What Fish Should We Add Next?

[Sunam]

We finally got the tank back in balance and it seems stable. I'm going to give it another week and a water change but we'd like to restock a bit before company at the end of the month.

We have a 29 gallon tank with the following survivors:
5 glo fish
1 dwarf gourami
4 platy fish-male sunset, male & female faded coral, female mickey mouse
2 black skirt tetras
1 cory
2 female balloon belly mollies


I'd like to add some fish with some substance and/or pizazz but obviously within the parameters of the tank. I wish we could get the platy fish to drop fry so was thinking about adding a couple of females or a male (or more) mollies. Love the dwarf gourami so maybe another of those? My 4 year old wants the lyre tail mollies but if we want them to reproduce, we might skip the male balloon belly and just do 2 female/1 male lyre tail? Curious if we need to do anything to the water with mollies--salt? But what will that do to the cory and snail?

Completely open to suggestions!!

 

[rabbut]

By the time you have the recommended minimum group of all those that you have already, you'll be fully stocked until the tank has matured (i.e. has had it's current stock and been fully cycled ["balanced" as you put it ] for six months). Once the tank has matured, filtration permitting, you may get away with a few more, but not until the tank has matured

The Black Skirt Tetras need at least four in a group, as do the corry cat fish. If you add more Dwarf Gourami (assuming you have a male ATM), it would have to be two Females. You cannot keep two males in a tank as they will literally kill each other. Likewise, a single male and female will lead to the male killing the female I'd be inclined to leave the females Mollies without a male. Pretty though they are and nice though fry can be, 60 new fish a month will over run the tank fast (each female dropping 30 each), and they are often hard to get rid of

You ask about mollies and salt. Mollies are mainly brackish fish, so in the wild would have salt in the water. They do better with salt present. A lot of the fish you have though are salt intolerant, and will not take well to you converting to a brackish tank. It is better to leave it as only freshwater IMO

Platties can over-run a tank also, each female will drop 30 fry a month in good conditions the fry have a nasty habit of not being eaten as many hope after a few months of pulling their home bred live bearers out...

HTH
Rabbut

 

[Sunam]

By the time you have the recommended minimum group of all those that you have already, you'll be fully stocked until the tank has matured (i.e. has had it's current stock and been fully cycled ["balanced" as you put it ] for six months). Once the tank has matured, filtration permitting, you may get away with a few more, but not until the tank has matured

The Black Skirt Tetras need at least four in a group, as do the corry cat fish. If you add more Dwarf Gourami (assuming you have a male ATM), it would have to be two Females. You cannot keep two males in a tank as they will literally kill each other. Likewise, a single male and female will lead to the male killing the female I'd be inclined to leave the females Mollies without a male. Pretty though they are and nice though fry can be, 60 new fish a month will over run the tank fast (each female dropping 30 each), and they are often hard to get rid of

You ask about mollies and salt. Mollies are mainly brackish fish, so in the wild would have salt in the water. They do better with salt present. A lot of the fish you have though are salt intolerant, and will not take well to you converting to a brackish tank. It is better to leave it as only freshwater IMO

Platties can over-run a tank also, each female will drop 30 fry a month in good conditions the fry have a nasty habit of not being eaten as many hope after a few months of pulling their home bred live bearers out...

HTH
Rabbut

Interesting about the gouramis--they are sold at the store as Male Gouramis with no females available at the time. We did have two and one died but so did about 8 other fish during the literal fish fry (our heater fritzed) The tetras were originally a threesome. Our platys have yet to drop fry after 5 months. I'm hoping that was due to high pH and now things will be different. My son is really excited about the idea.

Maybe we'll add a few more platys, Gouramis and tetras and call it good. At least we know they should survive in the current conditions!

4 Cory cats?! Really!? That seems like an awful lot!

I do love the idea of the Rams. Can anyone tell me how they would work in this tank in lieu, perhaps of more tetras?

 

[rabbut]

Rams require a mature tank, at least six months up and going. Ideally they need soft water also, the opposite to your livebearers really, most of which prefer hard alkaline water

Four is the minimum group for Corries, six is actually considered better I'm soon to be getting 10-20 of them for my 80g, to join the group of about 6 existing ones....

I'd strongly advise against another gourami unless you can get two females. It's one combo I've been daft enough to try multiple times, and IME it always ends in a blood bath if they are true Dwarf Gourami. The males are very aggressive to their own kind, and out of two or three attempts, I've never had that combo work

All the best
Rabbut

 

[OldMan47]

Dwarf gourami females are never sold in the US at the bigger stores. I think they believe that people will be forced to buy their males because they can't breed their own. Being a hobbyist, not a home decorator using fish, I don't buy any fish that I have no chance to breed. For me that means a No Sale on things that are offered as males only.