# can anyone recommend a cool oddball fish?



## dan3345 (Jan 27, 2010)

So in my new 46 gallon I have balloon mollies. 2 dwarf gouramis, neon tetras nerite snails, albino cory cats, african dwarf frogs. and i believe thats it. I want a larger fish, sort of an oddball or an eye catcher. I have thought of a pleco, but I dont think any are really suitable because most get too large and I heard they like empty tanks, and mine has lots of plants and a few rock ornaments with caves in them. I want a larger peaceful fish. Im thinkimg maybe a pearl gourami. I dont know. So I need suggestions. If you suggest something large, please make sure it is compatible with the above fish and frogs mentioned.. Im not sure what I want, I just want an eye catching show fish. Something very colorful and on the larger side.

thanks. Oh and my tank is cycling (more like going through mini-cycles) so this wont be for about a month or longer.


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

dan3345 said:


> So in my new 46 gallon I have balloon mollies. 2 dwarf gouramis, neon tetras nerite snails, albino cory cats, african dwarf frogs. and i believe thats it. I want a larger fish, sort of an oddball or an eye catcher. I have thought of a pleco, but I dont think any are really suitable because most get too large and I heard they like empty tanks, and mine has lots of plants and a few rock ornaments with caves in them. I want a larger peaceful fish. Im thinkimg maybe a pearl gourami. I dont know. So I need suggestions. If you suggest something large, please make sure it is compatible with the above fish and frogs mentioned.. Im not sure what I want, I just want an eye catching show fish. Something very colorful and on the larger side.
> 
> thanks. Oh and my tank is cycling (more like going through mini-cycles) so this wont be for about a month or longer.


gold negget plecos dont get that big and would be suitable for a 46 gallon. gold dojo loaches. khuli loaches are kind of odd but not an uncommon fish. check out curviceps


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## dan3345 (Jan 27, 2010)

i thought about kuhli loaches, but a debate i read was a bunch pf people arguing that, kuhli loaches eat snails, so i like them, but dont want them because i like my snails? anyone know for sure what the verdict on this is?


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

dan3345 said:


> i thought about kuhli loaches, but a debate i read was a bunch pf people arguing that, kuhli loaches eat snails, so i like them, but dont want them because i like my snails? anyone know for sure what the verdict on this is?


what kind of snails? i have loaches in my tank that eat snails but they dont mess with my mystery snails because i think they are to big and whenever they try the snails just close up.


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## hXcChic22 (Dec 26, 2009)

I don't think a lot of people realize exactly how small kuhlis are. There is no way they can even make an attempt to eat mystery snails. I would be surprised if they could even eat pond snails. Their mouths are TINY. 
Dojos, however, might make a pass at nerite snails if they were small.


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## Plakat_bettas (Jul 5, 2010)

dragon goby (technically brackish water but so are mollies) they look mean but are apparently not, and can live in fresh water as well so


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

Plakat_bettas said:


> dragon goby (technically brackish water but so are mollies) they look mean but are apparently not, and can live in fresh water as well so


a 46 gallon may be pushing it a little bit as for a suitable tank size and they would occupy a very large ammount of the bioload.


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## Blue Cray (Oct 19, 2007)

Plakat_bettas said:


> dragon goby (technically brackish water but so are mollies) they look mean but are apparently not, and can live in fresh water as well so


True brackish fish develope gill desease over time that looks red and painful. The fish usually ends up dying from it. There are reasons you keep fish in brackish water and not fresh. 

Mollies are not brackish but are little beasts that can tollerate almost any salitnity of water, there are even some that live in sulfur rivers in mountain caves that are extremely acidic. I have seen mollies kept in full marine and do fine.


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## hXcChic22 (Dec 26, 2009)

Dragon gobies are very nice fish... I've heard stories of them eating REALLY small fish, but I doubt even the plausibility of those stories. They have teeny eyes (aka blind as bats, pretty much), and they go around the bottom gulping big mouthfuls of water, or sand and filtering it for food. I think the likely scenario is that a small fish got too close and the goby gulped it in on accident and was probably like, "What the heck did I just eat?!"

They are pretty smart, though, and as blind as they are, they learn to recognize their owner's hand if you get them used to it, and will eat food out of your hand.

Ours likes eating flake, frozen bloodworms, live brine shrimp, and frozen brine/veggie cubes. I saw him take in a waterlogged cricket, too. I think it's possible a goby could purposefully hunt down a small fish, but it's likely they weren't getting the proper nutrition in the first place. Poor things need more than tropical flake to keep them well-fed. 

(btw, ours is in a FW tank (used to be a different FW tank that we only recently starting adding aquarium salt to on occasion) but now it's in pure FW. He has been in FW for as long as we've had him (almost a year now!), and he's happy as a clam and is pushing 8 inches.


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

i just got some beautiful hillstream loaches today they are very unique and they are actually big this time around about 2 inches. not sure what types one has spotts and the others have stripes. Also got a peppered loach and a horse face loach those are both awesome. for my brackish i got 2 scats a mudskipper sadly one came in dead  a knight goby a flounder and an archer. I was amazed that the flounder was only $2


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## LilSums (Aug 2, 2010)

@Dan- I agree with the loach suggestion, kuhlis are cool looking but mellow & easy to maintain. There are also some Cory Cats out there (Swartz, Sterba, Agassizi) that are beautiful but peaceful, not too big so they can go in your tank, and hearty. Black ghost knife fish, glass knife fish, or elephant nose fish (debated on whether they are aggressive or not, I think that's kind of hit or miss like Bettas or Gouramis; mine also were kept singly, had 3 once & they hated each other had to split them up but where fine with other tank mates), Dragonfish (40g+ min which you fit, but they're pretty much blind so it's good to hide food either sticking out of or slightly under the substrate). Good luck!


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## Betta1 (Jan 5, 2007)

If your tank is 18" front to back you could put a nice geo in there, petsmart around here has just started carrying surminensis. Supposedly all geo's will refrain from eating smaller fish. Problem is with a tank that size over time it will domintate your tank.... so depending on your LFS situation you can just trade it in. I've been in the habbit of buying fish then trading them in at a reasonable time when they are starting to run out of room..... it allows you to free up your pool of fish that you choose from without needing a 180+.

(think tapajo's red top from aquabid..... won't outgrow your tank)

Or look for a keyhole cichlid or a cupid cichlid all are 6" fish that are great in a community tank


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## CFL321 (Aug 12, 2010)

Try rams maybe...very pretty fish and not aggressive. The Kuhli Loaches are cool. Mine are quite active for being nocturnal. Maybe even a raphael catfish. He gets a few inches (6-8 maybe more) but gets fat and wont bug anything else. But they're pretty lazy and most people rarely see them. Zebra loaches are really cool too but aren't very common. Only two stores carry them around me. One gave me ich, the other is 45 minutes away.


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