Fish talk

[Namyre]

Thanks for the advice, Hawke. Maybe I'll get a betta.

Silver dollar?

[TNHawke]

Opaline Gourami - I score them a 5 of 10. Pretty to look at, fairly mellow. Not the biggest fish, but definitely larger than many. Not a good choice for any tank smaller than a 30 gal, and I would go with bigger. I haven't had the best luck with gouramis in general, and would list them as a 3 of 10, but the pair of opalines I had did very well for quite some time. I lost them in my big biosystem crash that killed off my collection of rainbows and angelfish- and everything else in the tank. It was horrible.

Silver Dollars - never kept. They like soft, acidic water and grow quite large. We have very hard water here, so that alone makes them more difficult to keep. The adult size is also an issue for me, I usually keep smaller fishes. And... I just don't really care for them. They're plain and silver and round and... well, I'd much rather have color. As schooling vegetarians they like a tank heavily planted with fast growing plants that you don't mind if they mow, and they do best in large tanks with many more of the same, or similar species. I don't mind looking at them in other tanks, but they don't appeal to me to keep.

[Nikanika]

Still thinking bout a name for the new fish suggestions

Clown loach

[TNHawke]

Still thinking bout a name for the new fish suggestions

Clown loach

a name for the new fish suggestions? Not sure what you mean there.

Clown loaches - 8 of 10! Love the little guys. Not the most hardy, but hardier than others. As a loach, they are scaleless and can be hard to treat. I've found them to be highly susceptible to Ich. As little guys, they do well in smaller tanks, and were often sold as a solution to trash snails. I found they wouldn't (or perhaps couldn't) eat the Malaysian Trumpet Snail (MTS can be beneficial, but can also take over a tank rapidly because they breed so fast). However, in recent years, they have skyrocketed in price. I used to get them for a couple dollars each in the mid 2000s, but even before the economy tanked and gas prices sky rocketed, they started selling for $5 each and now I rarely, if ever see them for less than $10 each and often upwards of $15.
Unlike some other loaches and botias who can be aggressive (skunks and tigers) I've never seen a clown go after any other fish. They CAN, however, grow to be quite large. In stores, I never see them more than a couple of inches long, but the biggest I've seen, in a personal collection, they had 6. The largest was about 8 inches long, nose to tail and the smallest was 5 inches. All of them had a pretty big girth too.
I haven't had any in a long time due to the cost of them. Even if I did find them cheaper, I probably wouldn't put them in my current tank, because I love my nerite snails and I wouldn't want to risk the loaches eating them.



Oh look! I found it! I do have a photo of that old tank, and it shows one of my Opaline gouramis
http://the-only-nighthawk.deviantart.co ... -3-7749680

You can kind of see the opaline in this one too. http://the-only-nighthawk.deviantart.co ... -1-7749426

[Nikanika]

A name for the new fish, suggestions?

Commas, commas save lives

Oaky catfish

[TNHawke]

ROFL! Yes. Proper punctuation saves lives.

Name him Moses. He parts the water.
Or Peter, he walked on water.

My first year or two of fish were all given names from the Bible.


I've never heard of an Oaky Catfish... and apparently neither has Google. (I looked it up to see if maybe I did recognize it, but under a different name)

[Nikanika]

Hmmmm, sort of look like longer and browner versions of cory cats and get around three inches long.

I must say Peter is a pretty good name for a peppered mini Cory that likes to swim at the top

Chlild

[TNHawke]

Hmmm... Longer, browner, three inches ... sounds like it could be one of the various Synodontis Catfish, often referred to as "upside-down" cats, because they tend to hang out on the undersides of things, or even swim with their bellies up, and this is perfectly normal.

Take a gander through the image search and see if any of these look similar to what you're thinking of
https://www.google.com/search?q=synodon ... KnigKgqIEo



By "Chlild", I'm going to assume you mean Cichlid
I give them about a 3 of 10. They are a pain in the butt to keep.
There are two overall types, African and South American (and no, I have no idea what the water speed velocity of an unladen Cichlid is.)
Africans tend to be much more colorful and South American are more grey or brown and muddy, due to the muddy rivers they live in. African and South American should NEVER be mixed in the same tank due to their unique needs and temperments. Both have special water conditions they need (and are different from each other). Both generally grow larger than most hobby tanks can support. Both tend to be aggressive even towards each other, especially towards other cichlids and they will happily gobble up any fish small enough to even partially fit in their mouth. Many species will pair up, become extremely aggressive towards all other fish, and then have a bazillion babies. Those babies will quickly overrun your tanks, and they can be difficult to give away, let alone sell.
If you can get a tank big enough and keep it maintained in pristine, perfect conditions, they can look beautiful in large, mixed schools. However, the only times I've seen this done well were in giant tanks in various offices, being cared for by a professional fish maintenance company. And there is a very good chance that these companies were replacing fish that died off to keep them looking stocked and full.
Cichlids are definitely NOT a beginner fish, and should probably be left to those who have a passion for the species.
I had 3 once, a nice looking Tiger oscar, a Jack Dempsy and something else. Th oscar died within a week and the Dempsy had the third guy totally cowed and hiding under a rock in the corner all the time. I finally returned them to the pet store and got some more tetras instead and was much happier with them.

[Nikanika]

Yeah that's what I was talking about

Darn spellcheck

Peter the mini cori has vanished and I can't find him but the problem is that there are so many places he could have gone e.o

Giant danio

[kittenparty]

My favorite fish I've owned were my three hatchetfish. They are so cute and look like cartoon baby whales. They were also surprisingly hardy and lived long past their expectancy. But even though we were careful about having gaps at the top of the tank (since those suckers can propel themselves right out), one eventually did.I was so bummed out! We thought he'd gotten eaten by another fish or something until we moved the tank for cleaning and found him on the ground. It was super weird that my cats didn't find him.

Also our glass catfish lived a really long time too. We weren't super knowledgeable about fish care, but our tank did pretty well for about 5 years before we moved. We lost some here and there but the hatchetfish fish and glass catfish survived until the end.