how should I stock my 20 gallon?

[user123]

Hi! I’m a beginner to having fish and am having difficulty deciding how to stock my tank

I have a 20 gallon long planted tank

here are my parameters:
gh: 120ppm
kh: I’m having trouble reading the test strip exactly but it’s falling between 80-120ppm
ph: 7.5
No2: 0
No3: 0
temperature: 77°

I currently have one platy and one female betta who is very calm

maybe a school of small fish, but really I’m open to anything with some colour and looking for suggestions as I don’t want to mess up!!

I also maybe wanted some little things to clean like ghost shrimp or snails so any opinions on that would be appreciated

 

[DragonScales+Doubletails]

well, I'd skip the gourami, you should add some more platys (1 male, 3 females) to start. snails and shrimp would be a great clean-up crew. the "centerpiece fish" would be the betta. shrimp and snails can be added as desired.

 

[user123]

well, I'd skip the gourami, you should add some more platys (1 male, 3 females) to start. snails and shrimp would be a great clean-up crew. the "centerpiece fish" would be the betta. shrimp and snails can be added as desired.

Thank you for the help! I will add 3 more platys for now, I had another question which might be a stupid one but I don’t want to mess this up, i’m always told to add fish in slowly as to not mess up the water parameters, can I add these three at the same time or is that considered too many too quickly?

 

[Lajos_Detari]

Your GH at 120ppm (about 7 dH) is consider soft water or moderate soft.
You can consider most South American and Asian fish.

Platy is not suitable because they require hard water from 10 to 20 dH.(about 170 to 340ppm, preferably at middle range)

Xiphophorus maculatus – Platy — Seriously Fish

www.seriouslyfish.com

All live bearers like Guppies, Mollies are also not suitable as they require hard water.

You can consider some schooling fish and some individual fish.
For South American fish:
1)Tetras species: get a group of 6-10 or more. Almost all species are ok except the bigger species like Congo Tetras.
2)Dwarf Cichlids like Apistogrammas, Blue Rams, etc. But Blue Rams will require warmer water.
3) Corydoras are also ok for bottom level fish.

For Asian fish:
1) Rasboras species.
2) Barbs species but avoid the more aggressive type like Tiger Barbs.
I like the 5 Banded Barbs.
3) Danios species but some species are very active and may not be suitable to mix with slower species.
4) Honey Gouramis will be ok but avoid Dwarf Gourami that may carry iridovirus with them.

Add fish slowly is good when your filter is new. But for schooling fish, it will be better to get them in a group of at least 5-6.

Bettas are not community fish. Avoid Betta and it will kill your smaller fish and shrimps if it can catch them.

For your size of tank, you can keep 1 group of schooling fish.
Get 1 group of middle/top level schooling fish and some bottom level fish like Dwarf Cichlid(South America) or Corydoras will be the best.
If you get one 1 group of schooling fish, you can keep a bigger number of them probably 10-15 or depending on their size.
If you can small fish like Ember Tetras, you can keep more of them.