Seeking recs, fish stocking

[demicent]

Finally getting around to stocking my planted tanks with mid to top range fish.  Looking for recommendations for fish that will not compete with bottom feeders.  My platys are greedy guts who eat the green hair algae, the floating food, the sinking food, and then monopolize the bottom foods and even the green beans for the snails! They are voracious eating machines with very round bellies. 

I have 12 cycled tanks (10-20 gallons) with bottom feeders only, (Corys and Kuhli Loaches) with a range of different ph and gh and kh.  (Stable, and naturally achieved by accident from hardscape and decor choices.)  So most common peaceful community fish would find a niche here in one of the tanks.  I'm looking for hardy, uncomplicated fish who find it beneath them to grub around in the substrate.

Tanks, y'all!

 

[CorydorasEthan]

Do something like a tetra of some sort (many types will work). Most of them won't compete with bottom dwellers for food. Guppies and Endler's livebearers also work well. Most of the time, they will stay around the surface of the aquarium. Even though they may also eat off the bottom, they aren't big enough to really take food away from either the cories or the loaches, so your bottom dwellers can eat in peace. I've noticed they act kind of like pilot fish do for sharks or whales. They will swim near the cories while the cories eat at the bottom. The excess food that comes out of the cory gills will be eaten by the waiting guppies. This allows both fish to feed without competing with one another. Other types of fish you could try are rasboras, danios, and minnows, but I have not had experience with any of these yet. One fish to avoid is a gourami. In my experience, both male dwarf gourami and male pearl gourami will bite and chase cories away from the bottom dweller pellets I feed, even after I provide the gourami with plenty of flake (he gobbles it all up as well).

[Colu]

Golden panchax. marble hatchet fish.  Neon tetra x-ray tetra  black phantom tetra Odessa barbs  cherry barb are all go choices and won't bother bottom feeders

[demicent]

My Endler's have been polite with the bottom dwellers.  

[MAC]

Nannostomus eques, the "diptail pencil fish" is my favorite top dweller. I've found them to be hardy, interesting and inexpensive. 

[FrozenFins]

Hatchtefish in my experiance will only eat foods that are uptop. Most pencil fish too in my experiance. Guppies are cool and may work for you.