Filters

[Misselz92]

So I have a 100 gallon tank, its set into a wall. I want freshwater fish like plecostomus, gold fish, beta, coi etc...

Wanting suggestions on filters, how many, what kind, what I should have as far as air stones etc and what fish I can put together. I know the basics as far as no more than one beta for its safety purposes, and aware that plecostomus and gold fish are dirty.

Trying to be cost savvy so inexpensive really would help.

Its just nearly impossible to clean this tank manually and I want to be certain the fish i bring will be safe and comfortable.

Thanks.

[jughead]

it depends on how many fish you want.if you want max fish id go with a wet dry and a canister.if the wet dry is big you wont need airstones.if you just want 3-4 adult fancy goldfish either filter by itself should work.koi get 3' need to think about that.betta probably wont be happy with goldfish.good luck and welcome to the box

[InarisDivineDesign]

A 100 Gallon is very wide for a Betta, even with a female. I have a male and female in a 29 Gallon Long right now and they tried to spawn twice and the size of the tank doesn't allow the male to properly guard his eggs with the moving water from the filter, and if I shut the filtration off even for three days I get algae which could also kill their eggs and babies. This just happened to me since I came into a 29 Gallon recently and it was unexpected and the first thing I did was go out and buy a Betta male and a baby Betta female. You could sincerely start a massive betta sorority in there with other freshwater fish like Guppies, Mollies and Tetras. I am not a fan of Mollies myself, not even many tetras to be honest because they become bullies in larger numbers like Oscars and chichilds. I would rather have a betta sorority rather than mollies and guppies rather than tetras, but Bettas like dense plants, or high grass, to hide because they do get aggressive with each other, and guppies prefer open spaces with low grass. Angel fish would look grand in such a long and wide tank but might not be good with guppies and bettas, so you would have to chose. If you bought the Angels very small and planted a dense tank with three layers of plants, the back-, mid-, and fore-ground levels for dimension they could live together but you'd have to observe the ANgels when they get bigger and only keep them in 3s, like 3, 6, 9. It might be better to get 3 of different types rather than more than 3 of the same type. They also bully in larger numbers, and in a 100 gallon they can get massive, and then require a lot of space like the Lionfish in Marine Aquaria, and they will fight and even kill those that inhabit their swim space because they are so large due to fin size. My mother liked Angels ans Tetras and they are hostile fish, and the larger their size or number of their schools, the more they are likely to literally organize themselves and eradicate a competing fish family. Tetras are capable of going to war because they will invade and they give lots of signs before they decide to go to war. If there spaces were invaded over-and-over they will plan a raid and then won't leave until the kill the other fish. I watched a school of tetras take on a school of angels once and I was only able to salvage a few angels who got all their fins destroyed, and the tetras were hunting them down outside the safe-zones and wouldn't leave until they were dead. I was young and was traumatized that I wrote about it in grade school as part of an assignment so I will never forget. It i because they remember and were capable of planning which means the are intelligent and sentient. Angels boss-hog, and they bully first, then theother fish will attack your Angels, and most people think they are the show fish. Angels are narcissistic but not as intelligent, they don't realize how vulnerable they are to attack because of their inflated fins. They insist on eating first, swimming first, then they will begin to eat the roe, or eggs, or other fish, and that sets off turf wars.

For the size of your tank, Bettas and Guppies are much to small to truly appreciate the panoramic view. Have you considered Discus? If you prefer to stay with small fish, there are also Kilifish and Sunfish that react to a great LED light. There is also the Parrotfish, which will eat smaller fish and it has teeth but isn't truly an aggressive fish for a person that really wants to come home and have a 6in+ fish greet them with tricks and eye-contact. The Discus will follow you in a whole school, and I often compare them to the Tangs & ANgels of Marine waters, and they are very colorful. The truth about Discus is that you have to keep tabs on their ability to spawn and outgrow their tank and it will require that you remove and sell or re-home the unwanted babies. There is no way around this, but the good news is that you have a 100 gallon, which means if you start small, they could increase in numbers of the course of a few years and you could watch them. If you were really serious, you should buy each fish from reputable breeders from known lines and match them with their color families from un-related pairs. If you buy them all at the same place your babies will be inbred in 2-3 generations, so then you have to remove and get new fish. If you build up slowly and always remember where you go the new fish, you could let them mate freely and just sell the babies on your own and tell people they are from a personal community tank. They also make a bigger bio-load while spawning or coming into mating time. They get big and meaty and they can break Aquariums, and some would argue that they know exactly what they are doing. I am not a super fan of chiclids but they are also a wonderful choice if you like fish that react to a bulb or LED light and can live in large communities. You could keep tons of them in there, but just like the Discus, they will spawn over-and-over again and you would have to remove their babies. The bio-load can 2-3x increase during this time which could encompass 1-2 seasons if you calcualte how long you have to keep the babies before you could sell or rehome them. There is a monthly treatment that allows you to double or triple dose to prevent water changes and it would be necessary to calcualte how much water conditioner you wold need to use per month to keep up with prolific fish in a huge tank.

