Hello I am new to these forums(just registered 5 minutes ago). I own a 75 gallon tank that recently housed a 8" female flowerhorn cichlid, and thats it for obvious reasons. The cichlid is out of the picture, and I am now wanting to stock peace loving fish. As of now, there are 4 juvenile pictus catfish, one baby african brown knife fish, and one albino pleco bushy nose algae eater. The tank is well planted(fake) with three major peaces of "furniture", a piece of driftwood, a fake hollow tree stump that provides the perfect hiding place for the knife, and another piece of driftwood that also provides cover for fish of the same anatomy(long and slinder). I am really liking the dinosaur bichir that Petsmart sells, but the eventual size it reaches is waving a red flag(18"). I'm shooting for a community tank theme, but with the knife fish I can't get the smaller schooling fish type for fear of them becoming a meal. So I guess the question is, what are the best fish to add to this set up. Thanks in advance. I am really a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth opinion type of guy!

You might look into fish like the bigger tetras, barbs, even rainbows. Then there is livebearers like mollies, guppies, platies and swordtails.

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You might want to get rid of the knife if you're intent on keeping many more fish. The source I just read says they get up to 8"-12" long. Otherwise, you're restricted to maybe 1-2 more bottom dwellers.

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Good examples right here Peaceful fish

try live plants.


or even a "beaslbob build" on these forums.


my .02

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recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

Yeah I've read that in captivity they usually stay just around 8". And I'm not gonna add any more bottom dwellers, the rest of the fish I get will be middle to top swimmers. I'm hoping I don't have to get rid of the knife, it's so cool, but I did see it try to take a bite out of one of the pictus already. But that was only a couple of times, I see him quite often sharing the same space with them. And he is very active, which was unexpected. Thanks for the reply!

It's not an issue of who they're swimming with so much as how much swimming room they have. The fish's skeleton may become stunted from a small tank, but their organs will continue to grow and it will only cause them a slow and very painful death. I wouldn't wish that on any living thing. I would let the knife grow until it's about 4" or so then look into selling or even donating it to a store or hobbyist with a bigger tank. That's just me though.

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

Wow I wasn't aware of that. I thought the fish just stops growing naturally to survive better, had no idea that the insides continue to grow. Anyhow I've never bought a fish to large for my aquarium, thats why I got the brown knife, instead of say the ghost knife, or clown knife. Thanks again!

In the future if this fish becomes to large for the tank, I will see to it promptly that it gets a new home.

UPDATE. I have added four more fish. Three rosy barbs, and one bala shark. The barbs appear to be mature size-wise, but the bala shark is a baby, maybe 3 inches. I am aware of the bala sharks eventual size, but was told by my LFS that it is a very slow grower. I am also aware that these are a schooling fish, from what I read a healthy school is 5. But was told at this store that they do fine by themselves, and also by a relative who had a bala shark by itself for a few years and it had no problems whatsoever(no aggression, timidness, eating, etc). I plan on adding more barbs, but of a different coloration, was also told that you can mix different barbs together. The african knife fish I have is now rarely seen, he has picked a favorite spot during the day and pretty much stays there while the lights are on.

Bumpage. I have been feeding these fish frozen thawed brine shrimp, and frozen thawed bloodworms. Once in the morning, once at night. They love the bloodworms, the brine shrimp, not so much, they eat them but not as aggresively as the bloodworms. The knife does come out with the lights on to feed, so thats cool. Is this a good diet, or should something else be added. Oh and one more thing, I got three more fish, striped kuhli loaches, babies.

You'll want to add more veggie matter to their diets - you've got them on straight protein right now, and you know what that does to Humans (my friend can clear a room, enough said). Feed some blanched zucchini, some yam, even some flakes from here to there.

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

Yeah, Gizmo's right, add more veggies. You will also probably want to scale back on the bloodworms and not feed them to your fish daily as they can cause constipation. You could also go out and buy a high quality flake food for your fish, I feed mine Omega 1, but Hikari also makes good food.

Okay thanks guys. Gonna go out and get some hikari pellets, I have some now but there for large fish, they were for the flowerhorn I got rid of.

Not sure on this one, but you might be able to save yourself some money on getting new Hikari food, and instead just grind up the flowerhorn pellets so smaller fish can eat them....

Just a hypothesis

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

Yeah I did that. They gobbled it up. I am currently having a problem with ick though, i posting about it in the major ick problem thread in freshwater fish desease forum. Thanks for the reply