Tazalanche

Unless you did male only, I'd shy away from live-bearers, or shrimp, due to overpopulation in time. I'll add my vote for chili rasboras. I have a school of 47 in a 55 gallon with shrimp, pygmy cories and some other nano fish. For such a small fish, they're very personable & are always in the top third of the tank, checking things out any time something changes inside or outside of the tank.

During my years of breeding and raising discus, a bare bottom 20 gallon high tank and a seeded sponge filter were my go to for each of the quarantine tanks. That would comfortably hold an adult pair, or a handful of younger ones, & not "break the bank" on med costs. It's simple and easily bleachable if things do not work out.

@jwcarlson nailed it. None of your current fish would thrive in a tank set up for discus, unless the cories are sterbai. Either the current fish couldn't handle the higher temperature long term or they would become discus food.

Give them more time to get comfortable with their new surroundings, but also keep an eye on the loner, in case it's not eating or something else is wrong with it. Even if more would make the primary 5 more comfortable, I wouldn't add more until you know everyone you currently have is okay.

A big box store employee is welcome to provide their unsolicited advice & opinion to me. However, if I tell them what I want & they tell me I am limited on the quantity I can purchase based on their opinion, they just initiated a request for a conversation with their manager to override them or they just lost that entire sale & possibly any future business. That being said, I'm much less rigid with an LFS. Her head would have exploded if she saw my last Aqua Huna pygmy cory order (March 06, 2023), that all went into a 20 gallon quarantine tank that was bone dry the day before. When I woke up at 5:45am, I filled the tank, added Seachem Safe, tossed in a cycled sponge filter and set the temp on the heater. At 10 AM the following was delivered & were fully acclimated in the 20 before noon: Featherfin Rainbow Fish = 6 Blue Velvet Shrimp = 16 Golden Blue Eye Longfin Bushy Nose Pleco (1.0"-1.5") = 2 Pygmy Cory = 24 Sterbai Cory = 8 They went through Cory's recommended med trio QT process & after a month with no losses, the sterbai were moved to my 135 gallon, while everyone else went into a 55 gallon with a few hundred nanofish & neocaridina shrimp in it. The 55 has an Eheim 2217 canister filter & that same sponge filter on it, but here we are 13 months later & they're still doing fine.

Same here. I've been using Seachem Safe for well over a decade on 20 gallon to 135 gallon tanks. I just put a 1/4 teaspoon of safe in a plastic cup of tank water, stir & pour it in right when I start to refill the tank during a water change.

Nice @EricksonAquatics! Our family raised & rode horses up until April 2020, when we sold the last two of our mares because our health & work no longer allowed us to ride them daily, or at least weekly.

We love the outdoors, but my biggest hobby is gaming... be it newer video games, retro video games, card games, board games, or tabletop games. It's a close battle between gaming or fishkeeping on which hits the wallet harder. LOL Here's a portion of our games.

Especially if it is falling off the check valves, "hand me down" airline is not cost efficient. Spend the couple bucks for new airline & you'll have less worries about draining your tank into the floor.

Both are very resilient species. For over a decade I've raised and bred neocaridina in the equivalency of liquid rock at 7.6 ph (old house) & 6.4 ph (since 2021) with chili rasboras in their tanks. I added 2 pounds of crushed coral to their substrate in a 55 gallon during initial setup & toss in a wonder shell whenever the current one dissolves & the mixed color colony is still thriving, with 45+ chili rasboras, 30+ pygmy cories, & CPDs ( lost count), plus a pair of threadfins. I have another neo colony (blue only) in a 20 with pygmy cories & treat it the same way (1 pound of crushed coral under their substrate). As with many non-wild caught freshwater species, stability is more important than how they lived in the wild. I don't see an issue with their water being at the same mixture as your other tanks... as long as they get the calcium & other minerals they need to thrive.

I did the med trio a little over a year ago in a 20 gallon and still have all of those chilis (now in a 55).

Due to plants I don't like anymore, I'm constantly (every 6 months or so) making changes to my 135, but here's its current state.

