250g design/plan (Uaru, G-cats and Eels)

[arielucidates]

I am picking up a 250g acrylic tank (8'x30" footprint, 20" tall) in the next week or two, and while it's not going up right away, I wanted to be able to talk about my plans and get feedback from those of you who have kept bigger tanks. Hopefully a good plan will prevent mistakes.

The biggest tank I ever had was a 150g, but it extremely tall and had only a 4'x2' footprint, so it was not my favorite tank. I used to have 10+ tanks in my basement, but then I lost most my favorite fish in a power outage, and then a little while later we moved, and had started having kids. So I sold off most my tanks and the rest of my fish. I haven't had any fish for the past 5 years, though I still have an empty 120g, 90g, and several smaller tanks I hung onto sitting in my basement. But I recently stumbled on this amazing tank mentioned in the title for a crazy steal (acrylic 250g, with stand and lights for $250!) and can't say no. It's actually big enough to have most/many of my dream fish! Plus I'd love my kids to get to learn about fishkeeping and maybe one of them will end up enjoying the hobby as well. I think having one (or two) larger tanks would be the ticket since there's no way at this stage I can go back to having a bunch of tanks.

I'll post more later about what I'm think for stock, as well as need some advice on filtration/sump ideas, but I'm excited and wanted to start a thread.

 

[arielucidates]

Here are some pictures of the tank at the current owner's house

 

[SilverArowanaBoi]

Do you live in a tropical area, like near the coast? You house looks like it, and also cool tank!

 

[arielucidates]

No, haha! I'm in Wisconsin. And the pictures are at the current owner's house because I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet. But I think they just have an indoor sunroom or something where it is.

 

[arielucidates]

Here is my list of all-time favorite fish, most of which I'm considering for this tank. I've owned most of them (or a similar species) in the past, but most of them never got past grow out before they died in the power outage. My plan originally was to build an indoor pond for them, but once I lost most my favorites and the life season I was in changed I never got a chance. Having this bigger tank will be a nice happy medium, because while I can't have as many species as I used to I can have my faves, and luckily I have enough experience with a wide variety of fish to generally already know which ones are my very favorite species/types.

Cichlids:

Crassipinnis Oscar
- these are pretty much my favorite cichlid ever, but I'm not sure I would house them in this tank long term. I owned three of them for about 6 months before I lost them in the power outage. They are supposed to top out about 10", and based on the growth I saw when I had them my guess is that is accurate. They are very hard to find but if I'm able to locate some I plan to buy them and start growing them out in this tank. Long-term if I think I would eventually set up my 120g as a biotope for them since they are from Paraguay and a bit cooler water species and I think they'd be a pretty interesting centerpiece with Gymnogeophagus Balzanii and some medium schooling fish.

Uaru:
My second favorite cichlid. I would probably get a group of 7-8 initially to grow out and thin them out as they got older if I needed to. I have a great LFS that has giant tanks, so if anything ends up feeling too big for my tank, or it's too crowded as they grow out I'd be able to narrow it down to my favorites and trade any big fish for in-store credit. But I want a big enough group of these that it feels like a group. I like have multiples of at least some species of fish to tie the tank together, instead of having too many single specimens.

True Parrot Cichlid
I absolutely love the look of this fish and I had a few juveniles that I bought only a couple months before the power failure. I like them but they weren't old enough to evaluate their personality and personality is a big part of what draws me to certain fish species. I'd like to try these again, but I'm hoping to have a big school of dither fish (not sure what species yet) in the 250g and I think they'd prob eat them?

Satanaperca (I have had and like both daemon and leucosticta)
I'd like group of these in the 250 with the Uaru. I think they would look awesome together and they are dissimilar enough to be complimentary.

Vjeja Synspilum
I had an adult pair of these and they were just some of the most beautiful fish ever. In general I don't like CA cichlids personalities as much as my favorite SA cichlids. And to me these didn't stand out a ton for personality, but I liked that they were pretty peaceful and they were just gorgeous. I'm tempted to get more of them for that reason, but I'm think for simplicity I should probably skip them.

 

[SilverArowanaBoi]

Here is my list of all-time favorite fish, most of which I'm considering for this tank. I've owned most of them (or a similar species) in the past, but most of them never got past grow out before they died in the power outage. My plan originally was to build an indoor pond for them, but once I lost most my favorites and the life season I was in changed I never got a chance. Having this bigger tank will be a nice happy medium, because while I can't have as many species as I used to I can have my faves, and luckily I have enough experience with a wide variety of fish to generally already know which ones are my very favorite species/types.

Cichlids:

Crassipinnis Oscar
- these are pretty much my favorite cichlid ever, but I'm not sure I would house them in this tank long term. I owned three of them for about 6 months before I lost them in the power outage. They are supposed to top out about 10", and based on the growth I saw when I had them my guess is that is accurate. They are very hard to find but if I'm able to locate some I plan to buy them and start growing them out in this tank. Long-term if I think I would eventually set up my 120g as a biotope for them since they are from Paraguay and a bit cooler water species and I think they'd be a pretty interesting centerpiece with Gymnogeophagus Balzanii and some medium schooling fish.

Uaru:
My second favorite cichlid. I would probably get a group of 7-8 initially to grow out and thin them out as they got older if I needed to. I have a great LFS that has giant tanks, so if anything ends up feeling too big for my tank, or it's too crowded as they grow out I'd be able to narrow it down to my favorites and trade any big fish for in-store credit. But I want a big enough group of these that it feels like a group. I like have multiples of at least some species of fish to tie the tank together, instead of having too many single specimens.

