Need help with stocking list

[frusterdated]

Hey guys,
I am having a hard time narrowing down and completing a stocking list for my 100 gallon tank. Here is a picture of my tank.



here are some of the fish i'm interested in, I know they all cant go well together but I hope yall can help me create a community around which fish yall feel are centerpiece fish.

severum
green terror
jack Dempsey
red parrot
yellow lab
german blue ram
angel fish
geo type fish

I am open to suggestions to anything, these are just fish I notice thru browsing online sites. Id like the tank to be full of active fish.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Austy16414]

Good looking tank!! I would go with Severums, a green terror, and some geos, then you can use some tetras or rasbora as dither fish

[ptran]

True Green Terror or Red Terror got my vote!

[morpheus]

the JD and labs would be a little too aggressive IMO. the JD can get territorial, and you wouldnt want the labs to nip the fins of the geos. i keep my geos with a school of red blue columbian tetras and some silver dollars.

the severum and geos would work well. even some firemouths for some red color. there are many good larger type of tetras for dither fish. Buenos Aries, congos, lemon, emperor, bleeding heart, and diamond tetras.

many use rummy nose with geos. great schooling fish in larger numbers, but have to be careful of them with terrors

[troy tucker]

I love my Senerum but they are so hit or miss. One is peaceful, Another kills everything in the tank. I have Ratkeil.

Jack Dempsey's, and Terror's can be too aggressive but are beautiful. Angel fish are aggressive too, but really do well with Geophagus of most types. Ram's, blue, gold, what ever, are Geophagus. Mikrogeophagus ramirezi, They do well with angels. Geophagus Brasiliensis, Tapajo, Jurupari, and Satanoperca are all great. They all do every well with each other, and other fish. Altifrons get to big for your tank. IMO>only.
Yellow Labs are African. Cool fish. If you want an active tank then Africans is the way to go.
Maybe some of the African fish keepers will chime in.

[ptran]

From your list, sounds like you prefer SA over African cichlids. But at the same time, you also like an active tank, so African could be a way to go. Most active fish is probably tropheus.

PS: have some African to rehome if you are interested. lol

[frusterdated]

If I was to go the route with the severum, could you guys help me out with #s and fish to complete the tank? Severums get big I read, and so does the green terror. do I have enough room to stock with a lot of dither fish?

Would I be able to add cory's and maybe a red tail shark?

With the African cichlids will I have to worry about conditioning or anything special to the water?

I consider myself still a newbie with this hobby and would prefer to pick fish more hardy. I'm a little nervous when reading sites talk about moderate-difficult care level. then part of me says im worrying to much and lets get started already. Ive had my tank running fishless for prolly almost 2 months now.

thanks guys

[barrettsline]

If it were me I would scrap the terrors. I would go to ADG and pick up 4 of there Red Severums (They are gorgeous!!!) They are about 2"-2.5". I would then grab about 6 cory cats. You have the room for the fish. You can talk about stock for days on tanks. Trust me, everyone who has responded to your post loves to do so!! LMAO.

The big question that I do not see is your filtration setup. (I may have missed it a lot the way) Please list out your filtration (include everything). I can see a wetdry in the picture so that is a good thing.

Even with severums you can still have geos, dwarf cichilds, tetras (Large), etc., as other members have mentioned.

[beto]

severums, geos, and cories.
terrors are called that for a reason.......lol

[black_knight]

I would go with angelfish. A large group of 8 adult angelfish would look awsome and maybe even festivum group.

[morpheus]

If I was to go the route with the severum, could you guys help me out with #s and fish to complete the tank? Severums get big I read, and so does the green terror. do I have enough room to stock with a lot of dither fish?

Would I be able to add cory's and maybe a red tail shark?

With the African cichlids will I have to worry about conditioning or anything special to the water?

