Trip to the LFS...

My girl and I went to a few LFS's today to decide where we were going to get our fish from. 2 out of 3 had a lot of dead fish...the 3rd we went to was REALLY nice, No dead fish at all and they do not have dyed fish..

Anyway...we saw at one of the fish stores, this fish called Jellybean parrot fish. I hear they are dyed fish. I will not buy dyed fish thanks to you good people on the forums letting me know about them. :y_the_best:

Anyone know how many colors REGULAR parrot fish come in? Anyone here have the regular parrot fish?

At this same fish store they had a huge pool of sharks, they were so cute!
I also saw a Lionfish...How expensive are they to maintain?

 

natural colored jellybean parrots can be a light brown to a faded orange color i belive...the more striknig colors are usually the dyed ones.

 

Lionfish are saltwater. I've never heard of a freshwater species.

-Chelle

 

yes i have seen a freshwtaer lionfish before...really ugly if you ask me, it looks like a clump of brown dirt and leaves...from what i rememebr the owner of the place told me they are pretty ahrd 2 keep.

 

No i know the lionfish are saltwater, I just wondered how easy/hard they are to maintain and what size tank they'd need.

 

parrot fish are great... but they are hybrids. i think the parents were some kind of NW cichlid. ill check that. anyway a lot of people wont support the buying of parrot fish because the fishes mouth can never close. if u were going to get one they can be very aggressive and should NOT be kept with other cichlids.

 

Well the lionfish has venemous spines that should not be touched and grows to 10 inches. I have never known anyone that has owned one, and I am assuming that they need a very large tank. You didn't mention if you saw a tank of saltwater sharks or bala sharks. Anyways, saltwater tanks are considerably more expensive to start up and maintain. Here are a few quick points on salt.
You must use RO water or bottled water as tap water has too many minerals. A salt mix must be added to the water and checked with a salinity measuring tool (a hydrometer). Some aquarists have a 55 gallon drum full of pre mixed saltwater with a powerhead and heater inside. They use this for water changes. The substrate is almost always live rock from Fiji or some remote place...it helps with the cycling. A protein skimmer will need to be used to take off excess dissolved organic and inorganic matter. Salt fishes are generally more expensive as they are usually taken directly from the wild. They are, however more colorful than freshies. Locally my lfs quoted me about 1,000 dollars start up on all the stuff I need for a 70 gallon tank conversion to salt. Not including fish. Thats a little too expensive for me.

 

Do you remember if they were jellybean parrots or blood parrots? Both are cute, but the jellybeans stay much smaller. Undyed jellybeans will be white to light orange while undyed blood parrots will be light orange to bright red naturally.

 

The most commonly seen Marine Lionfish is the Volitans. They are relatively hardy, and not very difficult to take care of. As Hooben stated the spines of all the varieties are venemous and to my knowledge there still is not any antidote for the venom. The Volitans will keep easily in a 55 gallon. I do not recommend anything smaller than 50 gallons for any Marine fish. The reason for this is the difficulty in maintaining stability with the bacterial filtration in tanks smaller than that. There is a slightly smaller Hawiian Lionfish which is not quite as hardy. There is a freshwater lionfish as grnlemonade stated. The freshwater lion is sometimes referred to as a stonefish because of its appearance. The freshwater variety are not easy to take care of and in my experience I could only get them to eat feeder goldfish.

 

Thanks for the info on the lionfish.

The shark setup i saw was saltwater by the way, there were black tip sharks, leopard sharks and such. The smaller leopard sharks can get between 3-5 feet long. Thats what i want one day..a huge setup so i can have sharks Its in my dreams though :y_the_best:

The lionfish is so beautiful even though you know its deadly.

At the one fish store they were Jellybean parrots...they were all different colors - pink and blue and red...at the other fish store i asked the lady if her red parrot was dyed and she said no thats natural and its a bright orange color. They look so cute with their cheeks all puffed out.

