Tank Mates
Depending on your personality and previous experience, stocking the tank is either the most fun part, or can be somewhat frustrating, as you learn much more than you expected to need to know, or now have to deal with the consequences of advice which didn't work out as expected.
There are a number of compatibility matrix's on the web, so I won't try to make another one here. Instead I'll give some stocking ideas to get you thinking along less conventional paths. Generally, introducing all your fish as juveniles and letting them grow up together will maximize your compatibility results, but this cannot replace the research which is needed before the purchases are made. Another generality is that if a fish will fit in the mouth of another fish, then chances are good that it'll end up there.
Details...
Some way to stock your tank are by species, layers, centrepiece fish, or by biotope or family or genus.
BY SPECIES
If you only have one tank, then the temptation is to have as wide a variety of fish as possible, typically 4 or 5 species in a tank. It's only when you have several tanks that you might discover the pleasure of a single species tank. Fish-loading of tanks is typically constrained by many factors (individual size & quantity of fish, number of species, filtration, territorial limits etc), so establishing a species tank of non-territorial fish will let you go to much higher fish-loads than conventionally possible. Imagine a well planted 55g tank with nothing but 100 Cardinal tetras weaving through driftwood and ducking under leaves. Other impressive displays of single species tanks are Angelfish, Discus, Tiger barbs, Guppys, Goldfish, Danios, Clown loaches, Neons, Harlequin Rasboras (to just name a few). Species tanks are significantly less work, as the fish are typically much more tolerant of each other (aside from the Angels & Discus at maturity), and their demands for filtration, water temperature, turbulence, water chemistry, diet etc are identical.
It's not uncommon to have 2 species in a species tank, pairing up two compatible and complimentary fish. One method is to pair in some type of ground crew (ie: Corys with Tetras, Otos with Discus, Dojos with Goldfish, Botias with Danios), or some type of dither (ie: Rainbowfish, Danios or Monos with African mbuna).
Some species tanks do not work or they require large tank sizes and low fish-loads, (or sometimes high fish loads), or they will only work while the fish are juveniles (ie: Redtail sharks, Rainbow sharks, Black sharks, Pleco, most large cichlids, and an extreme example where even 2 is too many; Bettas).
BY LAYERS
A large attractive community tank can be layered with 1 or 2 species in the upper
portion of the tank, 2 or 3 species in the middle and 1 or 2 species as a ground
crew. Layering techniques can also include body shapes (ie: contrasting Silver
Dollars with Annostomus), by movement (ie: graceful Pearl gouramis with hectic
Phantom tetras) or colours (ie: Red Platys over Blue C.Mooris over Yellow Labs).
Stocking a large community tank for your living room is similar to preparing a
painting to hang in a predominant location. It will be a centre of attention,
and a topic of discussion. However, more challenging than artwork, this painting
is always in motion and developing.
BY CENTREPIECE
Is there a particular fish you want to showcase? Then plan your other purchases
around that fish. Your showcase fish, to stand out, will have one or more of the
following all to himself (colour, size, movement, zone of aquarium, shape and/or
personality). You don't showcase an Oscar by surrounding it with other large fish.
Choose complimentary traits, such as keeping Leporinus with your Oscar (colour
shape movement are all different). If your centrepiece is a pair of Angelfish,
then large graceful Pearl Gouramis might be compatible, but will not highlight
the monochromatic Angelfish, who would look better in front of a colourful school
of small active tetras. Platys make wonderful compliments to larger slow moving
fish. Platys are available in a wide range of colours, they are active, unconcerned
and often too large to be made a meal out of. Swordtails have the same characteristics,
in a larger and slightly more aggressive package. Other centrepiece complimentary
fish are from the tetra, rainbowfish, danio families, or for slower moving and
a bit larger size, gouramis and some cichlids from South & Central America.
BY BIOTOPE
A tank can be set-up with only fish from a certain region of the world. This can be expanded to include plants from only that region as well. This bio-toping can be further narrowed down to a particular section of a lake or a river, with studiously greater amounts of accuracy, including invertebrates, minerals, exact water parameters, water flow replication etc. This is your hobby, and you should be able to have fun with it as you like.
If you are told that you cannot mix fish from Lake Tanganyika with Lake Malawi, keep in mind that Lake Tanganyika has a surface area of about 13,000 square miles (or is almost twice the size of New Jersey). Consequently mixing Tanganyikans with only Tanganyikans is no guarantee of compatibility. In their natural habitat, your fish's ancestors might never have even met each other.
Mixing the same African Rift lake cichlids (or old-world cichlids) with Central
American cichlids (or new-world cichlids) can be problematic. Some old-world cichlids
communicate using their body colours, expressing aggression by fading their colours.
Some new-world cichlids will fade their colours to show submission, and aggression
is shown by making themselves brighter. Encounters between these two fish would
be a complete breakdown in communications, probably resulting in a fight to the
death. The more one wanted to concede and surrender, the angrier the other one
would get, misinterpreting the colour changes.
Biotoping does resolve any concerns about your water being to alkaline for one species and too acidic for another, as fish from the same region would be from approximately similar water conditions. Water parameters (pH, gH and kH) are not normally a major concern unless you are keeping fish which require an extreme condition which is the opposite of the extreme condition of your source water, or you are having difficulty getting them to spawn.
BY FAMILY (or GENUS)
This is probably the most challenging stocking method due to the overlapping conflicts. It is possible to assemble an eclectic collection of different gouramis, but their territorial nature, and common interests in the same areas of the tank will require you have to keep a very low stock level (and a large tank). The same applies to most large cichlids, African cichlids, sharks, some plecos etc). Many fish become extremely intolerant of the same or similar species, as they reach sexual maturity. Keeping fish by family works best with the most non-aggressive fish (Livebearers, Corys, Otos, Tetras etc), then (Danios, Rainbowfish, Goldfish) and gets progressively harder as the competition overlaps. Note that this is very simplified as the family Characidae which includes tetras is large enough to include many exceptions to these general remarks. There are also cross-breeding considerations as hybrids entering the market weaken the genetic lines, and some of these fish's genetic lines already are only preserved outside of nature. It is generally recommended that when keeping similar fish (ie: African cichlids) that an attempt be made to mix them, such that cross-breeding is not likely to occur, or else the fry are not released to the general public.
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