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150gal Indonesian Tank

Easystreet

Easystreet

Member
Joined
13 Jan 2012
Messages
56
Hey all,

In the early stages of planning an large Indonesian tank... been thinking about stocking and would like some advice. The tank will be a low tech heavily planted tank (just dosing ferts) (if possible) built around 3 large clown loaches that i've had for several years.

Water paramaters: 25 degrees C and high PH: 7.8-8.

Stocking ideas so far are:

10 X Boesmani Rainbow
Melanotaenia Boesmani

10 x Dwarf Neon Rainbow
Rainbow Praecox

3 x Large Clown loaches
Botia Macracantha

50 x Pearl Danio
Brachydanio Albolineatus

However having trouble finding indonesian small bottom feeders (similar to corys) and clean up crews (shrimps or ottos etc...).

Really early stages so ideas on any species or numbers would be appreciated.

Cheers.
 
I have a similar fish list. Rainbows and danios. I also looked into bottom feeders. Couldn't find anything that would suit low tech. Hara hara are river fish so need flow and high oxygen levels is the information I found so didn't think they would be suitable. I ended up putting corys in mine.
 
Kuhli Loach sound interesting! However, I have just googled them and they prefer lower Ph. Max 7. Do you think they would adapt ok? Not sure how hardy they are compared to other species?

Darren/Rich: Had stumbled upon hillstream loach as an option previously but similar to hara hara I rejected them based on their need for high o2 and fast flow.
 
Noooo!!! I had no idea that clowns did this!!!! thought they were fine with plants.. Mine are around 5-inches... May try some practise plants over the next couple of weeks to see the results... well this could ruin the plan!!
 
Cheers Big Clown. Interesting. So it's not out of the question I just need to be aware that I will be limited to well rooted tougher specimens!!!

Just while I have your attention. Any idea where I can get large clowns from to bump my numbers up to 5-6 individuals. It would annoy me greatly to have to add smaller clowns to the group. Me being a bit ocd.
 
I would say don't try to find larger clowns because it will be nearly impossible to find healthy large fish.
Adding juveniles to the group and hand feed, this will encourage the larger ones to come out and hand feed too.
Never add fish bigger than your biggest clown.
And don't expect your plants to look healthy, get another tank for that.
 
Ok, noted. I've never had a problem with my loaches hiding. They are always out and about and doing the feed-me-dance when I walk past. May wait to observe their behaviour with the new stocking/layout and go from there...

Cheers for the input on plants... will have a think about doing a hard-scape dominated scape with minimal plants maybe... Don't want to completely reject the idea of plants in this tank. Even if they do get tatty.

Jim
 
Yer i've become attached to my clowns. Sanj: Your rainbowfish tank is the one that has inspired me to go down the large 'indonesian'/rainbowfish route... beautiful tank! I'm going to have a think to see if maybe i can do something visually pleasing with some really nice big pieces of wood and a few tough (maybe frequently replaced) plants. We'll see...
 
Me too. I want a tank like sanj's to keep them in aswell.
I think you could have a spectacular scape in a huge tank with wood, rock, an anubias carpet, a few large sword plants and maybe some java fern. With a large well established plant mass and low school numbers, it could be doable, if you dont mind plants with some perforated/removed leaves
 
I would give it a go, I dont know how old your fish are, but I dont think clowns wreck your plants straight away. My understanding is there is a growth spurt during the first few years of thier life and then it slows down. During this time they might take to puncturing holes in plant leaves, but 8" plus bulky clowns get a bit naughty with the plant decor, they like to redecorate on a regular basis 😀 .

I dont know if you are aware of Emma Turner, she is a loach expert and has a large collection of clown loach, i think the oldest is over 30 years old. I spoke to her partner (works in a MA) and he said they have tried plants, but they dont last long. I think they still buy plants every now and then.

In my tank I have a shoal of 25 odd dwarf chain loaches. Not the same at all, but cheeky.
 
Kuhlis are not too fussy about pH and hardness. I have kept and bred Pangio kuhlii, P. semicinctus and P. oblonga in my tapwater, at pH 7.8 and 18deg DH and a friend kept and bred P. myersi in the same.
 
Brilliant....Will definitely give Kuhlii loach a go... Have deviated from a strict Indonesian theme and added some cory's but that will be my only deviation I think.... oh and ottos! Haha... oh well so much for being strict... new title: 'a predominately Indonesian tank'

I added an impressive bit of hard scape yesterday (large bit of branching wood) need to tweek the setup a bit but it's looking good. Will add some photos in the next couple of days...
 
Hello there, I'm from Indonesia and I give big appreciation for your tanks..

So I'm here and could give you wide variety of fish..

You could try kuhli loach, borneo sucker also would do a good job..
Remember, a horned nerite snail and turbo snail also came from my country.. They will do a wonderfull "cleaning" task
 
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