# Advice for first Asian comunity tank



## Paul Sabucchi (31 Jul 2017)

Hi, I have found room and consent from Management (wife) for another tank, squeezed in a corner of the kitchen worktopby the sink (handy for water changes!). It will have to be like a kind if cube with a corner missing and should hold just over 36gal. I'd like to go low tech again with bogwood and epiphites (usual anubia, buce, microsorum) , sandy bottom with fert tabs and crypts -all the above I have kept for yonks- but I'd really appreciate further imput to achieve some colour and variety. Fishwise I was thinking Gouramis as main role (peacefull ones: a pair of labiosa or a few smaller chuna), as supporting role some small rainbowfish (I'd like threadfins but they may be too shy so maybe some melanotaenia praecox or maybe some forktail blue-eyes instead?) and a shoal of small rasboras - would brigittae or kubotai be too small to go with the other fish? All advice greatly appreciated. Ciao


----------



## dw1305 (2 Aug 2017)

Hi all,





Paul Sabucchi said:


> Fishwise I was thinking Gouramis as main role (peacefull ones: a pair of labiosa or a few smaller chuna), as supporting role some small rainbowfish (I'd like threadfins but they may be too shy so maybe some melanotaenia praecox or maybe some forktail blue-eyes instead?) and a shoal of small rasboras - would brigittae or kubotai be too small to go with the other fish?


It should work. I'd go with Honey Gourami _(<"Trichogaster chuna") and _Threadfin Rainbow (_"Iriatherina werneri"_) if you wanted to keep a small Rasbora sp. as well. 

I'd definitely have some leaf litter as well, if you wanted a bottom dweller any of the Kuhli Loaches (_"Pangio" _spp.) would do with sand.

They all like small live food items and fairly heavily planted tanks.

cheers Darrel


----------



## Paul Sabucchi (2 Aug 2017)

Thanks shall follow your advice go for honey gourami, threadfins and chili rasbora. Still looking into the small loaches, I think the smallest species of liaches is Yunnanulis (or Micronemacheilus) cruciatus but next to imposs to get!. Ciao

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk


----------



## zozo (2 Aug 2017)

Little Rosy loach is also nice..  Maybe Trichopsis pumila, tho for a small group in a smaller cube would be best try to find an lfs able to sex them. Males are very territorial. So if it is not sexed into a decent mix (majority females) a small tank isn't realy that suitable. Than subdominant males likely get shased around all the time, to much. They realy need a setup with broken eye sight and prefer some kind of caves and or dense planting and driftwood. if males go into mating mode or competition mode they make a Magpie bird kinda sound. This you can hear very well when room is silent. Very amusing, funny, very nicely colored and entertaining. Gives a living room a funny exotic ambiance. If find these fish realy a treat to watch and hear for a asian theme tank.

Hara jerdoni also a very beautifull intruing litle bottom dweller.. They change color according to the surface they are on and mood they have. Yuo wont see them often unless you feed bloodworm. A drip of blood in the tank makes them go actively foraging and come out of hiding.

All very suitable to keep with a nice group of boraras of any kind..


----------



## Paul Sabucchi (2 Aug 2017)

Thanks for the advice, will be on the lookout if any appear for sale over here. Was thinking of scaping with plenty of bogwood, maybe even some"cichlid caves" hidden amongst heavy planting (may go a bit more high tech at some point). I tend to take my time anyway setting up a new tank (I have had a 100gal tank for discus for 6 months, started to cycle it 2 weeks ago and not putting any fish in for another 2 months -and it is Bare Bottom!), a lot of the fun for me is in the planning! The Hara intrigues me but it prefers cooler water and in summer even with "proper" cooling fans I struggle to keep temperature down below 26C (at the moment here it is in the high 90s) and there is no a/c in the kitchen. Thankyou again and Ciao


----------



## zozo (3 Aug 2017)

Paul Sabucchi said:


> The Hara intrigues me but it prefers cooler water and in summer even with "proper" cooling fans I struggle to keep temperature down below 26C



This is absolutely something to keep in consideration..  I keep my asian theme tank at an average 22°C with the heaters, it has a sump where the water overflows and cascades through an oversized pipe system sevral steps to the sump where it cascades again through the sump chambers. So in my case it kinda resambles a little optimal oxyginated stream in the best way i can make it. And it is in the minimum temp range of all inhabitants. But also in the +30° C summers i have periodicaly temperatur peaks to 28 °C in the tank and as is at the time still around 24°C. in the 2 years the tank is old i yet haven't seen any problems with the Hara's. All are still in there from the beginning. In my setup probably did someting right and they have no issues with periodicaly higher temps than described and ore optimal. I guess there is little you can do without a forced cooling if the room temps are over 32°C to keep a tank bellow 28°..

I do not know how accurate the description is about beeing a nocturnal feeder, i do not recognize this behaivor in my group of hara's. Do not see them get more active at lights out. I more get the idea that they are rather as blind as a bat and do not realy react to light at all. Any time of day feeding bloodworm makes them all go active in a minute. The way it looks they find food with smell and feel, particularly the smell of blood triggers them.. And don't realy use eyesight that much, because i see them circling 4 times around the same worm before it finds it and eats it. While other fish swim around obstacles  Hara's keep bumping headon into everything in there path looking clumsy.


----------



## Paul Sabucchi (3 Aug 2017)

zozo said:


> This is absolutely something to keep in consideration..  I keep my asian theme tank at an average 22°C with the heaters, it has a sump where the water overflows and cascades through an oversized pipe system sevral steps to the sump where it cascades again through the sump chambers. So in my case it kinda resambles a little optimal oxyginated stream in the best way i can make it. And it is in the minimum temp range of all inhabitants. But also in the +30° C summers i have periodicaly temperatur peaks to 28 °C in the tank and as is at the time still around 24°C. in the 2 years the tank is old i yet haven't seen any problems with the Hara's. All are still in there from the beginning. In my setup probably did someting right and they have no issues with periodicaly higher temps than described and ore optimal. I guess there is little you can do without a forced cooling if the room temps are over 32°C to keep a tank bellow 28°..
> 
> I do not know how accurate the description is about beeing a nocturnal feeder, i do not recognize this behaivor in my group of hara's. Do not see them get more active at lights out. I more get the idea that they are rather as blind as a bat and do not realy react to light at all. Any time of day feeding bloodworm makes them all go active in a minute. The way it looks they find food with smell and feel, particularly the smell of blood triggers them.. And don't realy use eyesight that much, because i see them circling 4 times around the same worm before it finds it and eats it. While other fish swim around obstacles  Hara's keep bumping headon into everything in there path looking clumsy.


Good to know, the fans on most my tanks manage to keep temperature between 27 and 27.5 through most of summer, I make an extra effort to keep the shrimps below 26 but I think I'll err on the side of caution and go for species that can tollerate higher temperatures as summersherecan be long and hot. Ciao

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk


----------

