First Community Tank Stocking

[Silhouette]

Hello everyone! I recently put together my first community tank. Before this I've only had betta tanks and shrimp tanks, so I'm overly paranoid about whether or not I put this community tank together properly. I'd love to see what everyone thinks of how I stocked this tank! A majority of these fish I just bought two days ago, so I still have time to rethink things.

It's a 20 gallon high tank, with a Sicce Shark 400 filter on one side, and a 20gal sponge filter on the other. It's heavily planted, although a lot of the plants arrived in rough shape (not from Aquarium Co-op, I'm in Canada) so they're hard to see at the back. For stocking, I have:

- 20+ cherry shrimp
- 5 CW027 corydoras
- 8 white cloud mountain minnows
- 3 furcata rainbow fish
- 3 neon blue eyed rainbow fish
- 2 nerite snaills

I'm most worried about making sure all the fish have enough room to swim and won't feel over crowded. Theoretically I'd still love a feature fish if possible, but I'm curious if I'm already at max as it is/overstocked. Anyone that would like to give their opinions are more than welcome! I appreciate it, as I want to be as ethical as possible with my fish tanks. Thank you!

[Ken Burke]

Beautiful tank!  What kind of feature fish are thinking about?  
 

if you keep up with the maintenance you should be fine, but I’m not sure what I would put in there….

[Scapexghost]

You can add more fish but a feature fish will be tricky b/c anything big will probably eat all of your shrimp. I'd stick to nano fish.

[JettsPapa]

On 2/21/2022 at 12:09 AM, Scapexghost said:

You can add more fish but a feature fish will be tricky b/c anything big will probably eat all of your shrimp. I'd stick to nano fish.

I agree.  If you want more fish I'd suggest adding a few more of each species of the rainbowfish you already have.

[Silhouette]

On 2/20/2022 at 10:36 PM, Ken Burke said:

Beautiful tank!  What kind of feature fish are thinking about?  
 

if you keep up with the maintenance you should be fine, but I’m not sure what I would put in there….

Thank you! I've been debating between either a dwarf gourami, or a pair of killifish (one of the smaller more shy species). Other than that I'm not sure what else 🤔

 

On 2/20/2022 at 11:09 PM, Scapexghost said:

You can add more fish but a feature fish will be tricky b/c anything big will probably eat all of your shrimp. I'd stick to nano fish.

Yeah I was thinking of getting a nano feature fish (see above), so nothing like apistogramma or anything. I'd definitely like to keep the shrimp as safe as possible haha, at least the adults. I know shrimplets might still get picked off in here.

 

On 2/21/2022 at 12:04 AM, JettsPapa said:

I agree.  If you want more fish I'd suggest adding a few more of each species of the rainbowfish you already have.

I was hoping to possibly get some more actually, especially if I didn't get a feature fish. Wasn't sure if any more could fit in there though. You think some more would work? 1 or 2 more of each?

Thanks everyone!

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Hi, welcome to the forum. Throwing a hat into the ring...I've strayed away from the idea of "centerpiece" fish. As some have mentioned they can be tricky as things like Bettas can be aggressive or even be bullied with long fins (and frankly need higher temps and humidity than most community fish). Or Gouramis- some have high rates of disease/illness. Or you could pick one that eats your shrimp! For me is that I'd get too attached to a single fish- you tend to pay more attention to them and for me it was bettas, they'd die too soon. So I don't keep them anymore.

So, what I ended up doing was the idea of a Guppy or Endler group. 4-6 of either or both (I did both!) of those (males) in a 20 gallon tank would be low bioload and ACTION PACKED. I highly recommend!

Edited February 22, 2022 by xXInkedPhoenixX