Is Petco employee sour or am I in the wrong?

[Lennie]

I added 19 to my 50 liter shallow tank on day 2 of setting it up with an established sponge filter moved in from another tank. And my plants were only 2 days old in the tank. Your plants have been established so they would help with water quality. Besides, 12 pygmys are TINY and 30 gallons is fairly big for these guys.

 

Dont worry, go get your fish. Ive kept easily around 50 pygmys to this day. My fav fish in the freshwater hobby.

BUT, if you ask me, don't get pygmy cories first. These guys tend to be shy and keep hiding and feel much more comfortable in the presence of other fish in the tank. In a level, I added 7 luminatus to their breeding tank, and they got more comfortable and started breeding more there by themselves.

I would personally stock the tank with other fish and add them later on. Overstocked peaceful community tanks make fish feel very safe and make them super active in my experience.

 

Speaking of which, pygmy cories are tiny as you are aware, and this will be limiting for your future stockings. 30g can support fish that might be problematic for pygmy cories due to  their tiny size and extremely peaceful behavior.

 

A group of 6 pygmy cories were BY FAR more active in an overstocked 96 liter tank of mine with rummynoses, honey gourami, shrimp, sterbai cories, otos, etc. but they were much more inactive in groups of 16 and 19 in two different tanks that are far less stocked. These guys LOVE the crowd in my experience. 

 

Also, they are not amazing at eating in my opinion. Not fast and active as other cories finding and cleaning up the food. When I stocked one of my new tanks with pygmy cory school of 16 first, I had issues for them finding food and tank going messy. I think besides the presence of other fish to make them feel comfortable, small CUC members like borneo loaches help cleaning up too.

And, these guys and otocinclus LOVE each other. Mine used to school very commonly. Beautiful to watch, makes both sides feel happier.

Edited April 4 by Lennie

[clownbaby]

@Lennie okay, thank you for the advice!!! I love otos, but I don't know much about them, so I will start researching em! Do you have any advice or tips on otocinclus-keeping? I would appreciate it if so!

Previously, I wanted to have a larger shoal (about fifteen to twenty) pygmy cories (in hopes those numbers would rise from some breeding perhaps) and a honey gourami. But the more I do research it seems a dither fish would be good, from what you're saying it seems you agree, yes? Just making sure I understand! Do you have any good recommendations of a hardy schooling fish that might help my cories feel more comfortable? I tend to like smaller nano fish. Keep in mind I am a bit of a beginner with fishkeeping!

I appreciate your advice very much, thank you!!!!!

[Lennie]

On 4/4/2024 at 8:53 PM, clownbaby said:

@Lennie okay, thank you for the advice!!! I love otos, but I don't know much about them, so I will start researching em! Do you have any advice or tips on otocinclus-keeping? I would appreciate it if so!

Previously, I wanted to have a larger shoal (about fifteen to twenty) pygmy cories (in hopes those numbers would rise from some breeding perhaps) and a honey gourami. But the more I do research it seems a dither fish would be good, from what you're saying it seems you agree, yes? Just making sure I understand! Do you have any good recommendations of a hardy schooling fish that might help my cories feel more comfortable? I tend to like smaller nano fish. Keep in mind I am a bit of a beginner with fishkeeping!

I appreciate your advice very much, thank you!!!!!

I gotta mention, they like each others' company, but otos are mainly herbivores and cories do eat good amount of worms/insects/animal protein in their diet besides algae content. Therefore, keeping them together made my otos introduced to commercial foods, but I lost one to bloating. Im not sure if it was because them trying to eat what cories eat, ending up consuming high amount of animal protein as a result.

 

You can still do such big group of pygmy cories and honey gourami, but honey gouramis also love having action going around in my experience. My honey gourami, Agave, has always been happier in a fairly crowded community tank rather than big very calm tanks. Calm tanks with tiny bit of action always lead him glass surfing and feeling stressed no matter how long he is in a tank. Directly quits such surfing behavior once introduced back to an overstocked tank.

 

I'm not really a mid-top column schooling fish guy. I only have pseudomugils, beckfordi pencilfish, rummynoses (but actually bleheris, so some call them firehead tetra instead) and that's basically it. In my experience, both pencilfish and bleheris are hardy. I cant say the same for pseudomugils myself. I used to have rosy barbs and also have pea puffers, but they don't seem like an option for you anyway.

 

As long as you buy a healthy batch, provide a stress free good home with good water quality and diet, pretty much all fish are hardy. The only exception to this for me was keeping discus, and that's it. 

I haven't kept them myself, but maybe cherry barbs can be a nice option for you. Small and colorful. Red usually pops up really good with green plants.

I would do something like:

20 pygmy cories, 5m:10f cherry barbs, 1m:3f honey gouramis, 3 hillstream loach or borneo loach and neocaridinas of the color you like

Edited April 4 by Lennie