29 gallon nano fish tank - could use stocking advice

[TXaggie]

Hi all! My 29 gallon has gone through several iterations in the last two years as I've learned more about the hobby. I'm finally happy with the direction my tank is headed, and I'm trying to finalize my stocking plan to work towards. All the fish I really love that are appropriate for my tank are nano fish. It's a low tech planted tank, and I'd like to increase the density of the planting with time.

Here's my current stock:
6 Cory harbrosus
4 Cory pygmaeus
4 (baby) mystery snails - 2 of these are going to friends when they get a bit larger
2 Negritos snails
2 African algae grazing gobies
5 threadfin rainbowfish

Over Christmas my poor rainbows got some kind of disease, I treated with a erythromycin antibiotic and I thought they'd all pull through but two of my males never recovered all the way and I lost the second one just this week. : ( Feeling a bit discouraged, even though I know how the issue came up so I'm trying to work on my plan for the long term. I'm waiting at least a few weeksto add fish to make sure the other 4 females and remaining male stay healthy. Everyone else in the he tank is doing great!

So I'd really like to up my school of rainbows to a good amount, maybe 8 or 9? Not sure what a good number would be for my size tank. But I'd like a decent school. I'm going to try adding a few cherry shrimp to the tank this week to see how they'll do.

Here's some species I'm interested in:

Australe killifish
Gardneri killifish
Endlers livebearers
Pseudomugli gertrudae
Sparkling gourami (not sure my tank is set up for them)

I'm open to suggestions, but no tetras. I had neons for a while and they bored the heck out of me. I've had zebra danios before as well and didn't want them long term either. Also, our water is in the moderate hardness so all the nano tetras need treated water and I don't really want to take on that expense.

I love the idea of killifish, but I don't know how they'd do in a community tank and all the information I can find online is about breeding setups. The australe at least seems to be fairly longlived from what I've read.

Thanks all!

 

[Brookster123]

All I can offer you is my experience with gardneri killi's, mean, def not a community fish, first night in my community 29 they de-tailed my apisto's, next night the zebra danios were missing tails.

 

[apr28]

Check out the clown killifish if you like nano sized killifish.

I am also pretty fond of dwarf pencilfish.

A few schools of nano fish along with 1 or 2 small apistos as centerpiece and some dwarf cories or loaches would make a nice 29g nano community tank.

 

[azmodan]

Here are a few suggestions:

celestial pearl danios
emerald danios
chili rasboras
clown killies
scarlet badis
peacock gudgeon

The emerald danios in particular do well in slightly harder water but all of those species will adapt fine.

 

[TXaggie]

All I can offer you is my experience with gardneri killi's, mean, def not a community fish, first night in my community 29 they de-tailed my apisto's, next night the zebra danios were missing tails.

Yikes!! Sounds like gardneris are right out then. I have seen the clown ones, but I love the brighter colored ones. Are the australe killis suitable in a community? Anyone kept them before? They do occasionally come through my LFS too.

I saw some Endlers in the store when I went to go pick up a Nerite snail for my nano today, they're pretty awesome looking in person!

Thanks for the suggestion about the Apistos, but I've been told (by my LFS) that our water is too hard for all but the basic varieties. I haven't seen too many pencilfish, what are they like?

 

[TXaggie]

Here are a few suggestions:

celestial pearl danios
emerald danios
chili rasboras
clown killies
scarlet badis
peacock gudgeon

The emerald danios in particular do well in slightly harder water but all of those species will adapt fine.

Thanks for the suggestions, azmo!

I have seen emerald danios from time to time at the LFS, and I like the look of the chili rasoboras. Maybe I should take another look at the clown killies, they keep coming up on recommendations....

Would some Endlers plus another of the species be too much?

 

[azmodan]

Thanks for the suggestions, azmo! I have seen emerald danios from time to time at the LFS, and I like the look of the chili rasoboras. Maybe I should take another look at the clown killies, they keep coming up on recommendations.... Would some Endlers plus another of the species be too much?

