cuteusagi

Hi all!! Through a bit of extremely cool luck, my husband and I are going to be the happy new owners of a 55 gallon tank that he plans on making a West African oddball fish biotope...which leaves our current 29 gallon tank all to myself to "redo" if you will as I please!! So in my planning stages, I have some questions for everyone!!

Currently, I have a male Bolivian ram that I am quite attached to and I plan to keep him in the tank. In addition to him, I will also have an angelfish, 2-3 corycats, and possibly a kribensis (although this fish will probably be moving to the African tank).

My initial plan is to create something of a community tank with those fish and some friends. I would love to get some german blues, and almost purchased some a few weeks ago, but being that they are so small in all the lfs, I'm worried that they would get bullied by the bolivian, so I didn't pick them up. However, would the german blue(s) get along with the already established Bolivian? He is about 3 inches long right now. I was also thinking about adding some apistogrammas, but wasn't sure if they would get along with the Bolivian and possible GBR's.

I have a lot of options and a lot of time before setting this up, but wanted to start thinking of what fish I could introduce into my new-old tank!! Thanks for all your help!!!

neverendingninja

I would say the GBRs, Bolivian and Apistos should all do just fine together. The GBRs really know how to hold their own, and are quite the stout little fish. However, when it comes to introducing them to the established Bolivian, I would add them right after you redo the tank, so the Bolivian hasn't established territory quite yet.

However, come to think of it, 29g might be a bit small to have 3 different dwarf cichlid varieties. I currently have keyhole cichlids, bolivian rams and have apistogrammas on the way and I think I'm going to be pushing it just a little in my 55g. Its worth a shot, but just make sure no one gets beat up or stressed too bad.

Good luck! Keep us updated, for sure!

cuteusagi

Right now, I think the plan is to have the 1 Bolivian Ram, 1 German Blue (if I can find one...), 1 Gold Ram, 2 Apistos (male and female pair), 1 angelfish, and the 3 corydoras cats (green, schwartz, peppered). One of my concerns at the moment is how to get everything in there without too much stress. The fish I already have in the tank are the Bolivian, the Angelfish, and the 3 corys. I found an excellent piece of Mopani driftwood for the tank and am soaking it now to get some of the tannins out, and I plan on putting that in there around Christmas.

My other concern is that the only fish that will really swim in the top part of the tank is the angelfish. The corys will obviously hang out at the bottom, the Bolivian stays middle-bottom most of the time, and the other rams and apistos probably will too. Do you think it'd work?

Thanks for all the help!!!