School Tank

[Kitty_Nin]

You could have Otos or Corys instead of plecs. Corys are hilarious and friendly, and Otos are peaceful and as much fun to watch as Plecs. Corys would leave your plants alone, and I think the Otos would too. Otos couldn't be added until the tank was more mature and had algae for them to feed on, though.

 

[LongS]

Bristlenose plecs would be absolutly fine, they are not sensitive to water conditions and would quickly adapt. I know as i have one and te water is hard here.

Male guppies aren't aggressive, they just chase each other you would be fine with them. But surely in a tank that size you want a nice eyecatching fish? Gourami maybe? Dwarf or lace would be lovely. With a load of shoaling fish.

Maybe

2 lace gouramis
3-4 MALE guppies
a shoal of harlequins and maybe a shoal of rummy nose

then a bristlenose or a few corys.

Have you thought of maybe a few zebra loaches? nice and busy characters and nice colours too.

 

[AdamM]

perhaps some pictus instead of cories?

 

[NinjaSmurf]

Pictus are not equal to cories in the least, they get at least six inches long and will EAT anything they can get in their mouths, or just kill it. I know, I had one and it would kill (but not eat) the guppies I had for it, and would beat the snot out of my BN.

 

[natalie265]

i've put in an offer for a 55 gallon. Now that i know i'm going w/the bigger size tank, i WOULD like a couple bigger, centerpiece fish. Keep in mind i have very hard water. I had very poor luck keeping gouramis AND cories until i started using 1/2 RO water in my home tanks. At this point, i will NOT be using RO water with this tank and am looking for species that will do well in my tap water.

Would a BN plec leave my plants alone?

I'm thinking something like this:

5-7 male guppies
12-15 zebra danio (Do they school pretty well?)
1 BN plec
2-3 larger centerpiece fish

 

[Kitty_Nin]

My Danios swim around in a school, scatter to look at things, join back up into a school and swim around some more, scatter to pester the barbs, school again when they get chased off by annoyed larger fish... and so on and so forth all day long. They're fun to watch, they're like a group of rowdy kids.