55 gallon tank mates

[Yoshi]

As I continue to plan for my 55 gallon community tank I've put together a tentative list of tank mates and I'd like to get peoples input!  After doing some reading in the forum and other places here's what I've come up with so far:

Neocaridina shrimp (10)
Panda Cory catfish (6)
Nerite snails (5)
Cardinal Tetras (6-10)
Cherry Barbs (6-10)
Guppies - Male (3)

I'm keeping male guppies mostly because I don't want to deal with a guppy population explosion and I don't have an easy way to offload them.

It will be a fairly heavily planted tank with some rock and driftwood hardscape.  Black substrate and black background.

Am I at the limit in terms of what the tank can handle in terms of livestock?  I love the look of honey gouramis, but I'm worried that I can't add too much more. I'm also going back and forth about whether I need some kind of centerpiece fish.  A single angelfish sounded pretty at first, but would I end up with a fat angelfish in an otherwise empty tank?

[Scapexghost]

This is a very light stocking atm you can def add more

[Yoshi]

On 3/22/2024 at 10:49 PM, Scapexghost said:

This is a very light stocking atm you can def add more

Any suggestions?  🙂

[Scapexghost]

On 3/22/2024 at 10:53 PM, Yoshi said:

Any suggestions?  🙂

A larger shrimp species may be good as the barbs may hunt down the neos. Maybe amanos or bamboo. Then i would buff up the school sizes maybe 15-20 to start. Then i would get the angel or guarami you wanted as the centerpiece.

On 3/22/2024 at 10:53 PM, Yoshi said:

Any suggestions?  🙂

Also i think the barbs and centerpeace fish would keep the guppies pop under control so i would consider females as males can be feisty by themselves

[Tony s]

What’s your favorite. You listed the pandas first. You could easily triple the number of pandas, and the behavior would be completely different than 6.

possibly add 5 honey gourami?

double the number of male guppies?

most of these will work good in a shrimp tank. 
 

or if the focus is the shrimp, just wait until they populate the tank fully. I’d still add more pandas though. You can never have too many pandas 

[Yoshi]

On 3/22/2024 at 10:59 PM, Scapexghost said:

A larger shrimp species may be good as the barbs may hunt down the neos. Maybe amanos or bamboo. Then i would buff up the school sizes maybe 15-20 to start. Then i would get the angel or guarami you wanted as the centerpiece.

Also i think the barbs and centerpeace fish would keep the guppies pop under control so i would consider females as males can be feisty by themselves

I like the color of the neos a lot, but I take the point.  I was thinking of adding some shrimp caves to give them more places to hide.  They were also the first things I was going to add to the tank to get them well established.  Do you think that would make a difference?

On 3/22/2024 at 11:18 PM, Tony s said:

What’s your favorite. You listed the pandas first. You could easily triple the number of pandas, and the behavior would be completely different than 6.

possibly add 5 honey gourami?

double the number of male guppies?

most of these will work good in a shrimp tank. 
 

or if the focus is the shrimp, just wait until they populate the tank fully. I’d still add more pandas though. You can never have too many pandas 

I'm not sure what my favorite is tbh!  😄  I listed them more in the oder of the areas they would occupy in the tank from the bottom up.

Do you  have any suggestions other than more pandas?  (Which I'll totally load up on!)

[Tony s]

For top dwellers, rainbow fish.  praecox stay smaller and school nicely. Or threadfin would be interesting (never tried them before)

different low dwellers, a pair of Bolivian rams.

I say more Cory’s, because I had 6 skunk corys, they hid all the time. I added 6 more, they are now literally everywhere 😀

I would say angels, but there goes your shrimp 

[Tony s]

Your cherry shrimp may have lots of hunters. You could start them first and let their population grow. If the population is big enough, they may grow faster than eaten. Should work. Also going to need an area of dense plants for hiding.  Or bigger shrimp, but I don’t believe amano reproduce in fresh water (I could be wrong). Good for hair algae though. I think I’d give the cherry shrimp a go though. And cross fingers 

[Scapexghost]

On 3/22/2024 at 11:23 PM, Yoshi said:

I like the color of the neos a lot, but I take the point.  I was thinking of adding some shrimp caves to give them more places to hide.  They were also the first things I was going to add to the tank to get them well established.  Do you think that would make a difference?

I think the best way eould be to have a dedicated shrimp colony in another tank and move the culls into the 55. That way if they do get eaten it isnt too devasting.

[Yoshi]

I appreciate the input so far!  After thinking some more and doing a bit more reading here's a revised list, and of course feedback is very much appreciated!

Panda Cories (12)
Nerite Snails (10)
Mystery Snails (5)
Cardinal Tetras (12)
Cherry Barbs (12)
Honey Gourami (3)

I've given up on the shrimp thought, but maybe a dedicated shrimp take is possible down the road (if I can find space for it!).

AqAdvisor puts this at fully loaded.  Could I do more?

[Tony s]

Actually sounds really nice. You’ll want to throw down extra algae wafers. You have enough snails they’ll need to be specifically fed. As well as letting some extra algae grow just for them and the corys will sometimes need algae wafers and other times need protein wafer.  But looks good. Your hardest ones to keep going will be the cardinals. They often need specific water parameters and very clean water 

 

and you could go to 120% with aqadavisor    They’re a bit conservative 

It also calls for an angel or 2 to me anyway 😃

[Scapexghost]

On 3/23/2024 at 7:02 PM, Yoshi said:

I appreciate the input so far!  After thinking some more and doing a bit more reading here's a revised list, and of course feedback is very much appreciated!

Panda Cories (12)
Nerite Snails (10)
Mystery Snails (5)
Cardinal Tetras (12)
Cherry Barbs (12)
Honey Gourami (3)

I've given up on the shrimp thought, but maybe a dedicated shrimp take is possible down the road (if I can find space for it!).

AqAdvisor puts this at fully loaded.  Could I do more?

If yiu want to add more you could buff uo the tetra school. Theyd always appreciate the company

[Yoshi]

On 3/23/2024 at 8:03 PM, Tony s said:

It also calls for an angel or 2 to me anyway 😃

I thought about an angel at one point!  But I've read mixed reviews regarding compatibility.  Would I end up with an overfed angel fish and an otherwise empty tank?

[Tony s]

On 3/23/2024 at 10:43 PM, Yoshi said:

Would I end up with an overfed angel fish and an otherwise empty tank

You shouldn’t. Angels and cardinals are classic. Cherry barbs are smaller but should be okay? I think? The others are fine. The problem with multiple angels is if they pair up  then they can get mean. I had 6 in a 75. Ended with 2 pairs. One is fine. The other, with my big marble male gets really aggressive. I call him my murder missile. He will turn sideways and go after the other fish. He forced a school of rainbows to the bottom. I put the rainbows and my unpaired angels into another tank. I really need to get them switched. The rainbows back to the main tank and the pair to a smaller breeding tank. Witch is the first time I’ve thought about doing that. 😆

 

My school of skunk corys are in with the angels and 30 mystery snails. The angels don’t bother them. 

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 3/23/2024 at 10:43 PM, Yoshi said:

Would I end up with an overfed angel fish and an otherwise empty tank?

In some recent MD Fish Tanks videos (YouTube aquascaper), he's paired juvenile angelfish with cardinal tetras, reasoning that by the time the angels were big enough to be a threat to the cardinals, the tetras would have mostly passed due to old age anyway. But I've never kept angelfish, so I can't directly speak to it.