More stocking advice needed!

[Monzie]

Hey all!

We recently made some new additions to our 27 gal cube. We now have 8 harlequin rasboras, 5 false julii cories, a 2-spot gourami (wanted a pearl gourami but that's what the oh-so-helpful dude at the LFS bagged up for me...d'oh), and several snails. Everyone seems to be getting along. The gourami is still a little shy but her color has perked up since we brought her home. The cories are busy. And the rasboras seem unphased by their new roommates. The next order of business is to add another small school of something hardy and peaceful, so I'm hoping to get some stocking advice. We're leaning toward getting 8 to 10 danios or neon tetras. We still have plenty of filter capacity, according to Aquarium Advisor. I just want to make sure we won't be driving our gourami nuts with a tank full of busy little fish. Also, the rasboras seem to prefer the top/middle of the tank, so if either the danios or the neons would be more apt to hang out in the mid/lower levels of the tank, that would probably help keep the peace. Thoughts?

 

[Brookster123]

What are the dimensions of the tank?? Danios are nonstop fish.. Need plenty of swim space, neons would be my choice..

 

[Monzie]

Its a cube and I think its 20 by 20 by 20. Plenty roomy and there are lots of good hiding places but there isn't any one really long dimension if there were fish who needed to swim distances.

 

[captaincritical]

Neons would be better suited to your tank dimensions, I think. Though I'd go with cardinals over neons for both hardiness and colour. Lots of other tetras you could choose from, also!

 

[Coursair]

I think your Gourami might turn into a bully. Your tank is very small for a big Gourami. All the 3 Spot Gouramis tend to be mean, esp if they are males.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_spot_gourami

2 spot Gourami I've never heard of. A Pearl would be too large for your tank as well. Take back the 3 spot and get a Dwarf Gourami, that's my advice.




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[Coursair]

What species are your Cories ?
False julii covers about 5 lookalike species. Terrible common name btw.

Are they C trilineatus ? Three Lined Cories ? That's the most common in my area. They aren't a false anything ?



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[Monzie]

We had a dwarf gourami in the tank originally but it died of what we're fairly sure was iridovirus. That was a huge bummer that we didn't want to revisit so we opted for a gourami that wasn't susceptible to that virus. Pretty sure our new gourami is an adult female and she seems okay in there so far. I plan to keep an eye on her though. And the cories? Who knows?? Our LFS isn't particularly helpful in that regard. (Which is why they sold me the wrong type of gourami...) Our cories are still quite tiny. They are white with many dark spots, a single stripe along the midline, and a black tip on their dorsal fin.

Tonight, we got ten neons and they're acclimating to the quarantine tank right now. We had cardinals last year but lost ALL of them within three days of buying them. I have since read that they are more temperamental so I'm leery of that variety.

 

[Coursair]

Is your new Gourami 4-6" ? If not she isn't an adult. 3 spots aren't small.


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[Monzie]

I'd say she's close to 4". She's much larger than the juvenile 2-Spot/3-Spot/Blue Gouramis I saw at the big box pet store the other day. Ours is easily twice the size of those and much larger than our dwarf was. I'm not seeing her chasing any of her tank mates. She was in much closer quarters with the cories when they were all in the QT together and she seemed to ignore them. We've had the rasboras for more than a year so they are well established in the main tank. They got along fine with out old dwarf gourami and don't seem bothered by the new one. She's only been in there for a day, though, so she's still pretty skittish. But I didn't see any squabbling at feeding time. And she seems to have claimed an area in the back corner where the rasboras rarely visit, so hopefully that will help. I'll keep an eye out for any signs of trouble and bring her back to the LFS, if need be.

But I'm sort of at a loss about what fish would be more appropriate in our tank. I get a lot of conflicting advice and, as I said, the folks at our LFS aren't very helpful either. Clearly, a 27 gallon tank should be able to house more than eight rasboras and some snails. I understand that the shape of our tank limits us a bit more than if we had a rectangular tank of the same capacity. But we had a specific space that was available. If we didn't buy the cube, we could only have fit a conventional 10 gallon in that spot. So anyway. We have the biggest tank we can reasonably accommodate. Now we just need to work with what we have...

 

[Coursair]

Some ideas...not adding all these of course
Threadfin Rainbows
Otos
Amano Shrimp
Lemon Tetras
Glowlight Tetras
Male Guppy
Etc.

Add some live plants and you'll be set.



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