Sounds good, what school other than the silver dollars do you reccomend?That's not going to happen before the other fish eat them. Also the butterfly fish won't work out, they will become expensive food for the arowana, plus they will be competing with the arowana for the top space, which won't work out well for the butterflys. Everything else looks great though.
(Updated) Help me with my 1000 Gallon dream community tank
- Thread starter LungfishLover1
- Start date
What are the units, if inches that about 900 gals, without decor.
I agree the guppies would barely last an hour with the other species, even the Pantodon (butterfly fish) would be a snack for some.
.Thought they were nippy, also they look fairly similar to the silver dollars, turqoise rainbows keep coming up so might just do them
First reply will be directly related to my plans and current experiences. My second reply will address my opinion on your stocking.
I plan on keeping a mostly Mary drainage basin species list (https://wetlandinfo.des.qld.gov.au/...&Class=ray-finned fishes&SpeciesFilter=Native) with the exception on the meiofauna (small inverts like snail, shrimp, and scuds) due to the near impossibility of me getting native Australian strains of those types. In other words, I plan on attempting to replicate as much as I can the native environment so I narrowed my list of fish species into a limited list of species that would do well around the AUL (slow moving water with a lot of plants/structure).
Of course at the bottom of the list are the meiofauna I listed above which will include: both Malaysian Trumpet Snails and Ramshorn Snails (preferred by AUL supposedly due to their softer shells), Neocaridina shrimp, and a local scud varient (likely a Hyalella azteca or similar species as I live in CA atm).
Next up the chain would be a smaller fish and I choose to go with Melanotaenia duboulayi aka the original "Australian Rainbowfish" and potentially Rhadinocentrus ornatus aka Ornate rainbowfish. Of course any small/dither fish species will not go into the tank until the AULs reach at least 1' in length to ensure those 3 are not starved as the worst case scenario is simply all the rainbow fish will be eaten if the rainbow fish eat all the AUL's food.
Aside from the 3 AUL I will attempt to get at least one Mary River Cod (a separate species of the Muarry River Cod) although I'm still 50/50 on this as the this particular cod family tree has a bad habit of being extremely territorial...
The final fish species will be a school of 3-6 Scleropages leichardti to have activity at the top of the tank yet not be a free meal for any of the larger residents. Maybe a Jardini or two as I always wanted to see if I could crossbreed the two species.
I have yet to determine if I will keep any medium sized fish as the bioload of this tank would already be extremely high and the main feed will be pellets and not a complete web structure. The goal of the meiofauna is simply to break down any excess pellet feed due to all the large fish species being fairly messy pellet eaters. The goal of the rainbow fish is to keep the meiofauna population in check and to provide active contrast in the lower/middle half of the final display tank in the folliage/structure; AUL are not active swimmers during the dayhours unless trained to be fed during those hours. As such, at most the largest I expect the rainbow fish shoals to be is 50-100 adult fish as the other larger fish will actively eat them if they never get their pellets.
This structure is based solely on the fact that I am attempting a planted setup for both the growout and final display tank. If the AUL rip up the substrate and plants too much I'll ditch the meiofauna and rainbow fish in the growout tank entirely. This is because i've already tested Neocaridina with the AUL and at night they were actively hunted and have all been eaten. Of course I know shrimp are a staple part of their diet but I wanted to test if the shrimp would be fast enough as I know snails would never thrive at the AUL's current size. In addition, I wanted to check how voracious young AUL are based on my current feed rate. Of course fish are faster, but a closed box with limited hiding spaces is not the same as a large pond or slow moving river.
At first glance I can say with certainty the guppy and African Butterfly Fish will be dead within the first week if not day. Guppies are notoriously line/inbred for aesthetic looks but this makes them easy pickings for any fish as their speed is drastically dropped as a result of their long tails. In addition, even if these were some sort of mega-sized guppies their large fins will be prime target for aggression. In a similar vein the African Butterfly Fish is another small fish with large fins; however due to it's nature of being near the top of the water surface both the silver dollars and silver arowana will likely attempt to eat it. Even if it didn't hang around the surface it would be living a miserable life with torn up fins. If you want a colorful small dither fish I would suggest looking into rainbowfish or small subtropical cichlids like convicts or acara cichlid. Most cichlid species from Uruguay & Argentina should work out fine for you.
The clown loach and silver dollars are good dither picks as their adult size makes them unlikely to be seen as prey items for the silver arowana unless it was extremely hungry. There is a real worry though if your AULs would consider the clown loaches as food as both are "slow growers" but the AUL in captivity can get a growth rate of 1-2" a month in optimal conditions. In cloan loaches this is uncommon as they need to be in groups so food will not be evenly distributed amoung the group so you will have some much larger and a few that are like runts. Therefore my suggestion is to get adult-sized cloan loaches unless you are willing to grow them out in a separate tank.
HOWEVER, a big problem with the clown loach, silver dollars, and silver arowana is the fact they are tropical fish while the australian lungfish is a sub-tropical fish. While the AUL can tolerate 80 F water conditions they prefer lower water temperatures roughly around ~70-77F (~20-25C). This conflicts with the immediate health of cloan loaches which become ich prone at those temperatures. Silver dollars and silver arowana are more tolerant of the mid 70s when older but ideally they should be around mid-high 70s/low 80F as well. If you want to keep your AUL at tropical temps you must ensure a heavy amount of aerration especially as they get larger as hotter water holds less disolved oxygen.
Honestly, unless you're sold on clown loaches I would say drop them for a different loach or maybe catfish. This is because many tropical fish can survive and thrive in the mid/low-70s but their appetite will definitely drop. However, cloan loaches, as mentioned above, will develop significant health problems in water temperatures sub-80F. I will warn you though that most other commonly sold loaches will likely end up as food for your AUL as only cloan loaches really have the overall size to prevent fitting into their mouth.
It's not a problem, I have extensive experience raising all the arowana species aside from asian (illegal for me in the US) and african (nobody carried this fish when I was younger). Jardini are territorial fish, even when young, but you can keep them in a community tank so long as you ensure they do not establish a territory much like most overstocked large communal tanks like the ones in public aquariums. Of course I would only get a Jardini again for the cross breeding project as they are not native to the rivers where AUL are native so they don't fit my goals.
