Stocking suggestions?

[KatNor21]

Hi everyone. This is my tank in progress. It's a 30 gallon long, planted. I have 20 neon tetras (10 are neon greens) and 4 endlers. I was thinking of adding honey gourami and zebra danios. How many of each would you suggest? Would this cause any overstocking issues? Thanks!

 

[carligraceee]

Hi everyone. This is my tank in progress. It's a 30 gallon long, planted. I have 20 neon tetras (10 are neon greens) and 4 endlers. I was thinking of adding honey gourami and zebra danios. How many of each would you suggest? Would this cause any overstocking issues? Thanks!

You have plenty of aquarium filtration capacity as of now with your current stock. Adding a school of gouramis (yes, they prefer to be in groups of 5+) would put you over your filtration capacity and you would be recommended to add a sponge filter or another kind of filter.

The same issue with a full school of Zebra Danios. However, it isn't as drastic of an issue and you should be able to get by with it (it, of course, isn't recommended for new aquarists to go over their recommended stocking capacity but if you can handle more water changes, you should be okay).

What I would recommend is getting one large fish as sort of a centerpiece fish. I recommend anything that stands out to you, like a Rainbow Shark (gets to 5 inches), lyretail molly, any sort of fish around the 4 inch mark that stands out the most to you.

You have enough filter capacity for one large fish but not a complete school.

 

[KatNor21]

lyretail molly

Mollies are schooling or shoaling aren't they?

 

[itiwhetu]

I wouldn't mix a rainbow shark with Neons. If you are going down the acid tank road, try a school of Black Phantom Tetras. Stay away from live bearers. If you like Gouramis maybe a pair of Pearl Gouramis would be nice. You need more plant, about 30-50% of the volume in plant.

 

[carligraceee]

Mollies are schooling or shoaling aren't they?

Mollies are community fish! They can be alone... but they can also be in small groups of 3 or 4!

 

[Byron]

Some of the fish being mentioned have very demanding needs with respect to water parameters (GH and pH especially) so it would help to know these values for your source (tap) water and tank water (test each).

I will just mention that you do not want active swimmers like Zebra Danios in with sedate fish like gouramis. If you do go with gourami, the neons are fine, and other tetras like the Black Phantom mentioned and similar species would be better. We do need to know the GH and pH though.

 

[KatNor21]

Some of the fish being mentioned have very demanding needs with respect to water parameters (GH and pH especially) so it would help to know these values for your source (tap) water and tank water (test each).

I will just mention that you do not want active swimmers like Zebra Danios in with sedate fish like gouramis. If you do go with gourami, the neons are fine, and other tetras like the Black Phantom mentioned and similar species would be better. We do need to know the GH and pH though.

GH is about 150ppm, so hard water and low pH of about 6.4

 

[KatNor21]

I wouldn't mix a rainbow shark with Neons. If you are going down the acid tank road, try a school of Black Phantom Tetras. Stay away from live bearers. If you like Gouramis maybe a pair of Pearl Gouramis would be nice. You need more plant, about 30-50% of the volume in plant.

I have 9 plants in there. It's a new tank, so the plants have some room to grow into the space.

 

[KatNor21]

Some of the fish being mentioned have very demanding needs with respect to water parameters

I don't know what fish you're referring to. All my research suggests that honey gourami and zebra danios are nondemanding in water parameters.

 

[Byron]

I don't know what fish you're referring to. All my research suggests that honey gourami and zebra danios are nondemanding in water parameters.

The activity level of these two fish species is the problem for them being together, not the parameters. However, mollies were suggested, and this fish like all livebearers needs much harder water. As for the GH, 150 ppm (= 8 dGH) is on the border of moderately hard/soft. Livebearers need harder water, but soft water species will be fine here.

 

[KatNor21]

The activity level of these two fish species is the problem for them being together, not the parameters. However, mollies were suggested, and this fish like all livebearers needs much harder water. As for the GH, 150 ppm (= 8 dGH) is on the border of moderately hard/soft. Livebearers need harder water, but soft water species will be fine here.

Hmm ok. Thanks for clarifying. I hadn't considered activity level. If I have to choose, I'd rather have gouramis.

 

[Colin_T]

You need a picture on the back of the tank to make the fish feel more comfortable.

As mentioned by Byron, the GH is a bit low for mollies. If you haven't bought the mollies yet, don't get them.

 

[anewbie]

I would go with honey or the smaller sparkling gourami. Converseli you could get look at m/f/f borelli apistogramma. These are smaller than honey and come in different colours. I would avoid cockatoo. Another interesting fish that is are very hardy are nannacara amolae - these are strictly m:f. They are not quite as colourful as some of the apisto but undemanding and a lot of personailty.

 

[KatNor21]

Thanks everyone! I settled on a trio of honey gourami.