40 gallon breeder

[alshgs]

So I want to turn my 40 breeder into a fish tank.

I’ve always loved the colors of the betas, but I don’t want just one fish and I really don’t want to section it off in case I want to use it for reptiles down the road.

What kind of fish would work in this size? My husband has his salt water tank, so this one would be freshwater

 

[Jas]

Maybe gouramis? There are some super pretty ones out there.

Tetras and barbs can be colourful and look wonderful in big schools.

Danios, platys mollies, guppys can all be colourful and are a community fish.

You could do axolotl?

 

[BlueDoraBarry]

dwarf gouramis. I love dwarf gold gouramis and dwarf flame gouramis. You could get angelfish if your tank is tall enough. They are so graceful and travel in schools if you have enough of them. If you're into small fish, maybe tetras? Killifish? Rainbowfish?

 

[painesgrey]

I've always been a fan of dwarf/blue rams. They have a beautiful splash of colour that's typical for cichlids, but they're peaceful so you can have them in tanks with other fish too.

Angelfish, especially Black Lace, are beautiful too.

For colour, I usually went with mollies and swordtails. They come in tons of colours and are relatively easy to keep, though be mindful of their willingness to breed so that you don't overcrowd or inadvertently feed the bigger fish. I typically would just use a breeder box in the tank and give the babies to local mom&pop petstores.

If you want something that's a bit more work, you could always go with a South American or African cichlid tank. They typically have specific pH requirements to keep the fish happy, but cichlids - Africans especially - are super beautiful fish. They're just so aggressive that you're limited to basically just cichlids in the tank.

 

[taxidermynerd]

A 40 gallon breeder give you a lot of options. In the past I've had guppies and corydora catfish, tiger barbs and cherry barbs, and now platys.

I've had a pearl gourami as my centerpiece for a while, he's a good boy and very sweet.

I have 2 upside-down catfish, they're super neat but you don't see them very much, they like to hide. But they swim upside down (as you may have guessed) so they look really awesome swimming around.

Platys are great, they're easy to care for and very hardy. You could put guppies or mollies here instead. Bonus- They breed easily and you can raise the babies and return them to the main tank.

You could probably do an awesome school of neon tetras or a similar small schooling fish- they look awesome when in large groups.

If you wanted a bottom feeder you could do one of the smaller species of pleco, like the bristlenose (my personal favorite) or rubber lip. If you have sand you can do a shoal of corydoras, or look into some other types of catfish (I just really like catfish lol).

You also have options in inverts- Mystery snails are a favorite of mine, very easy to care for, you do need to provide calcium for their shells though (this can be done by putting a cuttlebone in the tank or offering "snail jello". You could do shrimp, those guys are awesome, and ghost shrimp are fairly cheap (often used as feeders). There are probably more options but none are coming to mind in the invert side of things.

That's all my brain can handle right now- maybe @finchly has some ideas, she's pretty experienced with fish too.

 

[Serin]

You can keep bettas with other fish. I have kept many bettas, and none of them by themselves. Avoid species that nip at fins.

 

[finchly]

I kept 2 or 3 schools of tetras in a 40. It looked really nice, I chose different colors of fish and kept it planted; they are active so it was a fun tank. I've also done a 40 full of ram cichlids, that was pretty.

I think back when I didn't know better, I had 6 pictus catfish. They got really big and had to move to another tank.