Adding in loaches and barbs

[cee219]

Right now in an established 55 gallon I have

5 "large spotted" (Juli I think) cories
4 zebra danios
1 female Sword tail
3 female platys
1 small Bristlenose Pleco
5 Mystery snails

And then I have small/medium 2 ST fry and 3 Platy fry all of which look like they will survive

The tank right now is pretty understocked. I really want to look into getting more fish. I have a really bad ramhorn snail problem, it doesn't hurt anything, but kind of just gets annoying. I've read up on clownloaches long before the problem and was always interested in getting them. Do you think I would have enough room for a school of three?

I also was going to look into maybe getting some tiger barbs? I really think they are a beautiful fish and would like to make them one of the last fish that I add. Think I would have room to add a school of clowns and tiger barbs?

 

[SerLunchbox]

I would love to tell you no problem but you will experience a few things with clow loaches and those fish.

1) expect loss of fish from hungry loaches.
2) don't expect fry to live because of hungry loaches.
3) a school of loaches may become too much of a bioload for your tanks filters.

I personally have one loach in my 50 gallon and he is happy. I did have more and the only thing i noticed in changes was that my current loach was a bit more sociable where there were other loaches. Not a major difference though.

As for tiger barbs, do expect them to get fairly agressive with the current occupants of the tank. They will almost most definately start to chase and kill the other fish in your tank. They are quite agressive and have personally eliminated some fish that used to be of similar size to those that you keep.