Buenos Aires tetras and tankmates

[HenryThePleco]

Recently set up a 20 gallon dirted tank again. 

currently stocked with 8  2 inch BAT'S 

looking to add some other life except the tetras algae water lettuce and pothos, pest snails

would Neon tetra's, Cherry shrimp or any other large shrimp with corydoras(my locality only has aeneus( albinos) or bronze's)
Ive only got terrestrial plants currently with future plans on adding aquatic ones

has 1.5 inches of substrate (sand upon dirt) and leaf litter and twigs and sticks 

filter capacity of 200L per hour and  lighting 10 hrs a day(for algal growth  and the pothos)

PH-7.2 (added more leaves to reduce the ph)

Hardness - nil (i dont have the test kit for it but my local water has "hard" water)

Cleaning front glass every other week alongside 1-3 gallons of water changes every month.

Edited August 5 by HenryThePleco

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/5/2023 at 7:31 AM, HenryThePleco said:

would Neon tetra's, Cherry shrimp or any other large shrimp with corydoras(my locality only has aeneus( albinos) or bronze's)

I can't see any issues. If they have some of the pygmaeus or hasbrosus or hastatus corydoras I would imagine those do awesome with that setup as well.  I tend to always recommend setting up shrimp in 1 of 2 ways...

1. Setup the shrimp colony and let it establish itself before adding fish. This just gives the colony the foothold on the scape as well as the time to grow baby shrimp, hopefully smart enough to know where to hide and what spots make sense.

2. Setup a separate tank, add the shrimp as culls slowly over time to the tank.  When you feel it's going well, then add more at your leisure.

I think the BATs could get a bit feisty but for the most part they would stay mid or top level on the tank. Nothing should ever bother the corydoras, but the only real concern is predation on shrimp and stress from that constant predation.

Heavily planted or nooks and crannies help, but it's always something to keep in mind. I added one fish to my shrimp and it spent all night going after about 30 shrimp from a new hatch.

On 8/5/2023 at 7:31 AM, HenryThePleco said:

Hardness - nil (i dont have the test kit for it but my local water has "hard" water)

Definitely try to have a GH and KH kit on hand for shrimp. Some might make sense in lieu of neo shrimp given certain conditions.  Neos have a pretty healthy range, but amano shrimp do as well as others.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

BATs are notorious plant eaters. You may be fighting that all the way through this. I think that they’ll pick off the shrimp as well. Ive always used BATs as tank mates for cichlids as they’re robust enough to handle it and either for the cichlids. They get to 3 inches I’ve seen 4 so they’ll fill that 20 but it may be snug. 

I’d go with a slightly more robust Cory like pandas or aeneus or the albinos and they’ll community breed for you. 

Keep us updated. I’m hoping I’m wrong about the BATs and plants. Have fun and good luck! 

[Lennie]

I am personally not a fan of keeping cories in a tank which has no ubstrate cleaning. Do you siphon the substrate of your tank? If I am not mistaken the idea is not to disturb the substrate in dirted tanks right?

 

If you don't vacuum the tank, a bottom dweller like cories will always swim through mulm and stuff. I don't like the idea of this and I believe it may even make them prone to bacterial issues.

[HenryThePleco]

On 8/6/2023 at 12:13 AM, Lennie said:

I am personally not a fan of keeping cories in a tank which has no ubstrate cleaning. Do you siphon the substrate of your tank? If I am not mistaken the idea is not to disturb the substrate in dirted tanks right?

 

If you don't vacuum the tank, a bottom dweller like cories will always swim through mulm and stuff. I don't like the idea of this and I believe it may even make them prone to bacterial issues.

subtrate might not be a problem as it has 1inch inch of sand to cap of the soil . i dont siphon my tanks as I feel it destroys those anaerobic pockets and the mulm gets into the soil anyways (does not cause any negative effects )

 

Feeding time might be the issue as the BATS are food aggresive and try to "steal" food from  each others mouths even when fed plenty. My question still stands for the  Neons as i would like to add colour to my tanks. maybe phantom tetras may work. I would have to check again for plants i might get away by planting extremely heavily.

 

 I might try to remove the fish and start back from scratch. Currently im trying the "Father fish" natural aquarium idea. and its been going good till now.

 

 

On 8/5/2023 at 9:58 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I can't see any issues. If they have some of the pygmaeus or hasbrosus or hastatus corydoras I would imagine those do awesome with that setup as well.  I tend to always recommend setting up shrimp in 1 of 2 ways...

1. Setup the shrimp colony and let it establish itself before adding fish. This just gives the colony the foothold on the scape as well as the time to grow baby shrimp, hopefully smart enough to know where to hide and what spots make sense.

2. Setup a separate tank, add the shrimp as culls slowly over time to the tank.  When you feel it's going well, then add more at your leisure.

I think the BATs could get a bit feisty but for the most part they would stay mid or top level on the tank. Nothing should ever bother the corydoras, but the only real concern is predation on shrimp and stress from that constant predation.

Heavily planted or nooks and crannies help, but it's always something to keep in mind. I added one fish to my shrimp and it spent all night going after about 30 shrimp from a new hatch.

Definitely try to have a GH and KH kit on hand for shrimp. Some might make sense in lieu of neo shrimp given certain conditions.  Neos have a pretty healthy range, but amano shrimp do as well as others.

I might add rockwork for that then maybe even try to get bigger wood pieces . as i said before i might just  start from scratch add redo it altogether. 

[HenryThePleco]

I have tried with plants before but they usually nip at them and uproot them . but maybe it was because the fish were already established in the tank.