Another beginner question!

[Tee]

Hi - we've not had fish for years & things seem to have got a lot more scientific. I was only a teenager when we had our last one at home about 20 years ago & it's about 15 years since my BF had his last one.
We've set the tank up to start cycling & think we've decided on the fish we're having (we've gone by the size of the tank). My queries are, will these fish be happy living together (we just used to get the ones we liked & bung them in the tank when we were kids!) & which order should we introduce them in?
6 Cardinals
3 Guppies
3 Platties/Swordtails
2 Albino Cory
2 Khuli Loaches
1 RTB Shark

We were looking at putting the platties/swordtails in first but any advice would be appreciated. I know that Danios are ideal cycling fish but as we're limited by the size of the tank I'd rather have the more colourful cardinals.
Thanks very much.
T

 

[-cAtFiSh-]

first off how big is your tank?
cories and kuhlis need to be in shoals of at least 5 or 6
rtb sharks can be aggressive

 

[BobK]

How about giving fishless cycling a try? I wish I knew of that before I cycled my 1st tank. I'm not sure about which fish to use but I definitely wouldn't use the cories or any tetras. Danios really are probably your best bet from what I've heard. Can you "borrow" some gravel or some filter media from the lfs to cut down on your cycle-time?

 

[Def]

Platys will cycle your tank just fine too.

 

[lucky62]

How big is the tank ?

I also would say pass up the red tailed black shark , they get nasty , not to mention 5 or 6 " .

You may be able to queeze in those zebra danios .


WELCOME to the forums and good luck .

 

[Tee]

Thanks for the advice everyone - I've decided to wait for my RTBS (a good excuse for another tank in the future!) & stick with smaller fish. We'll be upping our Cories to 4 probably & then either adding to the Cardinals or maye a few Zebra instead. We'll just have to see how we go. Hopefully we'll be getting the first batch of fish tomorrow. Tried a place last night but the fish just didn't look "happy" if that makes sense - they weren't in partcularly good condition & the tank with the Danios in had a dead one in it. The plants they had also looked a bit ropey so we'll wait 'til we can get to the proper fish place tomorrow.
Thanks again!