There are only a small number of Freshwater puffers and I love puffers but they get very large. Only the Pea Puffer can live in a 10-gallon or below but they do require live food. Puffers don't drop as many eggs, prefer to be species only, but in a 100 you could keep a breeding pair and not have to spend so much time or water treatments to keep them. If you feed them live food, you do ave to remove dead food from their tank as hey are messy eaters, so it would be important to create a wedge or slant that makes it easier to feed them on one end so that they don't drop to the ground often. They are very interactive with their owners and make eye-contact and respond to your actions inside the tank, especially at feeding time. I have always wanted to have a freshwater puffer in a pond outside comparable to a royal have a barracuda in a moat, but I have nieces too young to trust them with puffers because puffers have teeth which look like a bird's bill under their skin an they could sincerely hurt your kids or dogs or even your cat, so car should be taken with puffers. They are not hostile, the real problem is that they are just as curious as your common house cat, but interact with the world with their mouth, so you don't want an accidental nip. If your house cat made habit of taking jabs, if it eve fell inside, the puffer would also take nips. Just saying. If it was just for curiosity it might not kill your cat, but if your cat was secretly an evil cat that had been trying to kill the puffer, I would say that it is a fish smart enough to be aware of intentions, or sentient. It means that it could bite your child on purpose if you understand it the way that I am trying to describe. If you had a rowdy little kid that pokes at it with a stick when you are gone, one day, if your child was foolish enough to put their fingers inside, it could intentionally bite your child. That is why I don't recommend puffers for people who do not understand the fish family. I call them the lap dogs of the fish world, because if you had one next to your bed or sofa, they could come to love you, remember you, play and interact with you like a Chihuahua. You could even train them to allow themselves to be pet and handled but they still bite, and this could lead other people to think they are docile and they could sincerely nip off finger tips or entire fingers, or severely injure a dogs nose or take a cat's entire paw.

The Bettas do not like fast moving water, if you wanted livebearers, like guppies, they also prefer water that is not fast moving, but since they create a large bio-load you still need and want filtration to prevent from having to do complete water changes rather than 1/4 a week or 1/2 every month. The bettas might try to spawn every time you change the water, which many people might not find desirable. There are many other livebearers and mosquito fish that spawn when the waterline falls and the temps change. To change the water from a 100 gallon is going to be a pain, so you really want to chose which type of fish you want and check if they are compatible first. If they want still or fast-moving water, if they want cold or warm water, what they eat, etc. The Betta gets cold in my 29 gallon without a heater, but a heater for a 100 gallon for one fish that will only live in the corner is a waste of money and space. You could just get the betta a 5 gallon Tetra Color Fushion tank that is glass and comes with a LED hood, filter and heater.

Another suggestion for a tank that size would be to fill it with good bacteria and algae eaters like Amano shrimp and maybe a Golden Algae eater if you chose freshwater and see if you can keep it going for at least 6 weeks. I hate to wait since there is SafeStart and other products that allow us to add fish instantly, but when you plant and set up a grand design, it is always advisable to wait the full carbon-cycle. I keep the floors clear when I intend to breed them depending on the fish because it is easier to clean and even to collect eggs, but when you have something as large as your tank, you might really want to plant the tank to ensure your CO2 and O2 balance, but that also requires what is now being called aquascaping, and it sounds cool online, but it is really just landscaping your tank, and many Americans enjoy paying a landscaper to do their yards rather than doing it themselves. I you don't keep up with your plants they will get algae and parasites also, especially with a florescent light. The LED is best for Freshwater since there is no salt in the water to prevent parasitic overgrowth, you could get a 100 gallon of water fleas with a florescent light. That would be a disaster! Water bugs which creep me out! Yuck. There are just so many things that could happen in such a big tank.

I don't want to scare you, I am excited for you, I just wanted to give you some advice before you waste 100 gallons of water and have to empty it to start over. Good luck.

[ladykemma2]

that tank would be perfect with heater set at 78, with mollies and cories and one betta. if you want some gold mollies, PM me.

baffle the flow with plants, the mollies will keep the algae at bay.

you don't want koi, goldfish or plecos. the live forever and get huge. also different temperature requirements.