True Parrot Cichlid
I absolutely love the look of this fish and I had a few juveniles that I bought only a couple months before the power failure. I like them but they weren't old enough to evaluate their personality and personality is a big part of what draws me to certain fish species. I'd like to try these again, but I'm hoping to have a big school of dither fish (not sure what species yet) in the 250g and I think they'd prob eat them?

Satanaperca (I have had and like both daemon and leucosticta)
I'd like group of these in the 250 with the Uaru. I think they would look awesome together and they are dissimilar enough to be complimentary.

Vjeja Synspilum
I had an adult pair of these and they were just some of the most beautiful fish ever. In general I don't like CA cichlids personalities as much as my favorite SA cichlids. And to me these didn't stand out a ton for personality, but I liked that they were pretty peaceful and they were just gorgeous. I'm tempted to get more of them for that reason, but I'm think for simplicity I should probably skip them.

I love true parrots!

 

[arielucidates]

Other fish:

Mormyrids
I love all the mormyrids. I've really only had the standard Peter's Elephantnose, and one double trunk EN that died within a few days. My dream is this tank I have seen on YT that is just filled with tons of Mormyrids, of all kinds of species. I have read they can be kept in groups in big tanks and seen a few examples of what appear to be successful group tanks. But I tried on two occasions to keep a large group together and in each case they picked on the weakest one until it died. Then they started picking on the next weakest and repeated the process until I have the single biggest EN. I tried it with smaller tanks than this (150g with bigger ones and 90g with tiny 1" captive bred babies) but I'm not convinced my results would be any different in this tank. At least for me personally I don't seem to be able to keep multiples (at least of the same species) successfully. But I'm still interested in keeping a single specimen. I thinking about keeping a Dolphin or one of the other rarer species, but I'm worried the dolphin would be too aggressive (they don't have teeth and can't do much damage, but they will chase/ herd fish a lot) If anyone has kept Mormyrids I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Giraffe Catfish
I had a Dwarf Giraffe cat for years I absolutely loved. I also had a 'Bouche' standard G-cat and really like him too, but didn't have him long enough to know his personality as well. I like catfish, but most hode too much for my tastes. I like them to be more outgoing and have a 'peraonality'. I also don't like them being predatory, so Giraffe cats are perfect for me. I don't want the truly giant species in the 250g, they'd just be too big. If I end up with one I can always trade it in if it gets too big, but I'm not going to intentionally buy one of the biggest species. I'd prefer one that doesn't get much bigger than 18". From what I've read it sounds like I need a 'Volta' (hopefully male as they stay considerably smaller) or an A. Bicutatis. I also will probably grab any dwarf G-cats I can find. I don't know for sure what species used to have so I'll probably grow out whatever Dwarf Gs (or smaller standard Gs) I can find, and then narrow down to 1-3 specimens that are the right size and are the most personable.

Eels
I have had several eels of different species and loved them all. I definitely want at least one Eel in the 250. I liked the small ones I had and I also had a Liberiensis and baby Fire eel. I love Fire Eels, and the look of an impressive, adult eel, but I'm thinking I may try to find an M. Favus instead (the smaller species sold as Tire Track) because I'd rather they not grow much more than 24". There are also a lot of rare eel species I've seen listed at Westpot, but it's hard to find good information about many of them. Like the G-cats, maybe I will just pick up any medium size eels that look interesting, grow them out and see what I like.

There are a lot of other Oddballs I like (I'm a sucker for certain types of weird looking fish) but most the knives and bichirs, etc that I had just didn't grab me like the fish listed above. So I will probably stick to only fish from the tree categories above for the 250g. My favorites of my favorites.

The final fish I want is some type of schooling fish. They aren't really my "thing" but I love the way a big school of the same fish can give the tank a unified look. Personally I just don't find tanks with too many different species as visually appealing, even though the collector in me wants ALL THE FISH. It's really hard for me to limit the number of species, but I'd like to stick to less than 7, including the schooling fish. Obviously that's still more than most biotopes, but if I have groups of Uaru and Satanaperca, and a big school of smell-medium fish I think it will still not look as busy and disjointed as if I get one of every fish I wish I could keep. Obviously this tank won't be a biotope since I'll have SA Cichlids, African catfish and Mormyrid, and Asian eels, but I still want it to have that more cohesive "natural" feel of a biotope.

I'd love suggestions on schooling fish. If they are smaller I'd want them to be cheap-ish in case any of the big fish decided to snack on a few, but the fish I'm planning are all pretty non-predatory. What kind of schooling fish would look good with the fish im planning to stock?

 

[arielucidates]

I love true parrots!

Have you kept them? They were one of my dream fish but I lost my three so soon after I got them I never really had a chance to see their personalities. How do their adult personalities compare to like an Oscar or a Uaru? I love all the big SA cichlids like Chocolates and rarer Severums too, but if I have to narrow it down I'd pick Uaru and rare Oscars for personality and True Parrot and Synspilum for looks

 

[SilverArowanaBoi]

Have you kept them? They were one of my dream fish but I lost my three so soon after I got them I never really had a chance to see their personalities. How do their adult personalities compare to like an Oscar or a Uaru? I love all the big SA cichlids like Chocolates and rarer Severums too, but if I have to narrow it down I'd pick Uaru and rare Oscars for personality and True Parrot and Synspilum for looks

No I haven't kept them, but they are on my wishfishlist. lol I would ask someone else about their personalities; there are some other people here who have kept them. I can't remember if he has kept them, but duanes might be able to help.

 

[Trouser Bark]

Wow! An old school German style schtube. Don't see those everywhere.

Smoking deal on the tank, too.

Schooling? Rummy nose tetras keep it tight and are always on the move.