40 gallon hardwater tank idea

ok small update- I got 4 nerite snails today, two different species, ill post pictures tomorrow or maybe later tonight, I also did a 20% weekly water change, while doing it, i discovered that The Dwarf gourami who my girlfriend named Stormageddon dark lord of all fishies or Stormy for short, has made a large bubble nest in the back of his partition among the sword plant leaves!

I also got accepted to a college i wanted to go to, today, my mom wanted to go get fish soonish as like a present or something because of that. I will go to the good LFS ill look out for gobies and i know they have dwarf shellies. idk if you can see from the pictures but i have about 3 inches of sand or so on the bottom, ill only be worried about them digging up rocks, as the plants i have will be tied up to rocks, java fern and anubias. also the amazon swords will not be in the same partition at all
shells wont be that hard to get at all, i think shellies could work very well c:

aslong as the adult shrimp cant get through its all good, so i guess larger species would be fine, and yea with my sections, loss of baby shrimps is almost unavoidable but im sure several would survive if they are in a fishless partition

So i have had a HUGE ammount of changes since i posted this, the tank looks worlds better and has new inhabitants too- IV recently got 3 hara jordeni (mini moth catfish), another Dwarf gourami- a female, and a group of endler's live bearers, also rescaped most of the aquarium. I also added a small jar of mini Ramshorn snails, they only get a few millimeters in size