Hello and a few stocking questions

[BumbleinGrey]

Hello after browsing here a bit yesterday i thought perhaps this would be the place to ask a few questions. Just recently me and my wife have purchased a 55 gallon tank which has has its problems already, although we have resolved each one so far.

The first problem was that it leaked , that was really a non-issue , sense we have had to silicone another tank before (this to add branches and food trays for our crested gecko tank). So i got the aquarium grade silicone , striped the old silcone and frankly re-did the entire tank. (not a leak now)

The next problem was finding pure ammonia , although that too is resolved. actually all of the problems really are resolved aside form one our debating what to stock inside of the tank. Here is a list of species we are debating wither to stock in the tank.

Medusa Pleco L-034
Red Harlequin (Rasbora heteromorpha)
Tetra Black Neon
Tetra Diamond
Loach Kuhli
Gourami Flame Dwarf
Gourami Moonlight
Gourami Powder Blue Dwarf
Dwarf Neon Rainbow

I know we can’t have every one of these types of fish , so that is why i am posting this here , to see suggestions and perhaps seeing if some of these can be removed form the list due to problems we simply are not foreseeing. Also I know some of these , if not most of these are schooling fish i am curious to hear how many of each individual species one should hold , like how many Red Harleys should be put together to let them thrive. Also I would like to know if there is any conflicting species in my list , ones who will make meals of the others .

I have been reading about them all online , but frankly as you go form one webpage to another they state slightly different numbers of fish to be kept together , slightly different Ph’s , and temps ... I am just hopeing to clear some of this up
thank you in advance for any suggestions we might get here . also this link has a photo of our 55 being cycled so you can see our setup

i just want to get as much homework done as possible , so when the tank is ready we can begin to slowly populate it

 

[NickD]

I don't consider myself qualified to give you specific fish stocking but I'll give you some stocking tips.

1. Choose fish to fit in all the three levels of the tank (top, middle, bottom)
2. Don't worry about pH too much. Most fish adjust to whatever you're likely to have. What you want to avoid is large fluctuations in pH.
3. I'd say 6 or more of each : harlequins, kuhlis, neon rainbows. Possibly some of the others; I'm not familiar with all of them. But of course I don't mean you can have all of these at the same time. It's probably more pleasing to the eye to have 1 or 2 larger schools than a lot of smaller ones.
4. Temps: most of the tropicals do well in the mid to upper 70s. They just don't handle large fluctuations well.
5. Some gourami species can get big and some are mean. But I don't know which of yours fit that bill.

I'll let other more qualified people comment on your stocking options.

And welcome. You've come to the right place. It's good to see you've done your homework and aren't just jumping in blind.

 

[BumbleinGrey]

fixed the link with just posting the image

also i know that i have quite the list of things i would like in this 55 G tank , my problem right now is narrowing down the list of things i want. You see i have a 30 g brackish figure 8 puffer tank which i know frankly is at max , because of the nature of the little guys in it. They would probably frankly eat any tank mates i would put in there.

just for showing my tank a bit here is my 30 G

and a picture of my two figure 8’s Poseidon and Neptune

I am just excited to have a tank with a number of fish’s instead of the two , despite how much i like my two puffers , tons of personality. Like how they both stop swimming and come near the top as soon as the lights are on , expecting a tasty snail to much on.

 

[bazil323]

Ooo, lovely tanks!

I'd recommend having one or two large schools (10+), the medusa plec, and some gouramis. I think the diamonds would look lovely. I understand they usually don't look very impressive at first but will soon look quite nice. I'm getting 20 of them next week They do get larger than most tetras, so you should only get like 10. If you get more than one gourami, try to make sure that you only have one male and at least 2 females.

 

[BumbleinGrey]

thank you , me and my wife have allot of fun with the decor in the fish tanks. We have some more greek like parts to add to the puffers tank eventually.

as for the diamonds that are mentioned they do get about 6 inches in length form what i have read , would they eat the smaller fish like the Harlequins which are only 1.5 inches long?

 

[evelyn80]

im not the greatest at stocking but i can try to help you with this
10 blk neons
10 harlequin rasboras
1 powder blue gourami
5 kuhli loachs

dont know about the pleco hell proably get to big for that tank easily