not exactly super new but wanting to try something new

[dhjaksu]

so I got my first fish 6 months ago (got the first tank and set up and started cycling 2 months before that).
anyway, I'm changing up the stocking in my main tank (210 litres or 55 gallons).

ph sits at 8.0 (8.4 from tap)
kh 4 drops
gh 9 drops

heavily planted tank so plant friendly fish only.
Im in australia so a lot of fish are either illegal or ridiculously expensive due to importing laws (dojo loaches are illegal and pea puffers are hard to find and over $100 each for example, neither of them would actually work in my tank anyway).

fish I am keeping:
bottom dwellers:
10x panda cory (will get after I sell all my current corys)
3x adult bristlenose

centerpiece:
4x kribensis OR 1x betta OR a pair of dwarf gourami
(already have kribs and betta, bettas are in different separate tanks, kribs I will sell at least half as I currently have 8)
wanting opinions on which to go with

middle-top swimming:
8x guppy (2 male, 6 female... any of the centrepiece fish would eat babies)
this is where I want suggestions on what else to add...
guppies mainly swim at the top so something middle swimming would be nice.


also if you think betta would be a good centrepiece option which one should it be? 2/3 of my bettas (a male and a female) are great with guppies and all other fish I've tried them with. female is white with red seams on her fins, male is a short fin with marbled sort of blue/green, white, and orange. My other male is a Cambodian veiltail and doesn't like guppies but is fine with shrimp and pygmy corys. I do plan on getting 3 more bettas once I get more heaters and air pumps for my other 20 litre/ 5 gallon tanks.


also I am getting a 63 gallon to grow out all my baby bristlenose and any other babies I wish to keep and grow out.

 

[DragonScales+Doubletails]

3x adult bristlenose

I honestly wouldn't

pea puffers are hard to find and over $100 each

dang!! I only pay $3.00 a pop

1x betta OR a pair of dwarf gourami

IMO for a tank that size, i'd add 2 centerpiece fish, for ex. the betta and 3-4 honey gourami and I really like the male betta by descr.

something middle swimming would be nice.

my black neon tetras stay near the middle and are friendly but crazy eaters. once my female betta dropped her eggs for some reason and they got every last one.

feel free to ignore my feedback, these are mere opinions.

 

[Colin_T]

Don't have more than 1pr of kribensis.

Don't touch dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalius) or any of their colour forms. They are riddled with diseases that can't be cured.

Betta splendens (Siamese fighting fish) and gouramis are labyrinth fish and you should only have 1 species per tank because they are territorial and fight. They are also surface dwellers.

The water is a bit soft for guppies. Needs more minerals.

Don't keep Betta splendens and guppies together because male Bettas sometimes go nuts and attack the guppies.

 

[dhjaksu]

I honestly wouldn't


dang!! I only pay $3.00 a pop


IMO for a tank that size, i'd add 2 centerpiece fish, for ex. the betta and 3-4 honey gourami and I really like the male betta by descr.


my black neon tetras stay near the middle and are friendly but crazy eaters. once my female betta dropped her eggs for some reason and they got every last one.

feel free to ignore my feedback, these are mere opinions.

why not the bristlnose?
They are like my favourite fish right now, I have 5 adults and 200 or so babies, half of which are albinos, and of that half are long fin. and there are some calico long fins and albino long fins. (adults are 3 albino, a calico, and a common long fin carrying albino and calico genetics). planning on keeping an albino male, calico female, and long fin female and selling a pair of albinos.

But yeah the male betta is super pretty. I got him after my phone broke so unfortunately I don't have any photos of him. should hopefully get that fixed soon and then Ill take photos of both the bettas and if I decide to go with them as centrepiece fish Ill make another thread asking which to go with. he was also only $11 from petbarn which is really cheap for short finned ones here.

