Are The Following Fish Ok Together In A Community Tank?

[Foz]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum and this is my first thread, I apologise in advance if it's in the wrong place. Anyway, hopefully some of you can help?

I currently have tetras and endlers and cory's, however I'm wanting to add some bigger fish though not huge!! Just something that stands out against the tetras and is also colourful. After much research I've come up with the following and wondered if they were ok together and with the above fish? It definitely has to be with the above fish as I already have them.

I would like to add -

A couple of Bolivian Rams
A couple of dwarf gourami

Both of the above don't get to big I believe and are also ok In a community tank. I'm looking at 3 dwarf gourami, 1 male and 2 female, and just a couple of Rams. The Rams can be changed if need be, I'd just like something that's colourful and that's bigger than a tetra or guppy.

Would the above fish get on with -

A) the fish I already have
B) each other

I realise the Rams can become very aggressive when breeding, so was perhaps wondering if I could counter this buttering either two females or two males instead?

Again, the Rams are negotiable and if someone could mention a more colourful fish that is bigger than a guppy and won't get to be huge that's also good with other fish them I'm naturally open to suggestions.

Any help or advice would be hugely appreciated.

Foz

 

[Akasha72]

I had a pair of bolivian rams that bred for me several times and I found them to be only mildly aggressive when they had young. Yes, they defended the eggs, wrigglers and fry but I wouldn't say they were aggressive over it.
They will be fine with the tetra's but I'd watch the endlers with them being so small. If you get the rams young and small they will grown up with the endlers and may not see them as food but I can't guarentee it.
 
I'm no expert on Gourami's as I've never kept them but I think they should be okay with the current stock - best to double check that though with those that have kept Gourami's. One thing I would warn against though would be the dwarf variety of Gourami. They are suffering from an incurable disease at the moment and finding a pair without it may be difficult.
 
Between the two I'd chose the rams every time. A lovely fish to keep. I miss my pair, they were such characters

 

[Foz]

Many thanks for the reply it's really appreciated.

Regarding the gourami I wanted them because they were small, supposedly fairly friendly (dwarf variety) in a community tank and was very colourful.

I have enough of small colourful fish, so just need a bigger fish (though not a blue whale or something that would fill the tank), something that's only a couple of inches and won't grown to be too big (maybe 4inch at most) and will get on with everything I currently have.

It's getting complicated.

Again, any help would be great.

 

[Akasha72]

what's your water like? Is it soft or hard? I always recommend stocking your tank with the fish that prefer your water type. They are happier and healthier that way and live longer too

 

[Jeremy180]

I agree with akasha  on the PH, while captive-raised fish tend to be more tolerant of less than Ideal PH, it's best to avoid extremes.
While it would be helpful for us to know the species and numbers of your cories +tetras, it's not absolutely necessary.
Much more helpful information would be the size of your aquarium, temperature and any known water parameters, if you don't have a test kit, your local water supplier may be able to help, here.
 
Some more/alternate stocking I would suggest are:
Honey Dwarf Gourami: From what I gather, this species doesn't have the viral disease problem that the regular dwarf gouramis get, and have a slightly smaller adult size, too
 
Peacock goby/Gudgeon: If your water is on the hard side, these will enjoy the higher Ph more than rams would, Although I would try to see whether they are captive bred are not, some wild-caught individuals are reluctant to eat flake/pellet food.

 

[Akasha72]

I was sure I'd read the tank size in the original post but after re-reading it I've realised this is missing info so aswell as the water type (soft water or hard water, as Jeremy said you can often get this info from your water companies website) and also tank size.
 
Bolivian rams with the existing stock would ideally need soft water and a tank size of around 3ft  as they need space to establish territory. They'll also really need sand substrate as they dig pits for their wrigglers when they breed and they can't really do this with gravel

 

[Byron]

At this stage I am posting primarily to keep up with this thread, as there are some issues with the mentioned fish but without knowing the tank size, water parameters, and numbers of the existing tetras and corys, rather difficult to offer useful advice.
 
Byron.

 

[Foz]

Hi all, many thanks for the replies.

Without checking the parameters I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what they are. However, in regards to the tank size though it's 125litre. The fish I have are -

10 tetras
6 endlers
6 corys

It was a gravel set up, but to accommodate the corys (which I felt was a must) I changed the gravel to sand.

