680 gallon - how many wide-bar silver dollars? General stocking suggestions?

[sayersweb]

Just to be clear... the fish from 3 aquariums listed below are being combined into 2 aquariums. I am trying to decide which fish to keep and which to get rid of. All of the fish in the lists below already exist in the aquariums.

I should be taking delivery of a 680 gallon aquarium in the next couple of weeks. It is coming as a full setup with fish and will be replacing an existing 200 gallon that already has fish. I also have a 300 gallon with fish. I'm trying to sort out which fish to keep and in which aquarium they should go. The 200 gallon is not staying once this is all sorted out.

There are 9 wide-bar silver dollars coming with the 680. I also have 4 red hook lunas, and 3 thin-bars. I am thinking of only keeping 5 of the wide-bars since they get so big. Listed below are the stock lists for the 680 & 300, plus the list of fish I may not keep. Any suggestions?

This is the stock list for the 680 that I am considering:

1 Black Arowana
1 Red Tail Giant Gourami
1 Flagtail
1 Pink Tail Chalceus
5 Wide Bar Silver Dollars
4 Red Hook Silver Dollars (Luna)
3 Thin Bar Silver Dollars
4 Geo Surinamensis
4 Geo Threadfins
4 Nicaraguensis
16 Roseline Barbs
11 Clown Loaches
1 Synodontis
1 Gold Nugget Pleco


This is the stock list I am considering for the 300 gallon:

1 Flagtail
1 Red-Spot Gold Severum
1 Red shoulder Banded Severum
4 Geo Argyrostictus
4 Red-head Geos
3 Geo Altifrons
5 Electric Blue Acaras
3 Biotodoma Cupido
2 Festivum
12 Assorted Rainbows
4 Blue Botias
2 Queen Loaches


Fish that I probably will not keep:

1 Giant Plecos
4 Wide-bar Silver Dollars
1 Monodactylus Sebae
1 Monodactylus Argenteus
4 Bala Sharks
6 Regular Silver Dollars

[specialone0812]

Wow, I would do exactly what you decide to keep and not to keep; However, if tank space was not a problem, I would keep a school of 9 wide bar silver dollars.

Are you gonna throw those un-wanted fishes to your pond? LOl.

[mredman]

How about a tiger shovelnose?

Mike

[sayersweb]

Hey Tony... Good to hear from you!

Yes, I'm just not sure about the silver dollars. I definitely will keep the 7 red hooks I already have. I want to keep all 9 wide-bars, but I am worried about bio load and the resulting nitrates. On my existing aquariums I do weekly water changes of at least 50% and feed carefully, but nitrates are constantly approaching 15 to 20ppm by water change day. One interesting thing though, I've been using the API nitrates test kit. Just today I used a LoMotte test kit and the results appear lower (after using the 4.4 multiplier) than the API results.

How's the pond doing?

Wow, I would do exactly what you decide to keep and not to keep; However, if tank space was not a problem, I would keep a school of 9 wide bar silver dollars.

Are you gonna throw those un-wanted fishes to your pond? LOl.

[sayersweb]

Hi Mike... the tiger shovelnose is very cool looking. Thanks for the suggestion, I'm actually trying to reduce the number of fish, all of the ones listed in my original post are already in the 3 aquariums, and they are going to be combined into only the 2 larger aquariums once the 200 is gone.

How about a tiger shovelnose?

Mike

[specialone0812]

How's the pond doing?

It is full of rain water. I have not plumbed skimmers/BDs to my filters/pumps inside my filter house yet. At the last minute, I decided to build a filter house to house all my equipment and right after I finished the filter house, I got busy with another more important project - a newborn.

[sayersweb]

Firstly, congrats on your new family addition!

Oh right, I remember you mentioning a pump house. If you get a chance maybe you can take a photo of it sometime and post it to your build thread?

It is full of rain water. I have not plumbed skimmers/BDs to my filters/pumps inside my filter house yet. At the last minute, I decided to build a filter house to house all my equipment and right after I finished the filter house, I got busy with another more important project - a newborn.

[sayersweb]

Here's a video of an 800 gallon aquarium with 5 large wide-bars.... can't imagine how 9 would be in a smaller aquarium. They are beautiful and very active. I also love the red hooks with the black tail! They are very cool looking.

[specialone0812]

wow, those fish makes the 800g look small. They might have to go to the pond.Lol.

[sayersweb]

I'm starting to think that I should convert my 22,000 gallon pool to a pond... it already has a great filter and heater. All 9 wide-bars should fit. What do you think?

In that video the wide-bars appear to be around 12", which means they can grow a few more inches before maxing out. From what I can tell they are at least 5 years old. So, maybe it would be a good idea to keep all 9 for a while and sell a few of them off later.

Another concern that is surfacing in my mind is... what if we have another hurricane like Ike from 2008? Apparently, my house lost power for 7 days, although I was not living in Texas at the time. Those natural gas generator systems would be ideal, but they are ridiculously expensive. Would be more cost effective to replace all of the fish. :(

wow, those fish makes the 800g look small. They might have to go to the pond.Lol.

[mredman]

At what temperature will you keep the pond? How will you cool in the summer. The temperature in the pond could exceed 90 F.

[sayersweb]

Hi Mike,

Tony and I were just kidding about the pond... we have both been working on our ponds for far too long and not getting them done.

My pond currently has a bunch of Koi in it... a few larger (16 to 18") ones that were from my pre-expansion pond, and now a bunch of smaller ones (mostly butterflies) that I have added over the past few months.

There is also an ever growing number of Paradise Gouramis that have been breeding very successfully. They will hopefully take care of any koi eggs from future spawns. In my previous ponds in Virginia the koi bred like crazy, which was a real hassle. Each year I had to drain the pond down catch all (or most) of the babies and have a koi give-away party for all of my pond friends.

At what temperature will you keep the pond? How will you cool in the summer. The temperature in the pond could exceed 90 F.

[sayersweb]

Yesterday I removed all fish and decor from the 200 gallon, drained it and the 50 gallon sump. Tried to slide it across the room to make room for the 680, but no go, could not move it. It is a heavy beast, custom acrylic, made in Corpus Christi.

So, I had to bale most of the 250 pounds of gravel out, and finally I was able to slowly move it inch-by-inch across the room. Then re-added the gravel, water, decor, fish, etc.

I sure hope the 680 works out so I don't have to move the 200 back.

[danielp]

Move the Nicaraguans out and keep the wide bars?

[sayersweb]

Originally, I planned to have the Nics in the 300, but they seem to need more swimming room as they get bigger. I guess I could keep all 9 wide-bars and then if they become overwhelming sell some of them later.

Move the Nicaraguans out and keep the wide bars?