Suggestions for 110-gallon display tank

[Lycosid]

Hey all, I've got a tank I'm nuking/restarting and I have a fairly specific idea about what I want the new tank to do but I need your significantly-more-expert advice.

Background: when I started my current job there was an unused 110-gallon tank with full sump and media in the classroom I worked in. I planned to make it a nice reef tank for animal diversity (it had been one once) but before I could make a really good plan (and verify that all the expensive, needed equipment worked) I had a series of emergency donations and basically ended up with a craptacular salt water tank. It's limped along for years (everything works fine, the fish are healthy, but it's an algae slime-ball with very little to look at) but it's not getting better. So I'm selling the fish back to the LFS and restocking as freshwater over the summer when the students are gone and I have the ability to do this right.

What I want now is a tank with some really good behavior - territoriality, courtship, spawning, maybe dominance hierarchies - so I could have students observe these behaviors as part of their upper level courses. It also needs to not be finicky because, hello, classroom tank. College students aren't awful, but the maintenance schedule is.

So, any thoughts? I feel like someone mentioned in passing in an old thread (long before I was a member) about having dwarf cichlids which established territories and spawned, but then adding either Ancistrus or cories that made the system more active, with both species preying on the other's eggs/young and creating more interesting behavior patterns. Maybe I hallucinated all of this, but that sounds like the sort of thing I want, especially if I added some top water species.

But yeah, I'd like a nice group of interacting species, with at least one catfish species, obviously.

[SLIMESLAYER10]

i would do some fancy guppys, a pair of angles and a whole bunch of sterbai or triliniatus corys. the angles would be cool for the kids to watch, especial when they breed, the guppys would fill out the tank in a matter of months and the corys will breed but are also just cool. you could also add some super red bristle nose if you wanted something to help with algae build up

[TwoTankAmin]

Guppies with angels = guppy fry for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I actually got into to keeping angels because I needed then to eat the swordtail fry overrunning the tank. They also ate the lf bn fry so effectively it took over a year for me to realize the plecos were spawning. Also, angels, when they pair and spawn, will terrorize the inhabitants of a tank.

For the most part, to get spawns which survive takes careful planning or the use of a species tank. With a 110 you may get some fry that make it, but I would not count on it. Most fish will eat anything that fits in their mouth. Most fry are always on the menu. So are fish eggs.

[Mol_PMB]

In my 110 gallon tank I have a group of Biotodoma cupido which have spawned and raised a few dozen youngsters (now mostly sold). I’d recommend these as a medium-sized social cichlid for soft water.
I also have a group of Farlowella vittata which spawn regularly, though the fry only survive if I rear them separately. There are some shoals of tetras in there which spawn and I have had one baby red-eye tetra survive to adulthood.
I’ve got a few plecs but I don’t use this as a pleco breeding tank.

I set the tank up with a continous drip water feed (fed through an HMA filter) to maintain good water quality with minimal effort.

[Lycosid]

I don't need spawns to survive - most don't in the wild, and the behavior is the interesting part. If some make it through the gauntlet (as they would in the wild) then that's just an interesting bonus.

Mol_PMB, am I correct that the Biotodoma, Farlowella, and tetras are all in the same tank?

[SLIMESLAYER10]

if you did a simple heavily planted tank some babies would survive and it would cut down on water changes. i keep angles with my guppys and BN's and the survival rate does go down but some do make it.

[Mol_PMB]

Mol_PMB, am I correct that the Biotodoma, Farlowella, and tetras are all in the same tank?

Yes, all together. There are also 4 plecs: 2 L397, 1 L233, 1 juvenile L427.
The tank has lots of branches, caves and bogwood to break up sightlines and create hiding places.

The Farlowella tend to spawn on the front glass and the male guards the eggs (but not the fry) which is an interesting behavioual contrast to the Biotodoma.

[N0body Of The Goat]

You would certainly get some interesting interactions in a Congo River rapids setup, using species such as...
Congo Tetras
Distichodus affinis
Synodontis brichardi; angelicus; notatus
Steatocranus casuarius

Or alternatively, an African oddball community...
African Butterfly Fish
Congo Tetras
African Knife Fish
Leopard Bushfish
Synodontis nigriventris; schoutedeni
Kribensis spp.

But there are so many options, we don't all like the same curtains. ;)

[Lycosid]

Definitely going to plant this tank, both to help with water quality and to create hiding spots. The tank is right in a window, and there's no real way to move it, so I'm stuck with a lot of light and will want plants to compete with algae anyway. Because of this, I'm definitely thinking at least one algae-eater, one of the following: Ancistrus, Otocinclus, or Farlowella. Mol_PMB's success with Farlowella, and their incredible appearance, leans me that way, but I may throw in an Ancistrus or two as well, as I think they manage crud on sunken wood better.

While I appreciate NObody Of The Goat's thoughts I seem to have better luck finding South American species in my local LFS. This is coming out of my pocket if it runs over the price I get returning the current fish.

Given that, and the suggestions here, it looks like a species triad of herbivorous/mostly-herbivorous catfish, a small cichlid, and a tetra might work best. The catfish end I feel comfortable with, but what I know about tetras is mostly that there are too many and what I know about cichlids boils down to "textbook example of adaptive radiation, weird sex lives". I gather that cichlids can also turn into murder-machines pretty easily, so while territoriality and territorial displays would be nice I need a species that's small enough it can't beat up on everyone else (or defends substrate territories and ignores small, surface-dwelling tetras).

I'll probably also throw in some grass shrimp, because we have a colony and it will help cycle the tank, but I have no expectations that they will survive the establishment of the fish species.

[SLIMESLAYER10]

German blue rams are small and only protect small areas. another thought is shell dewllers like the ones uarujoey had here is a video of them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQgZb6U3iPw

[Lycosid]

German blue rams are small and only protect small areas. another thought is shell dewllers like the ones uarujoey had here is a video of them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQgZb6U3iPw

I love the shell dwellers, but my understanding is that they won't be compatible with anything but other Rift Lake fish and that they will "landscape" the tank, probably destroying plants. Is this true?

[SLIMESLAYER10]

i think if you have fish that stay up top (tetras, guppys hatchets etc) they should be fine... but they will landscape the tank to there liking so the only plants they could go with are floating plants or java fern/ anubius tied on wood.