Stocking Question For 24 Gallon, Planted Tank...

[Jenilyn]

Hello everyone! My name is Jeni & I'm new to the forum. I've been spending a lot of time reading your posts the past few weeks. Here's my tank story...got an acrylic bowfront approx. 24 gallon tank from a friend to house a juvenile softshell turtle last Sept. Turtle was released to a pond in July.
 
I kept the tank running in preparation for a freshwater tropical setup. Using same substrate-river sand with smooth gravel over top. Filled the tank up and added an Aqueon Quietflow 50 filter. Ran this for a few weeks before adding 3 Glo Tetra (which I learned are a variety of Skirt Tetra), some Sword plants, driftwood, and Java Fern on Aug 12th (LFS tested water, 0 ammonia & nitrites, nitrates at .2). Lost 1 orange Glo Tetra the first night, but no fish losses since then. Added another 3 Glo Tetras on Aug 22nd, then a few more plants, marimo moss, and some cholla wood on the 23rd. Nitrates currently test at 5.0, 0 Ammonia or Nitrites in tank. Ph has been staying around 8 to 8.2. Added 4 Peppered Corys on Tuesday. Have done several water changes over the course of setup. Everyone is very active. The Tetras do chase each other and seem to 'nip', though there is no fin damage. Does anyone have experience with these newer type Tetras? If I add another to reach 6 total would that help? I'm curious about appropriate tankmates.  I would like to add 1 Gourami, however, have read that the Dwarf variety are difficult to keep due to disease and aggression. Also, would love to add some Red Cherry Shrimp but am wondering if they would survive in this environment. Any advice would be welcome. Thanks!

 

[TallTree01]

By glo tetra do you mean this:

Or this:

Either way, you should get at least 5 more to reduce the nipping and to make then more at ease. You should get some more cories too.
You could add a dwarf gourami and cherry shrimp by small cherries will be eaten and the gourami could be nipped if your tetras are like the second kind.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Red Cherry Shrimps should be fine in that set up as long as the shrimps have plenty of hiding places to get to if corys get a bit too close for their liking.
 
My tank is also about 24 gals/90 litres and has a pH of 8.0 and temp at 24/25C, my RCS are absolutely fine, even had females with eggs but no shrimplets.....yet.

 

[Megalodon]

if you mean glofish tetra..which are white skirts,they arent newer per se, they just have the added gene to glo. read up on white skirts their behavior and care is exactly the same.

 

[Jenilyn]

Thanks for the responses. The Glofish Tetras are the ones I have. They are pink, green, and orange. I did read up on white skirt tetras. Will do some more research. My tank does have lots of hiding spaces for RCS. I got the cholla wood sticks with them in mind. As for adding 5 more tetras and more peppered corys, I think my tank would be overstocked.