Stocking 29G - Already has GloFish, Corys, and one Guppy

[nyyfan]

I am starting this thread today because I am interested in hearing different opinions on stocking my 29 gallon fish tank. I'm sorry if I give way too much, or even way too little background info, I'm just trying to give the best info for my current tank situation

Here's a little background, water quality is good, and temp is kept between 75-76 (NEVER lower than 74) and try to do a good water change (25%) weekly. I have an Aqueon QuietFlow 30 filter, with a pre filter sponge around the intake due to some issues with guppies (will explain more lower) I clean the sponge regularly so it does not "gunk" up and inhibit filtering. This particular tank has been set up about 60 days. It has plants, air stone, and a good amount of shelter.

In this tank I currently have...
4 Peppered Corys (one has been with me 5 years, through 3 tanks, the other 3 have been with me about 6 months)
5 glofish and 1 "regular" zebra danio (two who have been with me 3 years, through 3 tanks and the others have been with me under a year)
One male Lyretail guppy with a shorter than average tail (he has been in the tank about a month.)

I am looking for new fish options because my boyfriend has recently taken an interest in the tank, we upgraded to the 29 gallon tank from a 20 so we could add some more fish without over stocking. Because of my boyfriends new found interest in the tank I took him to the LFS and asked him which fish he liked. He picked out everything from Clown Loaches to Redtail Sharks to Guppies to "24 Karat" mollies, so I broke down which fish would fit best in our tank based on aggression levels, activity levels, temperature and pH compatibility, etc. Then after doing some online research I narrowed it down and decided we would add a few fancy guppies. Well, the guppies didn't go so well, we have now lost 4 different guppies, 2 seemed to just die on there own, one was sucked in to the filter with in hours of putting him in the tank (I totally over looked the long tails and the filter sucking possibility-my fault, I felt awful) and only one is still in the tank while he seems very happy and swims around with the Danio/GloFish, I feel bad like he might want a buddy of his own kind, but I just can't seem to keep the things alive!

We like colorful bright fish in the top and mid of our tank (one reason we went with Fancy Guppies) I would love some advice/opinions on what you all think would be good, colorful types of fish to add to our tank...

Thanks in advance!!

 

[jetajockey]

Welcome to the forum. Have you tested your water parameters? When did you upgrade tanks? A healthy fish does not normally get stuck to a filter intake, long fins or not. It sounds like there is something else going on in the tank. Were the new additions getting bullied at all? How did the stock at the LFS look?

 

[nyyfan]

At the LFS the stock seemed pretty active, oddly enough, the one who is still with us we jokingly called "the dud." He very easily let himself get scooped up while the others were a little feistier, or as feisty as they can be kept in overstocked environments. They all seemed healthy.

They did not seem bullied by the others, but I am not actively watching my tank 24/7 either and I have thought perhaps one or all of the Danios/GloFish bullied them. Although I never saw it actually happening. As I stated, one guppy is doing just fine in the group, and I'm fine leaving him alone if he doesn't need other Guppies with him.

As for the water I test it every two weeks, basically between every other water change. I keep the water pH between 6.8-7.0 and always have because of the Danios. I went from a 20gallon to a 29gallon roughly 60 days ago, and added guppies after a month.

 

[librarygirl]

So I'm assuming there's 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and some nitrate, right? How are you adjusting the PH? Using PH adjusters are generally a bad idea; the fish will adapt to your natural PH and trying to adjust it can cause fluctuations which can be bad for the fish. How did you acclimate the new fish?

 

[nyyfan]

Yes to the zeros. As for the pH I do not use any chemicals to keep the pH where it is. My tap water pH is pretty high, so I balance it out with bottled water. That's why I said "I keep it at..." No pH chemicals go in to my tank.

I didn't acclimate them as I normally do, I normally have a second tank set up and let them live there for a couple of weeks. However, that was when I was living at my parents and had more room for tanks. My 29 gallon was newly set up (about a month) so I took them from the store to this tank in about a 24 hour or so period. I took the bag they came in, floated it in a bowl of tank water, slowly adding tank water (not from bowl) to the bag. Then I put them in a small 5 gallon tank (with the tank water from my 29 in it) and then moved them over to the 29 the next day. I'll be honest, I have no idea if this is a good or bad way to go about things. Two friends have 55+ gallon tanks at home, one has 4 tanks so I went to them for advice and this it what it was. All guppies seemed to exhibit normal behavior before entering the 29 gallon-2 exhibited normal behavior right up until their death. The one who was sucked in to the filter obviously didn't exhibit normal behavior.