Hi from Alabama! I have never kept fish before, and I've mostly been waiting on my tank to get established right now. I'm seeing some good biofilm growth on some of the hardscape. No fish yet, and my recent discovery of how hard my water is kind of threw me off my original plans on what to stock it with.
I've got a 75 gallon with the hardness about 12-13 dGH, and a pH on the higher end. I was originally thinking guppies, neocaridina shrimp, and kuhli loaches. Since it's a 75 I could go with "bigger" fish, but I really wanted to get some good schooling going on with a lot of little ones. From my understanding, the water hardness would prevent the Kuhli Loaches from being too happy, and the shrimp requirement really seems to limit what other fish could go in here. I do think I want some live-bearers though, and they should do okay in the hard water, but I'm open to suggestions. Does anyone have thoughts on stocking this?