Since its so agressive we arent getting that..

How does this setup sound?

1- Ghost Knifefish
1-Silver shark
2-Albino cory cats
2- upsidedown cats (possibly 3)
1-khuli striped loach
1-small pleco
1- albino kribensis cichlid ((PEACEFUL OMNI))
1- electric yellow cichlid ((PEACEFUL OMNI))
1- agassizi cory cat

 

again stay away from the shark and the knife the cichlids u mentioned are not peaceful. the are african cichlids and african cichlids are aggressive.

 

Ok how does this sound

2-3 Upsidedown catfish
2 Albino Cory Cats
1 Agazissi Cat
1 Clown Pleco
1 Khuli Loach (striped)

Not sure how many of each i can get..

Neon blue Dwarf Gourami
Regular Dwarf Gourami
Powder blue Dwarf gourami
Pearl Gourami
Honey Dwarf gourami


What other fish could i get? Thanks

 

So you've become a gourami fan I guess lol! This list for fish is getting much better as the threads continue.

Of the dwarf gouramis you could go for 1 male and 1 female of each species, even though they are peaceful it is common for them to get a bit aggressive when there are a lot of males present. Keeping 1 female to each male should help out that problem without eating up all of your tank space on dwarf gouramis. The pearls you could go for 1 male and 2 females (both are very pretty unlike the plain looking female dwarves).

Also, kuhli loaches are schooler so maybe get three or four of them. The cory cats will be much more enjoyable in a large school of just one or two species. Go for maybe 5 or 6 of whatever species you like best. I guarantee they will be more fun this way. The clown pleco is a good choice for your tank.

Keep looking around, you'll never stop finding new fish that you like. Have you thought about rainbows? A few boesemanni or turquoise along with a school of neon dwarfs would look really nice with what you've decided on so far.

 

Yeah gourami's are really interesting fish, cute as heck too Would it work if i just got all female fish? Males are always so territorial I really dont want any breeding fish at this point, because im still new to taking care of fish in the first place..dont want to have to worry about little fry all over the place :mrgreen:

I have 3 upsidedown catfish on the list and 2 cory cats and 1 agazissi cat, thats a bunch of catfish...but should i just add like 3 more to the cory cat list? Whats a boesemanni?

How many dwarfs should i get for my tank setup?

 

Well you could have lots of females, but IMO they're really ugly. They're just a plain brownish fish with no marking etc. Kinda boring for a 55 I think.

Let me clarify about the rainbows. Boesemanni rainbowfish are a larger rainbowfish. They get about 6 inches long and are gorgeous and completely peaceful. The neon dwarf rainbowfish are smaller blue fish with red fins (on the male) and yellow fins (female). Very pretty and only get about 2" long. Threadfins are nice too and only get about 2" long. These are all part of a family called Rainbowfish. Let me find some piccies.

Watch this thread for pics of fish that I think would do well in your tank.

Oh and also, using the 1" of adult fish per gallon "rule" you could have 55 inches of adult fish in your tank without overcrowding. This is a really good rule for people who are just starting tanks to use when trying to figure stuff out. Just add up the ADULT sizes of all the fish you want and if it comes to 55 or less your on the right track.

 

Okay, here's the boesemanni rainbowfish:



The Turquoise rainbowfish:



Threadfin rainbow


Celebes rainbow:



Neon dwarf rainbow:



LOL! As you can tell, I like rainbows

keep watching I will post more pics.[/img]

 

Yeah i dont want a lot of bigger fish, just smaller peaceful ones. So what do i do about the male/female ratio? I want pretty fish not dull ones... Just get a pair of each kind? male and female?

 

beautiful pics!! Gorgeous! And rainbows are docile like the gouramis?

 

Cardinal tetras are always nice (need a school of six)



Diamond tetras are pretty (school of at least four)



Sparkling gouramis are pretty and stay small (1.5")



The bolivan ram (2 females ok, or 1 male to 1 female might have babies though)