Tank ideas

[SteveCGG]

From Drs. Foster & Smith fish compatibility chart
Freshwater: http://www.peteducation.com/article....+1911&aid=3284
Saltwater: http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/c...lity_chart.cfm

[seminoleranch]

I think this is a great idea! I sure bugged enough people on setting up my tanks and I am still not done. There many, many types of cichlids out there and not always a lot of good information. I can remember when I first started to keep cichlids years ago thinking okay if they are about the same size and come from the same lake it should be okay. LFS are not always willing to be honest and tell you "no those can not go together". If they can make a high dollar sale so be it. Also researching on the net can be confusing with all the scientific names vs. common names. I think it would be a great idea if we could list those as well (if the fish has one). I am still learning my cichlids but I would be more than happy to help with information of live bearers and Bettas.

[seminoleranch]

Hum just reread that first line and it did not sound right, meant I am not done stocking my tanks lol.

[imagirlgeek]

yeah, but the hard part is getting people to agree.

Who will be in charge of that?

I think we should go with a 'Best Practice' kind of attitude. I've got a couple of tanks that have mixtures of fish I would never recommend people keep together. I like how Drsfosterandsmith has a 'Yes', 'No', and 'With Caution'. So, just because it's been done, doesn't mean it's necessarily a 'Yes'.

[TonyO]

Being a mod on Cichlid-forum, and with the Cookie Cutters being referenced, I know that they have value and have been and tweaked and updated, and in some cases, I think some have been eliminated. You'll probably never get 100% agreement with all of them, but realize that they don't have to be all-encompassing.

The goal of such resource, IMO, really should be to provide a few options to those starting out in the hobby that will allow them the highest chance of success. It would be even more useful if the majority of fish were species that are commonly found and reasonably priced, and I would stick, at least with Beginner- and Moderate-level set-ups, to combinations that are known to be stable. If you want to provide some examples of some more challenging set-ups, that's certainly helpful, as well.

I would organize it three ways, starting with the obvious tank size (decide which sized tanks to use first), followed by degree of difficulty, and third being regions (have some biotopes and a few "mixed" community tanks where there are gouramis with Corydoras, or something to that effect).

Use this as a loose template (you can change around the regions to fit whatever you like, this is just an example):

10
Easy
South American
African
Mixed Region

Moderate
Southeast Asian
South American

Difficult
African

Do the same for whatever tank sizes you wish, though I would limit it to commonly found sizes, like 20, 20-L, 29, 40-L, 40-B, 55, 75, 90, and 125.

[Jose]

Maybe if possible, people can vote for compatibility and show a percentage for each tank people agree/disagree on.

[TonyO]

Let me know if you want help!

[Bender]

This really is a good idea and its always good to get advice from people that have seen this or that even if its something uncommon. I know for a fact that there is a lot of bad advice out there and that people will think different things. There is one constant that I know to be true if it will fit in a fishes mouth and looks appetizing to the fish it will eat it or at least try.

[bibinthomas1985]

great idea!!. when i started i had no clue i got some gold fishes and always thought my filter system was the worst but later i started to find out that it was my fish who was the problem (no more gold fish and Koi).