Stocking a new 40 gallon

[p1k4chu]

Hi guys!

I'm pretty new to keeping aquariums, so far I have a healthy planted 10 gallon with neons, otos, shrimp and pygmy cories. In a few weeks I will be getting a 40 gallon for my birthday so I was looking into stocking ideas. I've played with aqadvisor for a while just trying things out but the numbers I'm using make me feel like it would be more overstocked than the site is telling me.

So far I've 'planned':
10 pygmy cories
5 clown kili
5 endler
10 cherry barbs
5 oto
1 golden ram
1 pearl gourami

Ideally I'd like to transfer the 6 cories and 6 green neon I have in my 10 gallon and fill in the remainder for the schools listed above. On aqadvisor it tells me the ram is too aggressive for the neons but I'm wondering if I add to the size of their school would they be more secure without destroying my bioload? Or is this plan just a mess to start with? Any help or suggestions are appreciated! I like a lot of the small shoaling fish but the larger, more aggressive fish are so pretty and interesting I'd like to give them a shot as features.

 

[FWFishTanks]

Looks like a good stock to me

 

[sinibotia]

Your stock looks great! A few small notes:

A solo ram isn't going to cause any trouble with any of your fish. Make sure you have a good source for rams as even advanced fishkeepers can struggle with some of the lower quality mass-bred imports. Also, add the ram and the gourami last just to be sure.