hey all, I'm redoing my 75 gallon tank and moved it up to the living room. The water was completely removed and replaced with new water, but I think there is a very minute chance of a mini-recycle given that I'm using the same filter, decor, substrate.

I'm at a loss as to what fishes I should get, here is what I have so far.

Tank: 75 gallon black with matching stand
Filter: FX5 Fluval
Light: T5HO Solar Xtreme (54x4 watts)
Substrate: Black Tahitian Moon Sand, black gravel, and a small mixture of red gravel
Planted: 1x Large Java Fern, 3x Amazon Swords, 1x Crypt Wentil, 2x Crypt Lutea, 1x Laced Java Fern, 1x Onion Plant, 1x Hornwort, 2x Anubias Nanas, Naja Grass, Moss Ball, Java Moss
Driftwood: 6 pieces total

Fish:
3x Roselines
1x Red Tail Black Shark
3x Synodontis Petricola Catfish
1x Red Lizard Whiptail Catfish
~8x Assassin Snails

So the tank is somewhat empty and I'm at a loss as to what fish I should put in. I'm looking for larger/semi-aggressive fish that will complement these guys, but they have to look nice. I'm not looking for anything very typical and I do not like fishes that have a fat/balloon shape (like mollys) or ugly things (like oscars). Sleek, colorful, active seems to be best to describe the type of fishes I like. Throw your recommendations, I need to fill this up.

paradise fish - Google Search

white cloud mountain minnow - Google Search

celestial pearl danio - Google Search as well as zebra and pearl danio

banded corydoras - Google Search

AqAdvisor - Intelligent Freshwater Tropical Fish Aquarium Stocking Calculator and Aquarium Tank/Filter Advisor - you can use that to help you stock a tank. 80% is good imo.

some of these are small compared to some of the fish you have, but I was just going by the non tropical temperatures of the fish in your tank. I'm just getting some ideas flowing.

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Have you been running that light fixture for long? That is way overkill for a 75g tank.

Pigeon - Thanks for the suggestions, I've had white clouds and currently am breeding CPDs, but they are much too small to compete with roselines, I know because when I had them together, my CPDs would die. I'll look up the paradise fish.

JRman - Thanks, I've been meaning to make another post to query about the lighting, what should I do then? It came with 2x white light bulbs and 2x blueish light bulbs, (I don't know anything about the required wavelength.) Should I remove one of each? These are the default bulbs by the way, what light bulbs should I get to promote plant growth when they die out?

I wouldn't use anymore than 2 bulbs at one time. Just pick the two most outer spots to more evenly distribute light in the tank. Look at the bulbs, they probably have the frequency printed on them. I would keep the ones closest to 6500k.

Thanks again. I have it programmed to turn the 2 white bulb lights on from 9 pm - 4 am (7 hours), and the blue bulbs from 3 am - 5 am (2 hours).

Does this seem ok? I don't know what is sufficient for the amount of plants I have, I don't want another algae problem -_-

Check the blue bulbs...make sure they are not actinic. If they are, I wouldn't use them. If you wanted different shades, you could get 2-6700K and 2-10000K bulbs. Both are good for plants, actinic won't be much use.

Ok, and how long should I have them on for?

I hear that people can have successful planted tanks that aren't overcome with algae, but I'm unsure if this is achievable without a CO2 injector for the plants to flourish.

I would like to do everything possible to ensure my plants flourish and no algae, though I may not have the money to purchase a CO2 injector.

With that light I would start with 8-9 hrs total and adjust from there. FWIW, my 75g light is only on for 7hrs a day. I have a different fixture, but the same amount of light.

By adjust, exactly how would I do that?

For instance, if I start seeing algae, does that mean I should increase or decrease the amount of lighting? I would think decrease, but as I've been told that plants need to compete with algae, I don't know if increasing would put the plants ahead.