30 Gal Recommendations

[Pete1980]

Hi! I'm new and hope this is in the right place...

I have a 30 Gallon "Half Moon" with 8 Glofish and 8 Neon Tetras.

I don't want to add many more fish to my tank, so everyone has room. I'd like to see if there are any recommendations of fish that I could add. Are there any that would help with maintenance (catfish?) or a recommendation or a fish that's ok alone and that will compliment the color I have with the others?

Should I just get 2-3 more Neon's since they like larger groups?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Pete1980]

Also, I would like to add some real plants but have no idea what's best for a beginner.

 

[tamtam]

You have a ton of options for tank mates for glofish and neons. They are both very peaceful fish and great for the community tanks.

The half moon tank doesn't have a great footprint so it limits some options but you still have some great ones.

You could do a nice center piece fish like a gwarf gourami. There are several types - honey, sunset, neon blue, powder blue, flame all have very nice coloring.

A few livebearers, like platy or guppies. Again very colorful. They make good use of all levels of the tank too. Remember if you go with both male and female than you need at least 2 females to 1 male because they are known to hassle the females.

You could do a bristle nose pleco or a school of small corys like peppered or pygmy. Snails are also a clean up crew options.

As for plants some good beginer plants are water sprite, java fern and moss, most cryps and anubias. The success of this depends on your lighting though. There are mostly lower light plants but sometimes the standard lighting that comes with most tanks isn't enough to promote growth. You may get away with them surviving but I would expect a lot of new growth without an upgrade to lighting and possibly ferts.

 

[Pete1980]

Thanks for the recommendations!

Would it be too much to get 6 fancy guppies (2 male, 4 female) and 2-3 peppered cory?

I don't want an overcrowding situation!

I'm going to price out some lighting options. The Aquarium came with an LED light, mostly white with 4 blue LEDs. It fits into a groove on the clear top for the aquarium. Depending on the cost of lights, I may delay adding plants. If I tried a low-light plant and it died, would it be devastating to my water chemistry and stressful on the fish?

I'd like to end up with a more natural display using plants, rocks and driftwood rather than fake plants and roman columns.