Must have species?

OK - I'll kick off a topic to see if we can get some discussions going......

You are setting up a new tank and you can only have 3 species in it. What are they?

I'd almost always choose Pearl Gouramis, Albino Corries and Heter Rasboras.

Those 3 always see to find their way into my tanks. Kuhlii Loaches are a close 4th.

I want flame gouramis, dwarf gouramis and some sort of coris for mine!

um this is easy....... clown loaces lol

Clown Loaches, Angels, and Kribensis.

Leptosoma cichlids, orange chromides and brevis shelldwellers,

Norman's lampeye, garnet tetra, sulawesi spongicola shrimp.

Angels, and Kribensis for me.

Weather loaches, silver dollars, rummynose tetras, and glowlight tetras.

My must haves are all rarer livebearers. I have mainly goodeids in my tanks and focus on maintaining species that are either threatened or endangered. As it happens, many of the goodeids are properly fit into one of those categories. My Ameca splendens are listed by IUCN as extinct in the wild although a recent find has established that some of them actually do exist in the wild. Many of my other fish largely are considered either threatened or endangered by IUCN standards. As it turns out, the people on the ALA site either have fish similar to mine or fish equally deserving of our efforts to preserve them. I am an ALA member and can say that every year I attend the convention and I attempt to bring home the fish that they consider well worth preserving. If I can preserve and reproduce those species, I feel that I am contributing to the ultimate survival of those species. What it comes down to is simple. Each of us must decide what priority to give to our own tanks. My own priority is preservation of rare livebearers, but it is a choice each of us must make.

Couldn't tell ya. It changes as I read, and while I search for something visually interesting, I'd throw an LBF in a tank if it's behaviorally intriguing. Right now, probably something in the cichlasomines, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't go toward a Mangrove Rivulus or something along those lines if I felt like it. Eclecticism rules!

lamprologus occelatus, steatocranus tinanti, cyprochromis leptosoma.

(Trying think of 3 kinds that would actually get along in one tank, I may be over thinking it...)

If I had 3 separate tanks but could only keep 3 different kinds, I think I'd go with Occelatus, Lepidiolamprologus Nkambae or Lemairii, and Steatocranus Tinanti or Casuarius?

Angelfish and cory cats, definitely. The third "must have" is yet to be determined.