I consider myself still a newbie with this hobby and would prefer to pick fish more hardy. I'm a little nervous when reading sites talk about moderate-difficult care level. then part of me says im worrying to much and lets get started already. Ive had my tank running fishless for prolly almost 2 months now.

thanks guys

there are many people on here experienced with SA species and what they are compatible with. everyone is willing to give advice on things they found to work and not work. its all a matter of personal preference. if you like a busy tank with a lot of activity i recommend african species, or for a more peaceful pace the SA and large tetras work great

with a 100gal tank you have a lot of room. from the fish you want to be the focal point to dither fish. usually its just deemed the "1 inch of fish per gallon" rule in a freshwater tank for bio-load. with top of the line filtration you can go beyond that threshold, which is why barrett asked what you had in regards to filtration.

first just determine the route you prefer. there are many colorful options on both sides. i agree most of your list is SA species. they are usually less aggressive than african species. i have put some SA with africans, but they were all raised/introduced together (SA species being JD, terrors, managuense, convicts). i have a 75 gal tank, assorted africans, and the only SA in there is a ~7 inch JD. they all leave her alone for good reason. my 56gal is geos and tetras.

if you want cories....they cannot go with africans, JD, terrors. they will get killed via stress or injury. they are fine though with geos and severums usually.

red tail sharks in my experience are more solitary, meaning only one in a tank. you have the space so it will grow rapidly, reaching about 6 inches in length. each fish is different. sometimes you get an aggressive one, other times a docile one of that species. they are known to nip a lot with longer wavy fins (or long threaded fins like some geos develop).

all of the fish you listed, african and SA, are generally considered hardy. once they adjust to your tank conditions, they can handle a wide range of pH, temperature, toxicity, etc. the cories are probably the most sensitive. if you didnt use seeded media or a bacterial treatment, your tank may still be cycling. the tank can spike with ammonia and nitrites with the addition of fish for the first time. some people cycle their tank with fish, others let their run for a few weeks without. there is no "right" way. as long as you keep up on your water changes...you should be fine. a lot of people do water changes weekly or bi-weekly depends on how many fish are in there.

i would start slow adding a few fish at first. monitor your toxicity levels. just watch how they adjust and that they are eating and acting normally. the SA species are more accepting of new additions over time. the africans can become aggressive towards new tankmates once territories are established.

[frusterdated]

I have a eshopps pf-100 overflow box into a 30 gallon diy setup using batting for mechanical filtration and pot scrubbers for the bacterial filtration. rio 3100 pump is there for the return.

I think severum is the way to go.

Does it matter what order I add the fish?

How many severum should I plan to keep? geo? other dither type fish?

I used to have the tank running with tiger barbs, a pleco, red tail shark and a dwarf green terror, but I had to shut the tank down so they had to be rehomed.

Thankyou guys for all the help.

If it were me I would scrap the terrors. I would go to ADG and pick up 4 of there Red Severums (They are gorgeous!!!) They are about 2"-2.5". I would then grab about 6 cory cats. You have the room for the fish. You can talk about stock for days on tanks. Trust me, everyone who has responded to your post loves to do so!! LMAO.

The big question that I do not see is your filtration setup. (I may have missed it a lot the way) Please list out your filtration (include everything). I can see a wetdry in the picture so that is a good thing.

Even with severums you can still have geos, dwarf cichilds, tetras (Large), etc., as other members have mentioned.

[Ken B]

I have a 210 with red severums, green severums, green terrors, geo brasiliensis, corys, krobius, bunch of medium to large plecos, 3- 6 inch synodontis, and everybody is getting along fine and there are no shredded fins and everybody is happy. I have had some troubles in the tank and found and expelled the troublemaker. I had 2 local bluegills in there and they were worse than any green terror! So some of these more aggressive fish can co-exist with less aggressive fish but depends on the ratio and how much room in the tank, how many shelter areas you have and probably other factors. And as long as you have other tanks to move fish to then you can experiment. I see your tank is 100 gallons. One idea, if you want green terrors is to get the severums first, let them get accustomed to the tank for a week or so, then introduce a few green terrors. If you have 4 severums, get 2 green terrors and you might find you have no problems. Severums are not generally aggressive but they will defend themselves. I see my severums chasing the green terrors often. And the green terrors are as large as the severums. Also, the green terrors mainly chase each other. I have 9 severums and 4 green terrors. So I think ratio is a key factor in creating a happy fish group. Have fun with it!

[troy tucker]

I like the Severum. 4 in your tank with room for 4 geo's and a bunch of tetra's or a bunch of cory's and no geo's.

[ptran]

Severum is not easy to bully around. I keep him in a Malawi Mbuna, Tanganyika tank without any problem. Somehow everybody give him a lot of respect! But like Ken stated, you need to watch them closely at first and remove any troublemaker. They do get really big though 8"+ is not uncommon.