stocking question for a 29g community tank

Hello,

I have a cycled 29g tank with the following in it:

5 zebra danios
3 scissortail rasboras
2 ghost shrimp

I just put in an order for 5 red cherry shrimp and should be getting those in a few days once they get shipped. My tank is lightly planted with a java fern, anubias, and two marimo moss balls, with the fern/anubias on a piece of driftwood. I also have two ornaments for hiding and it all sits on some gravel.

I went with the danios as a top fish and the rasboras as a middle, and am looking at a german blue ram or two for a centerpiece.

Should I get more danios/rasboras? I've noticed that the danios don't really school that much but the rasboras do. Should I take one of these species back since they are both schooling type fish? Would it be too much to have another 3 rasboras an 2-3 danios for schooling purposes?

Finally, on the german blue ram. Unfortunately, the only stores near me are Petco and Petsmart. Petsmarts fish seem fairly well taken care of, but petcos fish are always under quarantine with half the tanks showing dead fish in them, so I stay away from there. The selection at Petsmart is pretty poor. I have seen some chiclids there that look close to the german blue ram, but they are called electric blue cichlids and that's all, so I don't think they are exactly what I'm looking for, so it looks like I'll be ordering that online if needed. Another possibility is a dwarf gourami that are available at that store, but I'm not sure if that would work with my needs or not. I'm also open to having a betta, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work, but if it would, suggestions are welcome.

Finally finally, if I do decide to get rid of either the danios or rasboras, would Petsmart take them back? I'm guessing I wouldn't be expecting to get my money back or anything, but I would hope I could give them the fish back and they could quarantine and resell them...not sure how that works though.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

tanker said:

1) With the danios you can add more
2) The same with the Rasboras
3) The electric blue Cichlids are just electric blue rams.
4) IMO--I do not think the Rams can compete for food with the danios and rasboras and will slowly starve. .

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What, if anything, would you recommend in place of the rams? I do notice that the danios are the quickest eaters of the bunch right now... I'd like a centerpiece fish, but not at the cost of having to feed them everyday with a turkey baster or something.

What do you mean rainbow fish? tetras? barbs?

So would the following be ok in my tank:

8 danios
6 scissortail rasboras
3 ghost shrimp
5 red cherry shrimp

and then either 3-4 barbs of my liking? I was under the impression that barbs are semi aggressive and wouldn't do well with the community fish? I'm thinking the rasboras are simply too much for this tank since they can get up to 3 inches in length...I might have to forgo them and get a few more danios/barbs instead?

Lightning Bug said:

yes, that would be fine. keep in mind that shrimp have basically no bioload and don't really affect an aquarium like fish do. trying to remember... seems like iv been told that you could even keep 100 ghost shrimp in a 10 gallon aquarium and they'd be fine. if those red cherry shrimp end up breeding you might have 100 of them in you tank within a year.

with the limited selection of a bad petco and a poorly stocked petsmart im not really sure what to tell you other than maybe ordering fish online or setting up a ten gallon QT tank and nursing a fish back to health yourself... or ordering a fish through them and then QT. a good website to look at different fish profiles is:

http://www.aquahobby.com/e_freshwater_tropical_aquarium_fish.php

rainbows are on that web page by the way. not all rainbows are mentioned there, but some are.

by the way, i don't know how new you are to fish keeping, but here's a tip: feel free to take all of the carbon and ammonia stuff out of your filter and replace it with spare aquarium filter padding. the point is to give the beneficial bacteria more places to grow.

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I'm definitely looking into doing a quarantine tank. My plan right now is to check Craigslist to get a stand for the 29g with hopefully a shelf on the bottom where I can place a 10g quarantine...one of the danios I had we just had to euthanize, actually. From what I can gather, it got fish TB...two days straight it was sitting at the bottom of the tank breathing normally, but it's spine was completely bent and when he would swim, it would basically just be in one direction or a corkscrew effect since he was bent. No signs of Ick or anything and the water levels were all well within parameters. I know quarantining wouldn't have helped that (at least that I know of) and he was one of our oldest fish, having lasted the duration we've had the tank set up for, which is about 3-4 months...

For filters, I have an AquaClear 50, since they came so highly recommended on this forum. I still have the same media that it came with (the foam, carbon, and some biomax). I rinsed all this stuff (using tank water in a bucket) the other week and it was nasty...honestly the first time I had cleaned it). So you think I'll be fine taking the carbon and biomax out? I guess I'll get some floss or whatever for it instead?

Also, one last question. Looking like I'll continue with the danios an rasboras, and the shrimp of course. However, the other day my wife suggested maybe one betta for the tank? I've heard that sometimes you can keep one in a tank, other times not so much. What's everyone's thoughts on that? That would provide a beautiful fish to look at...