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Taller bodied fish

Would emperor tetras count? Sort of inbetween in body shape but the males shown some impressive finnage as they mature.

My columbian tetras are also quite impressive.
 
I love your tank. We keep lots of species of nanostomus. Of this genus, eques is my favourite, followed by rubrocaudatus, mortenthaleri, and good old marginatus. Eques is a very hard fish to feed, but will take small grindal worms, springtails, aphids, especially live mosquito larvae (small ones) - very hard to feed initially so you need expert help. None of these would meet George Farmers viewpoint, and neither would the killifish Epiplatys annulatus - which is my favourite species of all time. Check that little fella out. But you must have very slow flows for both n. eques and Epiplatys annulatus, not the others.

If you did want to be like George, then get a shoal of 5 or 6 Black Phantom Tetra Hyphessobrycon megalopterus, AND a group of 8 or 9 harlequins. This is my favourite formula for the perfect community tank. It becomes so lively with both of these species, harlequins shoaling above the tetras, never fails to blow me away. Both are great surface feeders - ideal for fruit flies - saving you a fortune on flake foods, yuk. No issues, fully compatible.

Harlequins come from the genus trigonostigma. The classical ones with the black triangle look okay, but I had a really interesting subspecies a few decades ago, with a smaller triangle, that we haven't seen since; I cannot find any good classification from my books. Familiarise yourself with the entire genus and go for something a bit interesting, but not those mutant purple and green ones (unless you like them). They are excellent fish. Please feed them fruit flies - learn to culture well - they really deserve this feeding technique and the splashes are so fun to watch. Like dive-bombers (so do the phantoms). It blows me away.

The poor old cherry barb deserves a lot more love. The females have lovely round bodies and the males go deep red. They are extinct in the wild :( If I had to choose just one fish that really makes me think about the meaning of life. It is the poor, under-loved cherry barb. As an environmentalist, I cannot help but keep one or two. It reminds me how low humans have sunk.

Forgetting all the aquascaping faff. If you want a friend waiting for you when you get back from home, then buy a betta. I talk to mine. He eats from my hand and interacts - telling us when he is hungry. I even move him around the room into different tanks when he gets bored, because he knows what you are doing, which makes getting undressed a bit embarrassing - I cover the tank. My mum thinks he is great. They are shrimp and small fish safe - reports of nipping are fake or historic. Favourite food - california blackworms.

Something I would like to achieve is a tank full of golden-sunset honey gouramis. Practically brighter than any reef fish, they are so gentle and sensitive, and curious, it is like watching two snooker players, but you could get 6! That would blow even George away. Also shrimp safe, harmless, but they do need entertainment - hand feeding. Favourite food - grindal worms.

Or even better - rehome a poor unloved fish, especially one that is blind and nobody loves, from a shop. Call it Simon.

All of the fish above are compatible, but you need MTS before you get lots of species going. Just ask Gill. Always helps.
 
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Simon Cole said:
The poor old cherry barb deserves a lot more love. The females have lovely round bodies and the males go deep red. They are extinct in the wild :( I
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I had no idea. The only cherry barbs are in tanks around the world. Suddenly feel a weight of responsibility to look after mine that wasn't there before.
 
Karmicnull said:
I had no idea. The only cherry barbs are in tanks around the world. Suddenly feel a weight of responsibility to look after mine that wasn't there before.
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Unfortunately cherry barbs aren't on their own in that respect. Over exploitation of wild populations is all too common. It's exactly the same in the plant world.
 
mort said:
Unfortunately cherry barbs aren't on their own in that respect. Over exploitation of wild populations is all too common. It's exactly the same in the plant world.
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Even though this information can be found on the internet, up until now I didnt know about the cherry barbs either, same as others, so perhaps it would have some value to have a list of endangered popular species to help us choose our fish more responsibly? Can we perhaps get a thread with popular species we ought to avoid/check if they are bred in captivity?
 
Wolf6 said:
Even though this information can be found on the internet, up until now I didn't know about the cherry barbs either, same as others, so perhaps it would have some value to have a list of endangered popular species to help us choose our fish more responsibly? Can we perhaps get a thread with popular species we ought to avoid/check if they are bred in captivity?
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Very intelligent suggestion. Great point.

Encyclopedia of Life

The two links above should help you to identify endangered species, but there is one slight catch.
The rate of land use change and habitat loss is far faster than it is possible to survey. It can only take one pollution event to knock-out an entire population.
There is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the validity historical studies and the assumptions of species distribution. What tends to happen is that policy-makers do not have enough information to classify endangerment, and you will see the "IUCN red list status" for vast numbers of our aquarium species as "Not Evaluated". Adding to the confusion, DNA technology is showing that a lot of the classification of species are incorrect: some end up as the same species, sub-species or something entirely different (phenotypic divergence/convergence). Nannostomus spp are a very classic example.

The third problem is to do with the way that fish are sold. Rarely will you see an import certificate at point-of-sale and the information on these can be false of misleading with relation to where they are sourced. I guess it is easy to import anything, because who is qualified to counteract those claims.
Killifish are a very good example where the community has come together to attempt preservation, especially concerning a lot of the African species, which I believe had a similar fate. But you will always find novices buying up new fish, even if we were to avoid those purchases. Collecting does not need to be an issue if it done responsibly and monitored. I am not sure how the IUCN actually works, but if it is anything like the UKBAP list, then I expect it is taking too long to come to any form on consensus.
 
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I too have a really deep tank so find this thread interesting!
I was looking for something more in keeping height wise. At the moment I have Odessa barbs (which look stunning!) And danios in there..

What about bleeding hearts, they get deep and look great.

It's a bit bigger but shorter at 36inches long x 24 wide x and 30 deep 400l. It's probably a thread in its own right asking for advice. I feel a bit limited as the depth requires alot of flow to get good turn over of water so slow water species may struggle, I also have fairly hard water.

What I'd really like is a nice centerpiece fish that's not out of proportion.
 
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IMG-20201228-WA0018.jpeg


Neither photo really does them justice. Bright red to dark black, yellow fins and a blue spot behind the eye tin foil on the lower half. I'll see if I can get a better photo!
 

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Iriatherina werneri The Threadfin Rainbowfish would be something different and when they display look large bodied
Very active mid and upper water species


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
dean said:
Iriatherina werneri The Threadfin Rainbowfish would be something different and when they display look large bodied
Very active mid and upper water species


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Oddly I'm planning to get some! Prehaps some spotted blue eyes as well! If I manage to find some locally I'll pop some photos up.
 
I saw some odessa barbs at the LFS last week and thought to myself "I'm having them one day 👀👀👀", their colouring is just beautiful and much so richer and more complex irl compared to the photos I just googled (though tbh all fish are so much more sparkling and wonderful IRL)

Regent said:
Oddly I'm planning to get some! Prehaps some spotted blue eyes as well! If I manage to find some locally I'll pop some photos up.
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As a fashion designer I'm LOVING the colour mixing of fish in your tank! The kribs already look fantastic with the barbs, threadfins as well would look great.
 
I agree they much prefer it cooler though I've never taken the tank below 18 deg, I'd say they hold colour well up to about 24 deg. They were very unhappy last summer when there was nothing that I could do to keep the tank cool.
 
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