Nah you could do some endlers and a nice group of, say, emerald rasboras (or emerald danios, as some people call them -- I've heard both) or clown killies. Just know that if you get male and female endlers you will undoubtedly end up with fry. One thing to know about the clown killies is that they're top dwellers (much like the many dwarf blue eyed rainbow species') so they'll spend most of their time hovering near the surface waiting for insects to land on the water. They're known to be jumpers but I've never had that experience with one yet, although my surface is covered in dwarf water lettuce and frogbit, which they also greatly appreciate. The emerald rasboras and CPDs will likely spend most of their time among any plants/decor you have as they are quite timid, but the more you have the less timid they will be. The clown killies on the other hand are not timid at all, as any time I am near their tank they follow me around waiting to be fed. For that reason they are actually one of my favorite fish to take photos of, although it's sometimes not easily to get them to sit still. I currently have a group of clown killies in a heavily planted 10 gallon along with some emerald rasboras, a scarlet badis, shrimp, 2 otos, and a baby apistogramma cacatuoides and everyone gets along very well. Keep in mind that while the clown killies are not as colorful as some of their other cousins they are still quite stunning when fully grown and quite an unusual looking fish at that. When their colorful tails are fully grown they are a magnificent looking fish. Google some pics/vids of them!

 

[Mebbid]

Assuming you stock the australes at 1m to 2f they are good tank mates for almost any fish. They can become slightly aggressive when there is only one in the tank. Mine never caused as much destruction as the gardneris that were mentioned earlier but on the rare occasion I would see him nip at one of my male guppies or try to breed with the female guppies.

 

[Coursair]

I love my CPDs
I would up your stock on the Cories.
At least 6 or more of each if you can. The tiny Cories thrive in large groups plus the habrosus are more bottom dwellers while pygmaeus and hastatus are more mid level swimmers and love leaves to perch on.

I really enjoy my Threadfins. Lovely fish.

 

[Malupoo]

I would just go 10 Cory hasborsus. Bigger the school the better. They really are a lovely fish and so active.
Mine spend time all over the tank.
They look awesome when they all line up together like parked cars.

 

[TXaggie]

Thanks for all the ideas! Mebbid, I'm glad to have someone chime in that has kept australe killies. It does sound like they'll do find as long as I can stock them properly. I may or may not add more corys, mine are really active all over the tank. 3 of my harbrosus are really big (like over an inch) and they definitely rule the catfish in the tank. : )

So after everyone's advice, I think I'm looking at something like this for a final goal stock:

2 algae grazing gobies
7-10 cory harbrosus
4 Cory pygmaeus
7 threadfin rainbowfish (3 male 4 female)
6 Endlers livebearers
6 CPDs or other micro rasbora species
3 lyretail killies (1 male 2 female)
2 mystery snail
2 nerite snail
However many cherry shrimp I can fit

The only issue I'm seeing is that aquadvisor is saying I'm at 103% stocked without my gobies on the list (it doesn't seem to have anything equivalent on the listing). How accurate do ya'll feel it is for nano fish? My tank is moderately planted and I'd like to up the number of stems and increase the density of the planting over time. I can post a photo later today of the current state if it helps. If it is really accurate I should probably drop either the Endlers or the micro rasboras.....

I'm excited about how this tank is going to look complete!

Edit: drat, Azmo, you're making it hard for me to decide between clown killies and lyretail killies! At least the stocking 'weight' seems to be the same for 3 lyretail or 5 clown...

 

[TXaggie]

Here's a current photo to give an idea of what I'm saying by moderately planted.

 

[TXaggie]

I came across some Endlers at Petsmart and couldn't resist, they were only 2.40 each! So now my tank stock is as follows:

5 threadfin rainbowfish (1 male 4 female)
6 cory harbrosus
3 cory pygmaeus
2 sicydium algae grazing gobies
4 male Endlers (2 are hybrid cobra)
4 baby mystery snails
2 nerite snails
4 cherry shrimp

The Endlers are pretty awesome, although the two wild type tend to spend a lot of time swimming up and down one side of the tank. They also like to swim by the female threadfins, which is hilarious since they're only half the size...

Also added some bacopa carolina that I found at Petsmart sold in a tissue culture package.


Besides the update, what I'm hoping to find out is an opinion on whether adding the following would be too much stock in a moderately planted tank:

2 threadfin rainbows (male)
6 danio erythromicron
3 Lyretail killifish (1 male, 2 female)
3 cory habrosus
More red cherry shrimp!

Edit: forgot my nerites on my stock list

 

[Coursair]

It's best to leave a buffer and under stock a bit. Or if anything happens things can go wrong much faster. IME

 

[TXaggie]

It's best to leave a buffer and under stock a bit. Or if anything happens things can go wrong much faster. IME

Too true...I guess I'll just assume aquadvisor is close to correct then. There's just too many cool fish!!