Fish ideas?

[Willbacon23]

Hey guys,

I’ve currently got a 20 gallon tank which is newly cycled. I have at the minute 6 glow light danio, 5 little Pygmy cories and 3 bronze Corys. I do large water changes weekly and it is a 20 long tank with driftwood cave space etc. Any fish ideas and stocking ideas would be really appreciated

 

[JuiceBox52]

What are your GH and PH?

 

[Willbacon23]

What are your GH and PH?

GH is fairly hardy nothing crazy tho and PH is near neutral it’s never out of the range of 6.5-7.5 but alwuas closer to 6.8 roughly

 

[JuiceBox52]

I would do a shoal of ember tetras and a shoal of one of the other types of small tetras or rasboras. 10 of both types you could also do some shrimp and snails.

 

[Willbacon23]

Would that all fit in fine with my fish I currently have?

 

[JuiceBox52]

If you do large weekly water changes it should. Maybe lower it to 8 each of the 1inch shoaling fish if you want the shrimp and/or snails as well

 

[Willbacon23]

Cheers amazing! Thanks for the help. Sounds like a great idea. Cherry shrimp and black shrimp with java fern etc I think would be really cool as well. A lot of people always talk about dwarf gouramis what would your thoughts on them be if any?

 

[JuiceBox52]

If you did a dwarf gourami I would do 1 shoal of small fish (10ish) and 1 DG.

The DG may eat shrimplets but they should reproduce fast enough that you wont have to worry about a few being eaten.

There is always the risk of dwarf gourami disease, so be wary of that. Other than that it would work!

If you get 2 types of shrimp in the neocardinia or cardinia species they will interbreed and the offspring will tend to be brownish, so be aware of that

 

[Willbacon23]

Yeah thanks you made two points I never even thought about, do shrimps breed easily? How many could I fit with everything else that would be suffice so not hurting any of the fish

 

[JuiceBox52]

Shrimp have a very low bioload so you can have lots of them. Start out with 5-10 and in a few months you will have about 30ish. You wont have to worry about rehoming them for awhile

Pet stores usually are very happy to take some off your hands if you have top many as they are popular and sell well

 

[Byron]

The first thing I would recommend is to increase the glowlight danios (species Danio choprae) and pygmy cories (Corydoras pygmaeus). Both will benefit from a few more of their own; 3-4 danios, and 5-6 pygmy cories. This will make a difference to the fish.

 

[Willbacon23]

Everywhere I read said 5-6 Pygmy Corys were fine?

 

[JuiceBox52]

They really do need more to thrive. The will hide all the time and wont be very active in a small group. 10-12 is best

 

[Byron]

Everywhere I read said 5-6 Pygmy Corys were fine?

It depends upon how one defines terms like "fine."

All of the Corydoradinae species (Aspidoras, Corydoras, former Brochis, and Scleromystax) are shoaling fish requiring groups. While "minimum" numbers are always asked for, and while minimum may be five or six generally with these species, they will without any question be better with more in the group. When space permits, more is always going to mean less stressed fish, and that means healthier, less likely to succumb to disease, more active, etc.

Corydoras pygmaeus is a small sized cory, and such fish are naturally less timid the more there are of them. I would aim for 8-9 minimum, but since you have space, why not provide them with more security and increase their number to 11 or 12 (or a few more).