Best tank aquascaping for black and white fish, and goldfish??

N

Nischint

Everyone's a critic
Dec 19, 2002
28
0
0
44
Bombay, India
www.jamlikethat.com
So I've got one big 30 gallon, in which I got:

  • 2 white angels
  • 2 black angels
  • 2 silver angels
  • 3 black mollies (one obviously preggy)
  • 2 kissing gouramis
  • 1 pingi logsucker

Now I'm recently very struck by the fact that I haven't concentrated much on the architecture and design of the tank. Yunnoh, just got gravel in it, there's the filter in the back, a heater, two aerators and that's it. Got one big background with a tropical look. One big fake plant a little on the left of the center of the tank, and one piece of driftwood, which is just a block of wood, with no particular design. Add to this, a bunch of coloured rocks at strategic points, and that's my tank aquascape.

Recently, I added some Java fern, one on the left corner, one at the back, and one in the center. Also got a translucent glass bulb in the back, and a clay pot (that looks freakly like the glass bulb) in the middle, with a plastic fisherman on it. It looks okay now, but this is what i could do with household stuff.

What's the ideal setup? I want it to be as close to the real natural environment of the fishes. Okay, so they've spent their lives in tanks and probably don't have a clue what their home looks like :)

But I'd still like to create something nice for them. And something that goes well with fish that are black and white (and silver) in colour.

And I got a 10 gallon tank in which I got 4 orange goldfish, 2 fantails, 1 white goldfish, and 2 popeye goldfish. Any architecture for that one???
 
A bigger tank...No, at least 2 bigger tanks.

While I can appreciate your desire to have a natural looking tank, you've got some bigger issues to address. 6 angels in a small tank are going to cause problem when they mature. They'll end up fighting and killiing each other off, trying to establish territories for breeding.

Mollies like hard water. Black mollies are more comfortable with some salt--completely the opposite of the conditions preferred by the angels.

Kissing gouramies get huge--they'll end up eating up your other fish, and injuring the slower moving angels.

There's no way to recommend a natural setting for your tank that will work for all the fish, because they would never encounter each other in the wild. While community setups are foten this way, you have some problems on the horizon that adding driftwood just won't fix.

If you do separate or return the fish, so you can focus on one species, we can help you tailor a tank a it better.

As for the 10 gallon tank--most people recommend at least 10 gallons per fish, if not 10 gallons per inch of fish. That tank is incredibly overcrowded, and those fish are going to be stunted.
 
Sorry OrionGirl, didn't mean to upset you this way. It's pretty obvious that you have flamed me, in an extremely polite way. I appreciate that :)

At this point of time, my family is not really happy with me spending money on "worthless bloody fish", as they call them. Which is why I just have a 30 gallon tank for now. Later, maybe in a little under a year, when I have the money and my family the understanding, I can go in for a really big tank, like a 100 gallon one :D

But for now, it's gotta be this one. The gouramis, I don't care much about, since one of them (Bully) keeps chasing the other (Wussy), and they never really "kiss". Plus I think I'm gonna give them away soon.

The mollies, I do care about, so when I get the 100g, I'll keep them only in that 30g. Hopefully, you think that's quite a large place to keep 3 mollies in. Not to mention, if they do breed, in which case, I think about 10 should be fine in the 30g. The goldfish, I actually don't care much about, again. I'm gonna sell them off too.

As for now, the immediate present, I'm stuck with the 30g and angels and mollies. Maybe I can have a composite of both their habitats.

What kind of surroundings do angels and mollies have anyways??
 
Really wasn't an attempt to flame, just trying to let you know that your tank would be difficult to maintain in the long run. My boyfriend and I get all sorts of weird looks from family and friends when we talk about our tanks--we are VERY careful to avoid mentioning cost after the last round of "You've got to be kidding me" when his Mom found out how much money went into just one tank. I totally understand.

If you keep just the mollies and angels, they should be okay together for a while. The mollies are native to estuarian areas, where they go from FW to BW. These areas usually have high total dissolved solids (TDS), and really hard water. Angels are native to Amazon waters--tea stained blackwaters, very soft, very clean, low TDS. Lots of driftwood, few plants. The angels will probably eat any babies the mollies produce, for now.

If you do get rid of the goldies, the mollies would do fine in the 10 for a while. This would provide more space for the angels, and reduce aggression for the time being.
 
I agree with Orion Girl. You have too many fish from too many different environments, and they will, collectively, get far too large for the tanks you have available. However, there are a couple of fairly easy steps that you could take to buy yourself some time:

01. Give away all your goldfish and the kissing gouramis. Goldfish require lots of room and are very messy fish. A ten gallon might work for one for a while, but in the long term goldfish need a large tank and powerful filtration, so why go down that road and have them die off one by one?

02. Once you have cleared out the 10 gallon tank, you can put the mollies in there and give them some salt in the water. That will keep them healthy. You could get some java moss for that tank to give the babies someplace to hide. Long term they will also require a larger tank, but when you get your 100 they could take over the 30.

03. The 6 angels left in the 30 gallon for now will be OK until they start to get a little larger. They do not naturally come from heavily planted waters, so for a biotope they would require lots of driftwood. Java fern, as a low-light plant, will be a nice accent to this. I use it in my discus tank for just that reason.

Good luck.
 
i agree with what the others have said about your tanks. But i have a suggestion for your original post. If you really want to bring out the colour of your fish then there are special lights you can by that are not much more expensive than regular flurescants plus i have found a plain dark back ground can do wonders. My GF recently put a plain black background on her Mbuna tank and the fish look much brighter because of the contrast. So you could use like black wraping paper or something. If you want some good driftwood, ive found petsmart has some awesome fake, looks very realistic, however it is a bit pricy about 25$ US for a good sized piece
 
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