Hello everyone! I'm Yschen and I am new to the forum and to keeping fish!
I wanted my first tank centered around a male Betta, always wanted one since I was small but my parents would not allow any other fish but Cichlids into their tank.
I have yet set up (and cycle) my own aquarium but I am looking for ideas concerning tankmates for a lone male betta in an already ordered 53 gallon tank.
The tank is 31.5 inches wide (80cm), 19.7 inches deep (50cm) and 19.7 inches high (50cm).
I have looked at Kuhli Loach for being pretty cool fish in general, and Otocinclus is another fish I am currently considering.
I had planned to have a school of 6 Loaches and around 5-6 Otocinclus.
My concern is if the tank will look underpopulated and if my Betta will be comfortable in such a large tank.
I read somewhere that a Betta won't like a tank deeper than 35 centimeters (13.7 inches). Any help is highly appreciated!
It's good that you are willing to take the time to have a stable environment, it's a good quality for an aquarist to have. :-D
Well some people will argue that on a cycled tank you want to keep low on water changes to not disturb the system. In truth it seems that the system is helped by larger water changes, as they remove things we can not measure, fish pheromones and toxins we may never know are in the tank. Water changes should have little effect on actual water chemistry, and you are not removing the bacteria, there is no reason that it is a bad thing.
I do "40%" changes on my tank weekly. Reason for the brackets is that I'm usually so carried away in trying to get all the muck out that it ends up being a 50-60% change.
Your water changes are your own decision. You could do 30-40% on an unplanted tank with no noticeable consequences, it's a personal choice really. It's also a light stocking so a smaller amount is doable. Posted via Mobile Device
Instead of the micro fish you could do cherry barbs! They are peaceful and very hardy, they can live in almost any water as well, so I would say get them.
Just a heads up. Your loaches need sand as they burrow into it, so if you are getting gravel or have gravel find something else. If you have a hone depot, they sell play sand that is completely aquarium safe, I use it and many other people on here as well, it is like $5 for 50 pounds.
Petco and Petsmart both sell plakats, they should be labled plakat, or at Petsmart dragon. Dragons have metallicy scales. Hard to describe easy to tell. All of petsmarts plakata should be dragons though.
Just noticed you are in Sweden!
It's my natural assumption that everyone here is in the States, lol. We don't have Petco in Canada but everyone here says they have plakat varieties.
The fish hobby is pretty strong in Europe though so you should be able to find some nice fish if you live in a larger town. :-D
Just want to mention that ember tetras can be extremely nippy, even amongst their own kind in a large tank. I have a friend who had to get rid of four of hers because they were bullying all the others. The remaining ones live in relative peace, but make sure you have a good female to male ratio to avoid that kind of aggression.
The store where I will buy fish and all the filters and all that only sell tank fish and aquarium utilities. The store owners are quite experienced aswell.
Stocking a larger tank for a male Betta is harder than I thought. Especially finding larger fish that are docile and confident enough to stand up to a potential bully. According to people on forums located through google, a pair of ram cichlids seem like decent tankmates at the moment, this however requires that the betta is pretty docile. I keep returning to the question if there are fish in the ram cichlid size that will go well with a male betta, I'm not overly fond of tetras.
I would not get a pair, at breeding them the fish become too aggressive. One ram could however work out.
I'm more concered over the betta safety actually. Posted via Mobile Device
Won't a single cichlid be very lonely, unhappy? I have never seen a single cichlid in a tank so that's why I'm asking.
I'm quite saddened by the fact that the tank just simply might be to big to stock properly taking a male betta into account. I might just start up a male betta with some loach friends in the old cichlid fry tank it's about 14 gallons. While I really would like to have this project work out I don't want to use a really large (expensive) tank and have it underpopulated and looking empty. >_<
Sadly I feel as though you're right. It's natural to think that it would reall appreciate the larger space but there's so many other things to take into thought.
A 53 gallon without betta could work out more, and give you lots of options. With betta you are limited to small fish, because even a larger peaceful fish will take a shot at a smaller fish.
About the rams, I've seen people keep multiple fish in cichlid only/semi aggressive tanks. Lot's of people will keep a lone ram in their community. They are only aggressive during spawning (cichlids love to spawn!) so if you can find 2 females the problem could be avoided. Posted via Mobile Device
Yeah I think it's for the better. Keeping a smaller separate tank for the betta won't be to hard, and it opens alot more options for what I can keep in the bigger tank! Really appreciate the help and input you guys provided! Thanks alot!
Did you figure out if your pH is stable?
If not you could try looking into large rainbowfish, they do great in high pH.
Otherwise there are lots of fish that have been bred by us so long that they can handle the pH. Posted via Mobile Device
Think I'm going for Malawi only for the big tank and a betta and some loaches for the small one. My parents have kept malawis and all other sorts of fish using the citys tapwater so I don't think it's going to be a problem.
Sadly mbuna need a larger (wider) tank than the one I have on the floor at the moment. Since I really like the look of betas, a sorority might be ideal since there are more of them they should be more of the main fish in the tank. I take it most of the established options are still open to me here as with the male? If those ram cichlids would work with a male beta, surely they would be fine with a sorority?
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