Ideas ?

[sunsation72]

I am wondering what other types of fish to stock my tank with.

I have a 38 gallon hexagon tank... with a Rena Filstar XP filter, and right now I have 5 guppies, 1 tiger striped pleco, 1 swordtail and 1 dalmation molly.

I want to get a few more guppies and wondered what other people have put in their tanks? I am a newbie so a hardy fish works best for me.

Will the swordtail and molly be happier if I have an opposite gender for each? My Molly is female, and the swordtail is male. No clue what gender the pleco is but he's going to be a bachelor in my tank.

I have a nice artificial plant in the middle of the tank where fry can hide so I'm hoping some of the fish mate.

How many fish are recommended to add at a time? The ones that are in there now are doing great.

[IAoddball]

If you get anymore guppies, their liable to breed like wildfire! Swordtails and mollies alike. With a tank like that, with that stock list, I would maybe look into some danio's or maybe even tiger barbs. It's just my opinion, it could work.

[sunsation72]

Thanks. I'm a newbie so when I go to the LFS I am overwhelmed by all the choices. I was considering some neon tetra but I don't want to over do it. I checked out the tiger barbs and they look interesting. How many are recommended? They like to be in groups of 4 or more?

I've talked to the LFS and they will take any excess guppies or other fry that may over populate my tank so I can just keep the number to a good amount.

I did pick up a couple cories last night. They are very interesting fish to watch. Not shy at all.

The swordtails seem to have very shy personalities. The dalmation Molly we have is opposite. My little girl calls her the hostess as she has swam with all the other fish in the tank. The molly and swordtails seem to like to hang out with each other altho the two dark swordtails are swimming in pairs quite often.

[P.senegalus]

Barbs, particularly tiger barbs, tend to be nippy. Most can't pass up long flowing fins.

Danios are nice hardy fish. The long fin zebras really look great with guppies imo.

[Obsidian]

If you hope to keep your guppies then I would not get Tiger Barbs. Not a good combo there. Your tiger barbs will love them

[ZebraDanio12]

If it were me, I'd pic a couple larger fish as a center piece. (apistos, rams, etc) And maybe a school of neons.

[sunsation72]

We like the guppies, however I'm seriously considering starting a new tank for just guppies. We have really enjoyed the 2 dalmatian mollies we have. My daughter named them Oreo and Chip. We also love the swordtails which are a bit larger than the guppies.

Over the weekend, we have some new fry but no idea who they came from as two of our guppies are very pregnant. I left all the pregnant fish in the tank and didn't remove them. I tried to save any that I could easily catch and put into a net breeder in the same tank. I counted 6 but I know I've seen more at the bottom of the tank. I have tons of rocks and plants which give them ample hiding spots.

I like the idea of some larger fish and was admiring some ram over the weekend but I want to hold off adding any fish until the pregnant guppies are done dropping their fry. Are ram happy if I just got one or do they do better in pairs or trios? The neons are on my list too. I don't want to add too many fish at once so once a week I had been adding them.