50 gallon stock list

[aoessand]

Was wondering if these guys will be ok together;

Red Ramshorns Snails <already have them, roughly 15>

6-10 Balloon red-eye tetra

6-10 Neon tetra

1-4 Blue mickey mouse platys

1-2 Boesemani Rainbow

1-2 Red Irian Rainbow
I defiantly want at least 1 of each Rainbow

1 Bushy nose plec (maybe)

2-6 Skunk Cory Cat OR Panda Cory cat OR Peppered Cory cat OR Albino Cory Cat

1-4 Siamese algae eater IF i can find the real thing havent been able to yet.

Will these guys work ok together, is that too many fish? My tank has a good amount of plants around 10 but they are smallish atm im hopping they grow bigger, i have 2 good size pieces of drift wood one on each side.

Water specs

Ammonia 0

Nitrites 0

Nitrates will be below 20 ( still doing water changes i was waaaaaay off the chart from fishless cycle)

PH 8.2 dropped to 8.0 when i put the driftwood in but has since rebounded and has been 8.2 for last few days.

Temp stays 75-80 havent got it dialed in 100% yet and i dont have central air also i live in so cal so it does move up and down a bit but the heater does keep it above 75.

Equipment
2 Marineland 350
1 two outlet air pump
1 150watt Aqueon Pro Heater

I plan to do 1 PWC a week in the range of 20-50%, I do not want to have to do more than 1 a week so if thats too many fish for 1 PWC a week tell me what has to go or maybe lesser numbers.

Think thats about it if i missed anything please ask.

 

[Mumma.of.two]

Looks fine except rainbows are like tetras. They need to have schools of their own kind. I would up the schools and ditch one of the tetra schools or just stick to one kind of rainbow so you can have a proper school.

 

[aoessand]

Aww dang well would say 3 of two of the different Rainbows be ok and lower the other tetra schools to 6 each work or is that too much? Also the Rainbows are rather expensive to me at least (15+ per fish) so if i have to have a school thats going to be a problem . Could you recommend any other COLORFUL fish that could be a center piece?

 

[Mumma.of.two]

Some would say 3 is fine but IMO they really need larger groups. If you really have your heart set on them, what about:
6 red eyes
8 neons
5 boesemani
5 red irain
1 maybe 2 plays
1 bn pleco
6 pandas (because they are smaller than the others)
2 SAE
IMO that would be fully stocked.
Just because you did a fish less cycle doesn't mean you have to stock everything at once. You could start off with one school of rainbows and stock the other in a few months.

 

[aoessand]

Ok how about:

6 red eyes
8 neons
2 platys 1 bn pleco
6 pandas
2 SAE <dont know if i can even find them, ive looked at prolly 10 dif stores non looked like what ive seen online>
5 of one type of rainbow
2-5 Dwarf Gouramis <not sure if they would work with the other fish but they have very nice colors, i can not afford 2 schools of rainbows thats just too much money and ive already invested alot in this tank>

 

[Mumma.of.two]

Personally I wouldn't keep more than one DG in a tank but have heard of others having great success with 3+ males.

 

[aoessand]

oK thank you very much for the info, i will probably get the 6 neons 8 eyes tomorrow or the next day, they are the cheapest lol. is it ok to add the rest in steps? And would it be ok to buy say 2-3 rainbows at once then buy the other 2-3 at a later day <2 weeks apart maybe, lol pay day> or should all 5-6 be bought the same day?

 

[Mumma.of.two]

Buying them like that is fine. After a few weeks the massive bacteria colony grown during a fishless cycle will have shrunk to accommodate to the smaller bioload so adding them in steps is safer.

 

[aoessand]

Awesome i cant wait hopefully tomorrow my nitrates will be around 10 and i can get some fish lol. I've only been doing 1 water change a day is it ok to do more than 1 in same day, maybe 1 in the morning and 1 at night?

 

[Mumma.of.two]

You can do them back to back even right down to the gravel as long as you fill up with temp matched dechlorinator water.

 

[aoessand]

I coulda been done already! ROFL ok well thanks again for all your advice i promise to post some pictures soon as i have fish in! ive done 3 water changes but only 1 down to the gravel so the next one will def be to the gravel again hopefully that gets me where i need to be and i can get fish tomorrow.

 

[Mumma.of.two]

Good luck! Waiting patently for pictures

 

[librarygirl]

Congrats, your tank sounds like it's going to be very lively. You might want to do a youtube search for drip acclimation; it's the best way to acclimate fish to a new tank. Post pics when you get them and good luck!

 

[aoessand]

Sadly no fish today didn't get python till late did bucket method in the morning lol glad I won't have to do that again. lol tomorrow will be fish day I hope...

 

[aoessand]

Well I've done all I can do I've change the water so many times today 3 100% changes a couple of partials to clean the filter media. Changed air tubing, cleaned the Bio wheels when I did the filter media as well as scrubbed the walls in the tank it's cleaner than its ever been lol. Now for the bad news, after all the changes I was still seeing high nitrates so I tested my tap water at different places in the house they are all the same 5-20 if I hold the tube to light bulb it's 5-10 if I just look at it normal distance it's between 10-20... Is that still too high? I don't want to buy fish just to kill them from nitrates...

 

[aoessand]

First bunch in 3 Mickey mouse platys 10 red eye tetras