Which fish should I get for this tank? (Pic posted)

[dm76]

Hello all. I haven't posted in awhile but I am ready to get some new fish. At one point, I had harlequins, black neons, cory cats, otos, 3 pearl gouramis, a bristlenose pleco, a bamboo shrimp, and tons of red cherry shrimp. As some slowly died off and were replaced, right now I have:

3 harlequins
10 cardinals and neon tetras
3 sterbai cories
1 bristlenose pleco
1 bamboo shrimp
a bunch of red cherry shrimp

When I originally got the 3 pearls, 2 died within the first month and the other one lived 4 years. I definitely want to get a couple large pretty fish again (maybe even pearls are good, or if I could get two different types of large fish that would be cool too), and probably either add more harlequins again or replace that school with something different. I love having the schooling fish like that plus a few other interesting or big fish that stand out. I just trimmed back all the plants and took a recent picture so here is what it looks like now. This is a 50 gallon tank (the 36" x 18" footprint one). Love to hear your thoughts.

 

[Mebbid]

Gourami are best kept alone or else they will usually fight with each other. I would go with a single pearl gourami.

Following that I would increase the schools of corys and harlequin rasbora to 10 each

As for another large fish, I would probably go with either a few mollies or an angel. Just be careful because angels will sometimes fight with a gourami.

 

[dm76]

Thanks for clearing that up about the pearls. I have heard mixed things where some say just 1 and some say its fine as long as there is just 1 male, but last time I ended up with 1 male and 2 females and they still seemed to chase each other around a lot. The one female is the one that ended up living. She was a pretty fish so maybe I will get another one of those. I never looked at mollies before but i just looked them up and they look pretty nice. Would angels or mollies eat the shrimp? Would it be too much to get a gourami, an angel, and some mollies? I thought about adding to the harlequins to build them up again but if just keep what i have now until they die out, what is another type of schooling fish that would go good with the tetras?

 

[fishliker]

I just want to say about the pearl gourami, I have had 3 in my 55 gallon for 6 months now, a male and 2 females. They all hang out together a lot of the time and I really enjoy watching them interact with each other. Maybe they get along so well because they all came from the same tank at the store. My only problem with them is I have to be careful to not get fish that are rowdy and fast swimmers or the pearls will tend to hide. Good luck!


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