Centerpiece fish for 29 gallon?

[Dwayne Brown]

Hi I am looking for a centerpiece fish to put in my 29 gallon.

Right now I have 8 pristella tetras, 1 L144a longfin pleco, 1 peacock goby, 4 peppered corydora, 6 adult endlers (and many fry), I also have numerous ramshorn and one mystery snail.  

One thing that is important to my is ease of feeding, I had an apisto but was unable to feed it frozen food, I dont know what happened to it but it wouldnt eat and died. 

I am leaning towards a bolivian ram, or a pearl gourami. I am also considering sparkling gouramis (also known as pygmy gouramis) wondering how easy these species are to feed?

Also any other suggestions For fish that would go well in this tank?

One thing to know is that my water has 0 hardness,. so I kinda cant keep anything that requires hard water.   

 

[CorydorasEthan]

1 hour ago, Dwayne Brown said:

Hi I am looking for a centerpiece fish to put in my 29 gallon.

Right now I have 8 pristella tetras, 1 L144a longfin pleco, 1 peacock goby, 4 peppered corydora, 6 adult endlers (and many fry), I also have numerous ramshorn and one mystery snail.  

One thing that is important to my is ease of feeding, I had an apisto but was unable to feed it frozen food, I dont know what happened to it but it wouldnt eat and died. 

I am leaning towards a bolivian ram, or a pearl gourami. I am also considering sparkling gouramis (also known as pygmy gouramis) wondering how easy these species are to feed?

Also any other suggestions For fish that would go well in this tank?

One thing to know is that my water has 0 hardness,. so I kinda cant keep anything that requires hard water.   

 

Sounds like it's already a great tank! For a centerpiece, I would go for something like a honey gourami, sparkling gourami, or the bolivian ram. Pearl gouramis are too food-aggressive in my experience, and will pick on bottom dwellers like corydoras during feeding. You could also do something like another school of tetras, or maybe some fancy livebearers (besides endlers), but the livebearers might not work because of your hard water problem. Do you have any pictures of the tank?

[Dwayne Brown]

41 minutes ago, CorydorasEthan said:

Sounds like it's already a great tank! For a centerpiece, I would go for something like a honey gourami, sparkling gourami, or the bolivian ram. Pearl gouramis are too food-aggressive in my experience, and will pick on bottom dwellers like corydoras during feeding. You could also do something like another school of tetras, or maybe some fancy livebearers (besides endlers), but the livebearers might not work because of your hard water problem. Do you have any pictures of the tank?

 

Yeah heres a photo I took yesterday. 

 

[CorydorasEthan]

35 minutes ago, Dwayne Brown said:

 

Yeah heres a photo I took yesterday. 

 

I would add some hardscape such as a large-ish piece of driftwood or rocks if you were to do a cichlid, so that it could stake out a territory. So here are your options: Bolivian ram (pair or single), honey gourami (a pair maybe), sparkling gourami (maybe a couple), a peaceful pearl gourami (maybe a female or a pair so that the male doesn't pick on everyone else), or a betta (male or female). Other options that aren't quite centerpiece include: a school of larger colorful tetras (emperors, rosy tetras, lemon tetras, or similar), a school of more tiny tetras (neons, cardinals, rummynose, glowlights, embers), or more Corydoras (maybe a couple more peppers).

Hope this helps, and good luck! (by the way, great looking tank, how did you get your plants to grow in sand? I need help with mine.)

[SKosto]

I have a female Pearl Gourami in my 29 gallon as a centerpiece.  She is pretty laid back, and colored up nicely with a quality diet.  Sometimes she'll chase the platys around during feeding time, but other than that, shes laid back

[FrozenFins]

As much as I love bettas, I wouldn't do a better like what @CorydorasEthan mentioned, the pristilla tetras do seem to be somewhat fin nippy. 

If your looking for a fish that is easy to feed, I would do the honey gourami. And I would do 2 or 3, because they can be abit shy. The sparkiling gourami do tend to like smaller food like crushed up flake and bbs or daphnia, etc. 

I had a female pearl gourami that non stop chased my sword tails. It came to the point where my swordtails hid behind the hob filter,  he eventually stopped eating. I gave the gourami away.

[Dwayne Brown]

1 hour ago, CorydorasEthan said:

I would add some hardscape such as a large-ish piece of driftwood or rocks if you were to do a cichlid, so that it could stake out a territory. So here are your options: Bolivian ram (pair or single), honey gourami (a pair maybe), sparkling gourami (maybe a couple), a peaceful pearl gourami (maybe a female or a pair so that the male doesn't pick on everyone else), or a betta (male or female). Other options that aren't quite centerpiece include: a school of larger colorful tetras (emperors, rosy tetras, lemon tetras, or similar), a school of more tiny tetras (neons, cardinals, rummynose, glowlights, embers), or more Corydoras (maybe a couple more peppers).

Hope this helps, and good luck! (by the way, great looking tank, how did you get your plants to grow in sand? I need help with mine.)

 

I have no idea why my plants do so well. Believe it or not I actually administer aquarium salt every time I do a water change. This should harm the plants but it doesn't. All the plants I have are either super fast growing or were super cheap. I also have bright light. And once a month I might put some liquid fertilizer in the tank.

[Dwayne Brown]

Also if you look at the photo behind the sponge filter there is a piece of mopani wood

[Dwayne Brown]

I forgot to post this but I was also considering a female powder blue gourami. Anyone have any experience with keeping these. Are they aggressive?

Edited March 25, 2021 by Dwayne Brown

[CorydorasEthan]

2 hours ago, Dwayne Brown said:

Also if you look at the photo behind the sponge filter there is a piece of mopani wood

Yes then a cichlid like the Bolivian ram would work out fine. 

2 hours ago, Dwayne Brown said:

I forgot to post this but I was also considering a female powder blue gourami. Anyone have any experience with keeping these. Are they aggressive?

I have not had experience with females, but I heard that they are far more laid back than males are. I think that they would work fine in your aquarium.

[AquaAggie]

I have a pearl gourami, 2 Bolivian rams, and a male apisto caucatoides. I can’t say that any of them are as food aggressive as my super red bristlenose or my angel. They are all in the same tank and I have no problem come feeding, they all eat the same thing and I give them a variety. The angel and gourami are top feeders, the Bolivians are bottom feeders and the apisto takes it wherever he can. It is crazy how different everyone’s experiences can be with the same fish. Maybe you just had bad luck with your apisto or maybe it was sick. Mine is one of my favorite fish 

[starsman20]

Just now, Dwayne Brown

I forgot to post this but I was also considering a female powder blue gourami. Anyone have any experience with keeping these. Are they aggressive?

Pbgs are great fish. Just had one die of dwarf gourami disease. Some sites say as many as 80% of these fish have it so I would suggest being careful about sourcing.