Fish: Re: [tropical fish club] New to Group with THREE QUESTIONS

Rose,
For 20 gallons you can still keep livebearer fishes, just stick to all males and don't crowd them and you should be fine. Other options would be some of the smaller tetras (too many to list here) or smaller rasbora species, or even white clouds would look pretty and be active for you... all without the breeding issues. That's not to say they won't ever breed, just that if you aren't taking special precautions to preserve/hatch the eggs there is little chance anything will survive before you even know it's there.

As for snails, see if you can find some freshwater nerite snails. Those won't hurt your plants, are pretty, and just as fun to watch as any other... plus they won't breed in freshwater so you don't have to worry about over population problems with them. There are a lot of options available to you if you take your time, ask a lot of questions, and do your research. We can help you here in the group as much as you let us. :-) If you have questions about any specific species of fish, stocking limits, even what is needed for the different species of plants... we can cover it all. Just don't be afraid to ask questions. The only dumb question is the one that isn't asked, lol.

For 20 gallons I would stick to fish that have adult size of 3 inches or less and just be careful not to add too many of them. The general rule of thumb for small fish and small tanks is 1 inch of ADULT fish per gallon, but that isn't taking compatibility into account... so again, just ask and we can guide you through safely and easily.

Have a great night!

Dawn

Dawn Moneyhan
Aquatics Specialist/Nutritionist
To learn more about me go to
http://www.helium.com/users/449334

--- On Wed, 1/30/13, Rose Lieberman lapis@frontier.com> wrote:

From: Rose Lieberman lapis@frontier.com>
Subject: Re: [tropical fish club] New to Group with THREE QUESTIONS
To: tropicalfishclub@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, January 30, 2013, 6:38 PM

Hi, Dawn. Thanks for the response. Donna was a big help and between the both of you I'm finding out that the "vision" I have is based on incomplete knowledge on my part. For instance, I had a 50-gallon tank back in Brooklyn and I had Oscars. They were easy, the tank was easy upkeep. Now, my very first tank was probably about 10 gallons and I had a range of fish from a few tetras and swordtails to a few other species I can't readily recall their names. (Like I said – that was about 40 years ago).

Anyway, I didn't realize that the species that would live-bear or the easy egg layers (Cichlids?) would overrun my tank. And I don't have an outlet for overproduction.

I'm not planning on anything huge. 20 gallons would be the maximum. And the more I think about this, the more my mind seems to favor plants vs fish. I know, right?! But the more I learn and remember, the more my vision for my tank setup changes.

So, I think I need to forget about breeding fish – I'd be quickly overrun. So, maybe my QUESTIONS need to change:

if my interest is more toward plants, and I'd certainly like to have some fish in that "aquatic plant tank", what candidates would be good for me? Swordtails? Tetras? Angels? Fancy guppies? You know, something small, relatively easy to care for, (I know no species is care-free), pretty to look at, while I'm enjoying those aquatic plants.

As far as the snails go, I'd rather keep my plants uneaten, so snails of that type would be bad.

Thanks for your help.

Rose

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