Stocking a 55G with tetras

[AdamHorton]

It's almost time for me to stock my 55G tank, I got my first sign that my fishless cycle is done and this weekend I'm planning to get fish! Here's the plan:

The concept for this tank is to have a few large schools of tetras, and one or two larger, more aggressive fish to keep them in their schools and be "showpiece" fish. Also, I have a 20G planted tank with some fish in it that will be moving to the larger 55G tank because I have some plans for that planted tank.

Here's the stock list for the 20G, which is the "required" stock for the 55G.

4 Neon Tetras
4 Black Neon Tetras
1 Orange GloFish (zebra danio). His name is Torpedo.

I realize that danios like to be in groups. There used to be a group of danios, but at one point I decided that I wanted to just keep tetras, so I haven't been replacing them as they gradually die. I got this danio over two years ago and he seems happy swimming around and pestering the tetras. He's just gonna get a nice upgrade to a bigger, more awesome "retirement home"

For the showpiece fish, I've been trying to get a hold of some Electric Blue Rams. I'll know for sure tonight, but I think I'll be getting a male and a female and there's a chance that they will mate, but we'll see.

So that brings me to my ultimate question: how many tetras can I have to reasonably stock this tank?

I suppose filtration and substrate are important in this equation: I'm running an AC110 filter and I have 40 lbs of Tahitian Moon Sand as substrate.

I'm obviously going to have a school of neon tetras, maybe even one school of regular neons and one school of black neons. Other types of tetras I'm looking at are "yellow neon tetras" that my LFS has, Glowlight tetras, Ember tetras (if I can find any). Mostly those that will stay about an inch long.

I was thinking 50 or 60 tetras total, maybe 2-3 schools of 20-30 each. Too many? Maybe I should have more? I realize the rules for this are approximate. I'm hoping I can get a variety of opinions and sort of take the median of all of them...

 

[James_in_MN]

You should easily be able to go with 16-20 each of the neon and black neon tetras in that size tank. I don't know if I'd go much beyond 20 of one school if you plan on having multiple types of schooling fish.

I believe that glowlight tetras are similar to neon tetras and will probably school with them; not sure if that's what you're after with the third school or not. Ember tetras may do their own thing and not school with the others.

Three schools of 20 fish would be too much in my opinion. With your tank, I'd probably be more tempted to have two large schools (16-20) of tetras with maybe a shoaling fish (like a group of 6 peaceful barbs) and a couple of centerpieces (a pair of rams and some other centerpiece fish). I'd probably go lighter on the schools too, tending toward 16 rather than 20 fish in one or both of the schools.