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Centerpiece fish for 100l

Jake101

Member
Joined
28 Feb 2014
Messages
135
Location
Solna, Sweden
Hi,

I am pondering upon options for my 100 liters (60x45 bottom) low-tech heavily planted jungle-type tank. What will be the centerpiece fish? I feel I have searched ideas and thought this for hours and hours, without getting a good feeling about any specific option. Local water is soft (GH is 2 dH). A friend gave me his old wet dry sump, which I am going to install to this tank out of interest, and the de facto turnover rate will be about 500 l / h. So the water flow is not especially strong, but it is not a stagnant pond either.

Apistos would be one natural choice, but I have Tropica's Aquarium Soil substrate and I have only had them in sand substrate earlier with rather weak water flow. Knowing their behavior I am not comfortable having them without sand. One option would be a nice size school of tetras or rasboras, but I'd prefer to have one (or pair), a bit bigger centerpiece.

Any suggestions?
 
Last edited:
Hi,

I am pondering upon options for my 100 liters (60x45 bottom) low-tech heavily planted jungle-type tank. What will be the centerpiece fish? I feel I have searched ideas and thought this for hours and hours, without getting a good feeling about any specific option. Local water is soft (GH is 2 dH). A friend gave me his old wet dry sump, which I am going to install to this tank out of interest, and the de facto turnover rate will be about 500 l / h. So the water flow is not especially strong, but it is not a stagnant pond either.

Apistos would be one natural choice, but I have Tropica's Aquarium Soil substrate and I have only had them in sand substrate earlier with rather weak water flow. Knowing their behavior I am not comfortable having them without sand. One option would be a nice size school of tetras or rasboras, but I'd prefer to have one (or pair), a bit bigger centerpiece.

Any suggestions?
One of the smaller labyrinth fish like a trio of honey gourami or maybe a pair of one of the wild betta species may be a good option? Could then still have a group of one of the smaller rasboras or something similar to compliment them.

cheers

Conor
 
Hi all,
One of the smaller labyrinth fish like a trio of honey gourami or maybe a pair of one of the wild betta species may be a good option?
I was thinking along those lines as well with the soft water. The mouth brooding Betta sp. all come from running water, so how about "Betta channoides" if you could find them?
Apistos would be one natural choice,
I'm dwarf cichlid fan as well, Dicrossus spp. aren't geophagine Cichlids, they turn over leaves etc, but they don't sand sift.

I keep looking at them, and <"I'm very tempted to try them again"> but with a better diet.

cheers Darrel
 
some tank photos for inspiration
🙂

The tank is empty atm, waiting to get drilled for an overflow box. I might even buy a bit bigger tank, since the stand can handle one with more depth.
 
Thank you for the inputs. Forgot to mention that the tank is open-top, so a jumping species does not work. That said, even though many species might jump, the probability of that varies greatly from "certainly" to "very unlikely".

After doing some search, Dicrossus maculatus is on the LFS list. Need to read more about it.
 
Tropica Soil Powder arrived today. Seems to be small (max. 1mm) and smooth granules. I might stick with apistos after all.
 
Do some research on D maculatus vs D filamentosus - apistogramma.com is a great source for reports on maculatus

I’d already kept filamentosus and lfs had maculatus in, I’d been trying to source filamentosus for ages so gave these a try ... they are very different fish

Out of 9 grey juveniles, I ended up with 2 males and 7 females, aquarium was an open-top 90cm x 45cm x 53cm high - I had no issues with jumping BUT I also believe that tank height makes a significant difference
Neither my D filamentosus nor maculatus seemed prone to startle (but the maculatus existed in a state of conflict and I can imagine some consequent jumping if kept in a relatively shallow tank)
 
Tropica Soil Powder arrived today. Seems to be small (max. 1mm) and smooth granules. I might stick with apistos after all.

Again I’ll suggest Apistogramma.com for some discussion as to why sand is thought important for long term health of sand sifting cichlids
 
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