Interactive wet pet & appropriate tank size

[Deadliestviper7]

Spangled perch or longear sunfish,longear sunfish grow about 8,follow you around and can easily be handfed

 

[J. H.]

Spangled perch or longear sunfish,longear sunfish grow about 8,follow you around and can easily be handfed

He's in Australia.

 

[elting44]

In my own personal experience Jack Dempsey cichlids are far from shy, the electric blue and gold morphs might be, but the normal variant are rather bold and can be hand fed earthworms.

I would suggest against handling any fish.

My vote would be for single JD or a pair of C. Sajica. If you go with the Sajica maybe some pineapple swordtails to act as dithers

 

[J. H.]

My vote would be for single JD or a pair of C. Sajica. If you go with the Sajica maybe some pineapple swordtails to act as dithers

I have 3 swordtails 2 female wagtails and a male pineapple. The male is very outgoing. He comes to greet me whenever he sees me, but he won't follow my finger

 

[Adictd2Fsh]

Go with a flowerhorn. 70 gallons would work with good filtration and water changes. Long aquarium would be better tho because you dont the fish to be stumpy. I hand feed my flowerhorn and he doesent mind being pet. I have had 100s of fish and several Oscars big and small but the flowerhorn has been by far the most personable and fun fish to have. He is never scared and chases the kids back and forth in front of the tank. He has never bit me but he bites and destroys anything that goes into the tank including large 13" Oscar. (Bad Idea that was) Tank is bare bottom becuase he hates anything in his way. He sits in front of the tank every day waiting for me to come home, as sson as i walk in the door he begs for attention. I know its attention and not food because if i throw him food he dont eat it he just does flips and swims around showing off. FLOWERHORNS ARE BAD A**!!!

 

[Adictd2Fsh]

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions!
I've ruled out the oscar/flowerhorn and anything that gets over the 10inch mark. Getting a fish like that would be amazing but I cant give it a good home with this tank so I'll wait till a bigger tank is feasible.

For now however I've got a long list of options from the comments here/general research, let me know which ones sound good.

I've ruled out the Gt since has the potential to get too big and the Jd because Ive heard the vast majority are shy. The red tail might not be an option as well. Ive heard they really need the 4ft swim space & are not super interactive anyway, thoughts?


- Sajica with a school of smaller fish, larger tetra?
- Single Red tail Black shark? with a fast/small schooling fish
- Single Blood parrot
- Single Severum, do Severums get too big? My lfs has them down as a max 12inches
- Single Giraffe Hap
- Single Long Fin Acara

All of these fish are available to me through my lfs,online or breeders. If anyone knows a bonsai flowerhorn breeder in Melbourne Australia give me a buzz haha. But anyways those 6 fish look to be the best options. Let me know what you think, particularly if they need dithers what kind/how many. I'll wait for a few more suggestions and start up a poll.

In regards to filtration, I have a 1250L/hr (330gal/hr) aquaone canister. I'll most likely buy a second one and run both on this tank. Im aiming for weekly 30% water changes but realistically when uni starts up again it will probably be a 40% fortnightly change. The tank is in my bedroom across from my bed and next to my writing table. Hopefully being around the tank most of the time and some good aquascaping will help.

All the fish you have listed a very pretty but also pretty boring.. The best Bet would be two severums instead of one they are very personable and will eat out of your hand. One severum might be sketchy by himself and hide alot. Severums personality are like an agressive discus or kinda like an angel fish but more hardy. Hands down there is no fish out there with the personality of a flowerhorn tho.

 

[Deadliestviper7]

He's in Australia.

Which is why I added spangled perch