Stocking Suggestions

[chrisjd]

Hello

I'm looking for stocking suggestions for my 95 litre tank. Specifically I'd like some fish to occupy the top half of the tank. The tank currently has 10 neon tetras, 10 pygmy cory, 1 assassin snail and many unwanted pond snails. I was also planning to add some red cherry shrimp. According to this calcualtor this leaves me 62% full so I have space to add extra fish. I'd also be interested in fish with interesting behaviours or appearance even if they don't occupy the top of the tank, and if they eat hair/black brush algae that would be a plus but I'm hoping to deal with that in other ways anyway. I don't want fish that would be aggressive to small shrimp, the pygmy cories or to the assassin snail. I also don't want another large shoal of fish since I want the tetras to be the main shoal. I don't really want fish that would be likely to successfully breed since I wouldn't know what to do with the fry.

I've considered adding a honey gourami - but I'm not sure they'd be happy on their own but a mixed sex pair may breed.
I've also considered adding zebra danios but not sure how many I would need as a minimum to be happy - would 5 be ok?
I was considering harlequin rasboras but I've read they need to be in a group of 8-10 to be happy and I think they might clash (aesteically) with my neon tetras.

My water parameters are zero for nitrites and ammonia, 5 for nitrate (plants use most of what is produced so far) hard water with a PH of 8 (seems that high from the tap).

So anyone have suggestions on what might go well here?

Edit: The tank is also planted moderately heavily, I have no floating plants but could probably add some.

 

[thereverendturtle]

I wouldn't worry about honey gouramis breeding successfully in a community tank. Other options might be some of the "panchax" killies, rocket killies being my favorite, or possibly marble hatchetfish, 5-6 of either fish would be fine.

 

[chrisjd]

Thanks for your suggestions. My LFS has marble hatchetfish and I was considering them but they don’t seem to do very much and I asked the guy in the store and he said yeah they do just sit at the top most of the time not doing much. I think I want more active/interesting fish than that.

The rocket killies look very cool. I have a follow up question though – I’ve read that they are likely to jump out of the tank if there is no hood. This is fine as I have a hood, but what do you do during water changes? Do you have to keep watch of them just in case, or will it be ok if the hood is of for a short time?