150 Gallon Predator Community Ideas
- Thread starter SHAMZY
- Start date
What are you interested in? Cichlids? Catfish? Bichirs? Knifefish? Personable fish that will greet you? Aggressive predators that will snap food out of your tongs? Surface fish or bottom dwellers? Kitchen sinks or biotope setups?
You've got no shortage of options with that volume. Even if you want something totally unfeasible in a 150, like an RTC, there are smaller alternatives that behave similarly. If you have any preferences in mind, that would make narrowing things down easier.
You've got no shortage of options with that volume. Even if you want something totally unfeasible in a 150, like an RTC, there are smaller alternatives that behave similarly. If you have any preferences in mind, that would make narrowing things down easier.
You could definitely put some predatory fish together in a 150, not the tank busters like arowana/ giant catfish, but there are others. Lots of CA/SA cichlids are piscivorous, could probably mix some calmer species of crenicichla with something like Severums or Goldsaum / Green Terror. A lima shovel nose would probably be OK in a 150 for a long time if not forever and would mix well with SA cichlids. Be careful mixing any smaller elongated fish with the crenicichla though.
The fish that grow huge that he mentioned after “tank busters like…”
Not sure of the dimensions of your tank but Pike cichlids are a good shout
I'd get some young red atabapo and develop a pair from them, maybe a slow growing big catfish that you could move on years down the line
I'd get some young red atabapo and develop a pair from them, maybe a slow growing big catfish that you could move on years down the line
You don’t have a tank large enough to house “monsters”. I know a 150g can feel like a huge tank until you actually see a large fish inside.
If you want something impressive, deciding on a large centerpiece and planning around it might be the best way to go. Check out some cichlids, cruising catfish (lancers, pims etc.), other predators like wolf fish, snakeheads if you're outside the US, predatory characins (true gars are a no-go at this volume but this group has plenty of gar-like fish) and piranhas, and pick one you like. Then you can check what it's compatible with, or if it needs to be a solitary animal.
Cichlids are your best bet for a true community. They coexist in relative harmony with many tough, armored catfish native to the area (larger plecos, doradids, driftwood cats etc.), so you can set something up that matches what your "main" fish would face in its native habitat, and hopefully not have too much aggression. Of course, cichlids are constitutive sociopaths so you might also wake to a bloodbath.