I want to make my tank look more exciting?

[Marne]

I have a 200ltr (3.5ft) tank
3 sword tails
4 tiny sword tail fry
8 young female guppies
2 male guppies
2 mollies
5 Corys
1 red fin shark ( looking to regime before he grows too big)
5 bn plecs

My tank doesn't look very exciting and looks under stocked as my biggest fish are bottom feeders and often hide, most of my other fish are young fry ( some I will be giving away ). I have lots of bog wood in my tank and plastic plants ( plecs love the bog wood) but it looks a bit boring.

What can I do to make it look more exciting, I don't really want to get any more mollies or swordtails, both my female swordtails have given birth and both have gone very skinny ( not looking good ). Can I put any more fish in, and if so what?

Best way to make a tank prettier is a good lighting system and either very good quality silk/plastic plants or some easy to grow live plants like java fern, mosses and Anubis.
I don't recommend putting more fish in that tank as your livebearers are just going to keep in breeding.

Have a google for Takashi Amano and look at the photos. You don't have to do anything quite so spectacular but it gives you a good idea of what sort of layout works.

A really amazing, well-planted tank doesn't even need any fish to look really impressive, so more fish definitely isn't the answer.

Eau, was it you that gave me the link to a website that sold cheap plants ( a job lot ) ? Have been searching for the website but can't find it, I think I will go down the planted route, I like the 'natural look' rather than tacky ornaments and bright plastic plants .

Probably, was it this one?

What's your lighting like? Some plants need very strong lighting, others are less fussy.

I replanted my tank ( very small compare to yours! Only 30L) yesterday and probably traumatised my fish for life in the process! Lots of plants, also tied plants to bogwood with finshing line a few weeks ago, very tightly so the fish won't get caught/strangled. They must be happy as one is making a flower! I cooked the bogwoow in the slow cooker for 2 days to get most of the tannins out, the water looked like cola! Saw beautiful plants mounted on bogwood at LFS yesterday, wood then had a sucker attached to it to put high on side, or wherever you want it really! Great for adding height! What about shrimp? They're gorgeous and so much fun to watch. My tank was supposedly bought for the kids...

Thanks Eau, I have one light in my tank (one long bulb) but I have fittings for another, one light seems to make it quite bright and the room is quite bright ( as we have 2 windows and a patio door in our living room ).

Would love some shrimps but not sure if anything in my tank would gobble them up?

Thought we could post pictures on here (was going to show you what my tank looks like at the moment) but cant do it.

I have cherry shrimp in with my cherry barbs. Sometimes they eat them, but shrimp are really fast and most fish are opportunistic feeders- if they're getting a steady supply of food from you then they're less likely to go after the shrimp. Also a lot of shrimp species breed like crazy (voice of bitter experience) so they'll be fine, as long as they have plenty of hiding places.

I shall get some plants and some shrimps ,how much do you pay for the shrimps Eau? I saw some the other day and they looked quite expensive for tiny shrimp.

I don't pay for them, I sell them! The going rate on Ebay is about £1 a shrimp which is way cheaper than the shops. If you can find anyone selling locally (try Facebook local groups) then you'll be able to skip the P&P charges too.

Thank you, I'm on a local shrimp selling group on fb but seems to have gone dead on there, will post on there, hopefully someone local will have some.

There's a local selling group just for shrimp? Wow, must be a roaring trade in your area I just sell mine on the fish groups.

It's a group for small fish and shrimp, the man who set it up a few years ago breeds shrimp but havn't seen him on there for a while, have put a message on there in hope someone has some.