 

[Lynnzer]

In this mix, you have to think about the likelihood of a breeding explosion.
I had Kribs and they are gorgeous however when they start breeding they go crazy. You can have your tnk overrun in no time. The fry are carefully herded around by the parents so any fish that goes near them will get short shrift.
Dwarf gouramis - No. Same reason as stated. Mine didn't last the course and died early for no apparent reason.
If you plan things out with the water parameter needs of the fish in mind then you'll find some good options.
I made a database of the individual fish's needs, ie temperature range, pH, KH, GH and the size they grow to. In the right column I have other details such as whether they are bottom, middle or top swimmers, and if they arte blackwater species.From all of that it's easier to put a decent list together of what you'd prefer.
I have 7 tanks in total and have followed the same action to stock them all. In fact I was going through my database and I realised that my Emporer Tetras were at a lower GH level than the tank I have them in. I'm about to take them out and swap them into another tank for the black phantome Tetras that can be more comfortable in the the current Emporer tank.
Since I did this, I'm getting a lot more breeding activity. The problem is that in a community tank the fry tend to end up as someone's afternoon snack

 

[dhjaksu]

In this mix, you have to think about the likelihood of a breeding explosion.
I had Kribs and they are gorgeous however when they start breeding they go crazy. You can have your tnk overrun in no time. The fry are carefully herded around by the parents so any fish that goes near them will get short shrift.
Dwarf gouramis - No. Same reason as stated. Mine didn't last the course and died early for no apparent reason.
If you plan things out with the water parameter needs of the fish in mind then you'll find some good options.
I made a database of the individual fish's needs, ie temperature range, pH, KH, GH and the size they grow to. In the right column I have other details such as whether they are bottom, middle or top swimmers, and if they arte blackwater species.From all of that it's easier to put a decent list together of what you'd prefer.
I have 7 tanks in total and have followed the same action to stock them all. In fact I was going through my database and I realised that my Emporer Tetras were at a lower GH level than the tank I have them in. I'm about to take them out and swap them into another tank for the black phantome Tetras that can be more comfortable in the the current Emporer tank.
Since I did this, I'm getting a lot more breeding activity. The problem is that in a community tank the fry tend to end up as someone's afternoon snack

yeah I dont want heaps of babies. and I have a pair of albinokribs in their own tank on their second lot of babies. If I were to keep kribs in the tank it would be all females, probably 2 normal and 2 albino. so there wouldnt be any breeding.

where do I find your database thing?

 

[dhjaksu]

ye

Don't have more than 1pr of kribensis.

Don't touch dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalius) or any of their colour forms. They are riddled with diseases that can't be cured.

Betta splendens (Siamese fighting fish) and gouramis are labyrinth fish and you should only have 1 species per tank because they are territorial and fight. They are also surface dwellers.

The water is a bit soft for guppies. Needs more minerals.

Don't keep Betta splendens and guppies together because male Bettas sometimes go nuts and attack the guppies.

yeah i have one male betta thats terrible with guppies and one that couldn't care less about them. and my female is also fine with them.
by too soft for them do you mean the kh? because the gh is pretty high... and kh i thought just affected the ph which is high anyway? I have coral bones in my shrimp tank to raise the kh for them but i feel like the gh in the main tank is already really high and if i add coral to raise the kh it will also raise the gh and I dont want the gh to be overly high for all the other fish.


and with the kribs the plan would be to have 4 females and keep a male in a separate tank for if i decide i want more babies

 

[Colin_T]

Guppies do best in water with a GH around 200ppm. At the very least you want the GH around 180ppm. Yours is around 160ppm, so just a bit low for them.

 

[Lynnzer]

yeah I dont want heaps of babies. and I have a pair of albinokribs in their own tank on their second lot of babies. If I were to keep kribs in the tank it would be all females, probably 2 normal and 2 albino. so there wouldnt be any breeding.

where do I find your database thing?

I compiled my own with water parameters etc from seriouslyfish.
Most all you need is there. Just put the details into a database. I use Apache OpenOffice.

 

[outofwater]

Don't touch dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalius) or any of their colour forms. They are riddled with diseases that can't be cured.

Dwarfs are promoted everywhere as mostly peaceful and good for community tanks, but unless I got the absolute worse (and might be) they're plain nuts. Just yesterday I was sitting and looking at this guy I have, and he went at the mystery snail that lives in his tank, not once, not twice, but three times. He just kept poking and pushing him around. He's a psycho.