 

[Akasha72]

if you go to your water companies website (google it if you don't know) you'll be able to find out all you need.  I'm in Yorkshire and if I type in Yorkshire Water ph to my search engine it brings up their website and then from there it asks for my postcode and I can see what's in my water, it's ph value, hardness etc
 
Once we know those values we'll be better placed to advise. The tetra's and cories are soft water fish and the rams you are considering are also soft water fish. If your water is hard they'll struggle in your water 

 

[Baccus]

I am guessing that you only have male endlers otherwise you would be overrun with endler fry by now, (speaking from experience here) but endlers are adaptable and would survive just fine if your water is on the soft acidic side.  Being all males they will also eventually die out unless you keep replacing with new males as the old ones die off.
I know you didn't ask about other fish species but a couple that spring to mind that are colourful, not too big and generally peaceful are Threadfin Rainbows (they also have tiny mouths so aren't prone to swallowing tank mates whole), Dwarf neon rainbows from Papua New Guinea (these are stunning fish in the flesh), and for amazing displays and subtle colours until you really look my ultimate pick would be spotted blue eyes. A larger blue eye species would be Pacific Blue Eyes, these are also generally peaceful and any bickering between males is kept between males. Most of the fighting displays are all bluff and show off too, very ritualistic and no real harm is done unlike some cichlid species which can be vicious with real damage done.
I currently have dwarf neon rainbows in a tank with various corydoras, otocinclus, threadfin rainbows, Borneo Suckers and Australian Riffle shrimp (very similar to flower or wood shrimp), this is a real mishmash of countries of origin but they all like similar conditions and they all get along just fine. In fact the corydoras like it so much they never stop breeding.

 

[Foz]

Thanks for the replies.

I'venchecked the United utilities website and got the following. You'll have to bear with me if I looking at the wrong stuff though.

My water is soft and the PH is on average 7.55. Does this sound correct? The minis 7.25 and the max is 8.03.

Hope that's the right thing I'm looking at.

Cheers for the fish mentioned above, some of those look great. With all the smaller fishit just seems good to have a balance of some slightly larger ones to add a bit of depth to the tank. Nothing that will eat my tetras though and that will generally get on with the other fish.

 

[hobby5]

Hi Foz, welcome to the forums!
 
Soft for the water company not necessarily means soft for the fish. So it would be good to know the actual numbers.
 
What kind of tetras and which cories do you have? Imho its not a good idea to mix corys with cichlids as they get hassled by those. 2-3 pairs of the honey gourami would be a perfect choice. But be aware those don't like current at all and love heavily planted tanks and especially plants at the water surface.

 

[the_lock_man]

Some more/alternate stocking I would suggest are:
Honey Dwarf Gourami: From what I gather, this species doesn't have the viral disease problem that the regular dwarf gouramis get, and have a slightly smaller adult size, too
 

 
Just to clarify for everyone. The Honey Gourami, Trichogaster chuna, is a different species to the Dwarf Gourami, T. lalius. Although some sources call them Honey Dwarf Gourami, this only serves to confuse everyone. The Honey Gourami, as has been pointed out, is not really known to be susceptible to the iridovirus (aka Dwarf Gourami Disease).
 

Peacock goby/Gudgeon: If your water is on the hard side, these will enjoy the higher Ph more than rams would, Although I would try to see whether they are captive bred are not, some wild-caught individuals are reluctant to eat flake/pellet food.

 
Wonderful fish, I have kept them for a number of years, in hard water although they do prefer soft.
 

10 tetras
6 endlers
6 corys

 
We need to know the species before we can advise further. If you go into Halfords, and ask for a windscreen wiper for a Ford, they'll ask you if it's a FIesta, Focus, Mondeo, Galaxy, etc.
 
There are dozens of different species of both tetra and corydoras, with varying temperaments, sizes, etc., so we do need to know which indvidual species. If you aren't sure, you can always post a photo. (BTW, there's only one species of endler, so don't worry about finding the exact species of that!!)

 

[Akasha72]

Thanks for the replies.

I'venchecked the United utilities website and got the following. You'll have to bear with me if I looking at the wrong stuff though.

My water is soft and the PH is on average 7.55. Does this sound correct? The minis 7.25 and the max is 8.03.

Hope that's the right thing I'm looking at.

 

 
Yep, that's what I expected it to say. Sometimes they don't give more detailed information but if it says 'soft' and then ph of 7.55 - that more or less backs that up. 
 
When I checked last night on mine it said 'soft' and ph 7.4 and when I've checked with my test kit it's agreeing with that.
 
Now that I've mentioned the test kit it's reminded me to ask you if you have one? These are a must really. There are many on the market, the API masterkit seems to be the most readily available. It has everything you need - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. If you want to get into the more complicated things of testing hardness then API do seperate tests for this (gH and kH)
 
Another way to tell if you have soft or hard water is to check your kettle. If it scales up your water is hard, if you don't suffer with limescale in your kettle (or washing machine etc) then you have soft water.
 
Hopefully that helps and is simple to understand

 

[Foz]

Sorry guys I'm slowly playing catch up and figuring new things out. I do have a test kit, I bought it when I got the tank.

As for the fish, they are -


Pepper cory's
Neon tetras
Harlequin rasbora

It's harlequins I've got, not endlers, sorry. The endlers are what I would like.

I'm a little concerned about the local fish shop though, they gave me there best guy who knew everything about fish, yet when I boguth my corys, he told me I was a fool for buying 6 and that I would only need 2 at most and then said every tropical tank such as mine should have a golden algae eater (yellow thing it was) however I declined his advice as I assumed corys were better in a group of 5+ which would result in less stress etc, and also that damn golden algae eater can get quite big by all accounts and be a tad troublesome. Needless to say he's not a fan of me now that fish guy.