Room for cories in my

[libertybelle]

I have a 55 gallon running with:
6 tiger barbs
7 white skirt tetras
20 rummy nose tetras
5 otos and
2 nerite snails.

I think panda cories are adorable and I’d love to have something in the tank that utilizes the floor space. I usually use shrimp as a clean up crew and to add activity to the bottom but in this tank they’d be dinner for the barbs. (Learned from experience unfortunately. Hadn’t had a problem with them eating shrimp so I got 24 ghost shrimp for this tank. They were fine for a while. One day they realized ghost shrimp were delicious. In a week I stopped seeing shrimp. I think there’s a few hidden in the plant jungle but not many!)

Thoughts on a half dozen or so panda cories in here?

The tank is densely planted and at the current stocking level I never see more than 0-5 nitrate, usually 0. The plants suck it all up. I usually have to dose nitrogen in this tank for the plants.

[libertybelle]

I’d also love to have cories around for cleaning up after the rather messy fish up top. But on the other hand, the barbs and tetras are voracious eaters. Since my plants suck up all the nitrogen I can throw at them, I overfeed the tank a bit to make sure the rummies are able to compete. I can’t imagine a panda cory being able to find and compete for a bottom feeder wafer before the barbs swoop in and gobble it up like the greedy jerks they are!

Any experience with keeping cories with barbs together? Are they able to compete for food, or is there enough left after the barbs eat from the surface to keep them happy and healthy!?

[charliebankston]

I have corys and tiger barbs together in a 65g. I don't see them interact at all, since they occupy different levels like you said. I think 6 corys would be a great addition to that tank. I have them in several of mine and I love them. Your tank could handle that, np