# Tetra tank setup question



## McKinneyMike (Mar 17, 2009)

I live in McKinney and am setting up a 150 gallon heavily planted tetra tank. Here are my basic thoughts on the fishes for this new tank:

Columbian Tetra 10
Congo Tetra 10
Bleeding Heart Tetra 10
Black Tetra 10
Neon Tetra 30
Cory's 10

I am using cannister filters and I am considering a CO2 system. Never had a tank this large and have not used any CO2 systems either. Does this look like I am getting into an overstocked state for a heavily planted tank of this size?


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

McKinneyMike said:


> I live in McKinney and am setting up a 150 gallon heavily planted tetra tank. Here are my basic thoughts on the fishes for this new tank:
> 
> Columbian Tetra 10
> Congo Tetra 10
> ...


HI there. Welcome...you are not overstock. In such a big tank and if you want to see the schooling behavior of some of your fish, I would suggest the following:

-Congo Tetras: 30 of them
-Change the Neon for Cardinals if you can find them cheap
-Up the corys to 15 of the same species
-Get some otos and shrimp as a cleaning crew
- Black Neon Tetra - 15
- to give it a different look I think you might try some ember tetras in there


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## McKinneyMike (Mar 17, 2009)

milalic said:


> HI there. Welcome...you are not overstock. In such a big tank and if you want to see the schooling behavior of some of your fish, I would suggest the following:
> 
> -Congo Tetras: 30 of them
> -Change the Neon for Cardinals if you can find them cheap
> ...


Thank you for the reply. I appreciate your inputs also. I have no experience with the Ember's, but I love Tetra's. Hoping to get the plans finalized before the end of the month so that I can start spend us out of this recession


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Not overstocked at all.

But I think you may love the looks of a single kind of fish in a really big school - 100 or so Congo tetra sized fish. 

A second large school of a different fish may also be a good idea.

Cories for the bottom realy add interest so they should stay. The rest of the fish just add too much "noise" in my opinion.

--Nikolay


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## rich815 (Jun 27, 2007)

I'd knock out two or three types and jack up the numbers of the rest. In such a big tank schools of 10 or so really do not make such wonderful displays. 

I have a school of 35 cards in my 75 gal. Really amazing to watch.


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## MacFan (Jul 30, 2006)

I want to echo the other comments. Better to have fewer types and larger numbers of those types. While some types will school together, even the few stray Harliquin Rasboras that ended up mixed into my 30+ Espei Rasbora school stand out. 

If it's a new tank, I would wait on the Cardinal/Neons and Corys. Both are great additions, but they're more delicate than some others. Also ask how long the Corys have been at the store before buying. Ideally they will have been there for a week or two at least so shipping stress-related die offs will have occurred. 

If you go look in Tom Barr's forums, he has examples of tanks in your size range with hundreds of tetras. Obviously don't add them all at once, but especially once it's well planted, you could probably keep several hundred tetras with no problem. Don't be afraid to go big on numbers, but be sure your tank is stable and well planted first. 

And shop around for Congos... I got mine at Petland and they are really nice specimens, much better than some I've seen for sale at Fish Gallery in the past. Though they had better ones last time I was there. They are surprisingly resilient. We just had one die in our tank, but it was the first one in the nearly 1.5 years the tank has been in operation which is impressive considering almost every other population has seen at least some deaths. 

Michael


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## northtexasfossilguy (Mar 6, 2009)

MacFan said:


> Don't be afraid to go big on numbers, but be sure your tank is stable and well planted first.


Do that weekly water change if you have such large numbers. I certainly would build up slowly to the larger number over several months and watch that nitrate/nitrite levels as you do it. In a tank that size a CO2 setup would be good. I've seen a cool one from Milwaukee that shuts off with the light, and also has a pH meter that shuts it off automatically for like $200 on the web. Tank you could find off craigslist if you keep looking, and a refill is ~$20 at AIRGAS or other welding supplier.

I'd say cory's are a must. I got some smaller kind of corys and they are really cool to watch. You could probably get some of the smaller plecos or some ancistris(?) species for diversity on the lower stuff. Otocinclus would be okay too. And for that size probably 15-20 shrimp would be effective. I think though you should judge the size of the other fish by the size of the schooling fish you end up primarily interested in, for visual balance if that might bother you also.


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