaches which are very cool mellow fish.

 

[Balance]

so i think i'm leaning towards this setup:

9 Rainbows (3 schools of 3)
4 Pearl Gourami
4-5 Tetra (probably black skirt)
4-5 Cory's

and maybe 2 red claw crabs (since the lobster seems to be a bad idea)

some more input would be greatly appreciated!

 

[catfishmike]

any invert with claws is a bad idea so cross out those crabs too.inverts generaly need a specialized tank with a place for them to come out of the water as well.

 

[valdok]

Sounds good to me... what kind of rainbows were you thinking?

 

[Balance]

not sure what species rainbows yet, probably a few Bosmani for sure.....

the others might depend on which ones dont cost $20 a fish =)