As someone that raised & bred discus for about 5 years in both bare bottom and high tech planted setups, Lennie's recommendation to go to simplydiscus is what I'd recommend too. Granted, I haven't been there in ages, but when I did go there daily, they were very helpful to those that were polite AND would take their advice. Knowledge of standard tropical fish care is a good starting point, but caring for discus can be a challenge. Adding the upkeep and maintenance of a well planted high tech setup can increase that significantly. I cannot say anything beneficial about the places you purchased from. I will say when it comes to buying discus, discounts are not something I'd look for. Unless you are buying from someone local, go for the sellers with decades of good reputation. Even then, they're quite an investment, so quarantine, quarantine, quarantine... with meds, not just observation. Aquarium Co-op has done a few videos of the seller that I'd recommend too, but since they're not an official online recommendation of here, I'm not sure I can say their name. Search for discus on this company's YouTube page and that seller should be listed. Good luck!

You'll be surprised. I put 10 shrimp in this 20 gallon a year ago. For the last 3 months, I run a net through it monthly & move a few dozen to my 55 gallon nano fish tank.

Unless you are specially intending to breed them, they'll be fine at those initial temps you were told. I've had L144 ancistrus (blue eyed lemon, albino, & marbled) breed like rabbits in temps ranging from 68-88 since 2012.

I don't think you'll have a problem with pygmy cories breeding around any of those micro rasboras, but if you want info from someone that has them, I can provide some experience. I have a 55 gallon with 48 boraras brigittae (aka chili rasboras), 40+ celestial pearl danio, 40+ emerald dwarf rasboras, a threadfin rainbow pair, way too many ramshorn snails, & a colony of neocaridina shrimp. The 12 pygmy cories I put in there last January (with 8 more in March, to spread the bloodlines) are now a school of easily over 60. I've had schools of brigittae for almost 10 years & they're my favorite of the nano fish. They school VERY well, while the other nano fish do their own thing. They'll regularly swim up to me, while I'm cleaning the tank, to see what I'm doing. As the CPD & emerald dwarf rasboras die off from old age, I'll just get more brigittae.

Die. How rude!

I want a 250 gallon for everything that's currently in the 135, plus another 100-200 cardinal tetras. Then I can set up the 135 as a nano tank. Nothing larger than 2" fully grown, but over 100 in some of the schools. I'm currently doing that in a 55 with up to 50 of each school (chili rasboras, pygmy cories, CPDs & emerald dwarf rasboras), plus a colony of neocaridina shrimp.

Until you get to the big ones. I just can't commit to the price of a 250 gallon or larger, no matter how much I want one. I'll just have to keep settling for my 135 being our largest.

I have had those on all of my Eheim canister filters for 8-10 years. Aside from the typical reduction of what ends up in the filters, they're great for reducing the possibility of fry ending up in the canisters. I have 2 sets per canister & swap them out every week. About 18-24 months, I buy replacement sponge filter sponges of the same inner & outer diameter that just need cut to half the length. Are there less expensive options? Absolutely, but they fit the standard intake perfectly, are simple to swap out, and are "tried & true" for us.

Oh yeah. They're curious critters anyway, but adding a little bit of their food just increases the odds. When I'm catching ramshorn snails for my daughter to feed her puffer, I have to check hourly to remove any cardinal tetras from the big tank, or cherry shrimp in the smaller tanks, that were too curious.

Are there any other fish, shrimp, or snails in the tank? If not I'd make a water bottle snail trap with a tiny little bit of their food in it. On a day you'll be home, put it in the tank in the morning and check it hourly for caught shrimp to move.

I have the ACO battery backup air pumps as the primary line of defense for the aquariums. I also have APC ups systems that can run the heaters of the temp starts dropping a little. If it starts dropping a lot, we crank up the wood burning stove that's about 30' away from them. One of our next home related purchases will be a whole house generator.

Hypancistrus zebra Despite caring for discus, arowana, blue eyed plecos, & many other non-cheap fish over the past 30ish years, I just can't convince myself to pay $200-300 each to get at least a breeding trio of zebra plecos. Aside from dropping almost a grand on 3 fish, I think it's mostly a mental block because I paid $15 for one in 1994 & was heartbroken when I had to sell all my fish & aquariums before moving across the country in 1995. Now they they're endangered in the wild, so even domestic bred are crazy high.

It's not just shrimp. If it can fit in an angel's mouth, they will try to eat it. If they're bored enough, they'll even try to go after something bigger than their mouth.