Shrimp, snails, and fish suggestions

[NYgiantsRP]

My girlfriend wanted a corner cabinet in our dinning room, and so I made her a deal, if I made it I could put a tank in it. So I am making a custom triangle aquarium. It will be 22" tall and the face will be 32". It will be about 20gallons. I have had tanks for over 5 years with just fish with great success and Im expanding my boundaries. I have read and read and I don't seem to be getting my answers. I am looking for a nice mix. I want fish, snails, and shrimp. I am going to have lots of plants, two nice sized pieces of driftwood, and a rock formation. What kind would you recommend, how many? Be as detailed and creative as you want. I am up for any and all suggestions. Thanks, and i will be posting pics soon.

[MABJ]

Very cool. Let us know how the building process goes.

Here is my suggestion for you for a 'sustainable' population of shrimp, fish and snails.

Start with your base: Plants. You definitely need plants if you want to keep shrimp.

I'd do a lot of moss, driftwood, anubias, column plants, maybe some filling ones like wisteria and such. You can do a little more research for that on your own lol.

Then a sustainable population of shrimp? If you're just starting out, I'd honestly start with neocardinia species. If the tank will be heavily filtered? I'd rule out orange shrimp. The prettiest and easiest shrimp, which will keep a population, is some variety of Red Cherry Shrimp. You'll be very happy with how interesting they are, especially if you keep some kind of drift wood.

More inverts? Another sustainable population would be, my favorite, Dwarf Cajun Crayfish. Very peaceful and modest breeder which will feed on detritus and stuff like that at the bottom.

MORE inverts? You'll obviously get pond snails, but I'd recommend 4 horned/zebra nerite snails. Although they wont reproduce, you'll be set for a few years with them. I'd also add Ramshorn snails. They're SO HELPFUL. They keep my tank so clean and they don't reproduce QUITE like pond snails.

Fish... This is difficult because you want to keep inverts and most fish will just eat them right up. SO it limits your fish a little, but in all reality, opens your choices up even more.

I'd say do two varieties of micro rasboras in large schools. Maybe 30 overall rasboras, of two different species. Chili and Exclamation point would be awesome looking.

Lastly, I'd say get about 6-12 peppered corys. Or even more Corydoras Hasboreas/Pygmaeus instead.

That'd make a pretty banging tank, in my opinion. And other than feeding every few days, if you're heavily planted, it will be pretty sustainable. And you'll probably never have to purchase fish for the tank again. Each species, minus the corys and nerites, will breed.

[Paulcm10]

you pretty much described what i plan on doing with my 20g tank.
i plan on having driftwood with christmas moss attached to it, i want some rocks and maybe put a different kind of moss on them, also my tank will be planted.
I do plan on having fish, snails and shrimps with mine.
as for fish i am ordering some Celestial Pearl Danios, my snails would be Malaysian Trumpet Snails, shrimps would be bamboo or Carribean filter shrimp (if i can find one), i will also have Red cherry shrimps.

my plan is after i get my cycling out of the way i will get my RCS and MTS put in and make sure my RCS are breeding. then i'll bring in my CPDs.
CPDs might eat some of my baby shrimps but at least i know my shrimps will breed and still thrive. so mainly you can have all three but you just gotta do some research .

[Coursair]

An example of a mixed tank...

my 10g Shrimp Jungle