My stocking plans - feasible?

[Karen B.]

Greetings!

I would like your opinion on my stocking plans. I am looking for a nice, peaceful no agression community tank :

10 green neon tetra.

6 false julii

3 honey gourami (potential agression?)

My pH is around 7.4, gh is 12.

1) Is it feasible? Some place seem to say that green neon tetra like pH under 7...

2) In which order should I add the fishes?

3) What is the % of the tank that should be left unplanted for the cory to be happy?

My tank is cycled. I had 12 White Cloud Mountain Minnows. Sadly I had to part with them. And in order to better suit my cory, I will change the substrate. And I just removed all my plastic plants/decor to plant real plants. I wonder if my cycle can survive? I have an aqueon quietflow 20 and a sponge filter (added few days ago). 20 gallons high.

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Karen B.

[Marc]

How big is the tank?

[Karen B.]

17 minutes ago, Marc said:

How big is the tank?

Oops. 20 gallons high.

 

[Colu]

I would leave the honey out and put more of green neons and and a couple  of merit snail for algae control

Edited December 12, 2020 by Colu

[Karen B.]

28 minutes ago, Colu said:

I would leave the honey out and put more of green neons and and a couple  of merit snail for algae control

Oh yes, good idea about the nerites!

Any reason why you would leave the honey gourami? It’s my dream fish!

[FriendlyLoach]

I would say get the honey gourami, I have 3 honey gourami in a tank with 20 neons and a 3 hillstream loaches and everything is fine. Honey gourami are peaceful fish in my experience. However mine are in a 40 gallon, but I think you will be fine. Just make sure if for some reason it doesn't work out (I highly doubt it) they have a home to go to. Have fun. 

[ChefConfit]

I'll preface this by saying I have never kept gourami, but I've researched them quite a bit when looking to stock tanks. Most gourami seem to be considered relatively non aggressive especially honeys, but the are territorial fish. Housing multiple males together it would be best practice to plant heavily to break up sight lines. Females are very rare in the hobby because they don't look as good so unless you specifically seek out females you're going to end up with all males. 

As for how much open space to leave for corys. My display tank barely has an inch of unplanted substrate and my corys are breeding regularly. As long as the vegetation isn't so dense that they can't swim thru it they seem happy. I took out my hydrocotyle tripartita Japan because it was too dense and replaced it with a ton of cryptocoryne undulata red in the foreground that they can swim thru.