Tank Stocking

[Whitney]

I recently upgraded from a 29 gallon, to a 46 gallon bowfront. I moved all my fish over but now it looks empty with all this extra room. My giant betta is my centerpiece, I also have 6 false julii corydoras (2 fry in a breeder box), 11 harlequin rasboras, and a bunch of nerite snails. I'm debating on getting more harlequins and just having a HUGE group of them, or getting some rummynose tetras that could really stand out and actually display schooling behavior (my rasboras mostly do their own things and occasionally shoal together). I'm basically trying to liven up my tank and make it really interesting to observe, so I'm just looking for some opinions on having a really large number of 1 type of fish, or to have 2 groups schooling/shoaling fish?

Edited July 19, 2022 by Whitney

[Fish Folk]

Beautiful tank layout! Love all the plants. Rummynose could be fun. Take care about health. If possible, use your 29 gal. as a QT tank. 

[anewbie]

rummynose are fast schooling fishes and really should have at least 4 feet of horizontal space. The betta should be kept around 80; i'd recommend kubtai rasbora as a fast moving smallish fish. 80 is at the top of their range but probably tolerable. I'd also recommend pygmy cory but again they won't love 80. You could try coral red pencilfishes - they are nice colour fish. They are a bit more sensitive to water condition so your water should be fairly soft if you try them.

[_Eric_]

Some folks don’t like mixing schools but it is just aesthetics as you have the room. You could get some more harlequins and still get another type of school too.  You could get some surface fish if you want to have something different but did t want them to mingle too much.  Sometimes bettas don’t like surface fish though so do a little more research  before picking one.  Even though the betta is large and doesn’t have flowy fins, you might also want to watch out for fin nippers.   I think the  rummynose would work nice- Chili rasboras or ember tetras would also look  nice in that setup but wouldn’t school as tight.  Any of those three would overlap with harlequins if that bothers you.  It wouldn’t bother me but some don’t like the look.  In this case I probably would just max out on harlequins because I think it would look cool.

You could get a neat pleco if you want to add some interest in the tank that isn’t a schooling fish.  Nice tank though! 

[NOLANANO]

I'd go with either more Harlequin Rasporas or maybe some Cardinal Tetras.

In my experience, Rummynose tetras look better over light substrate and/or light background. I feel like their body color turns darker to a grey color when the background and/or substrate is black and they don't pop as much. They also do laps back and forth all day so I am not sure that a 46 bow front provides them with enough distance to properly do their laps. 

[cavdad45]

I would add a trio of Mollies, the rest is great

[JettsPapa]

A group of lemon tetras would look good in that tank.  I'd add a few more Corydoras trilineatus also.