Need a few member suggestions

Strand

After a 2+ year break I finally bought another tank. A 29g. It's still in it's beginning stages as far as everything being in it's place. (Plant placement, driftwood, lighting, etc.)

Plant list:
Java Fern
Java Moss
Corkscrew Vallisneria
Amazon Sword
Duckweed
Hornwort
Brazilian Micro Sword
Crinum Calamistratum
Marimo Moss

Current stock is 10 Harlequin Rasbora. (From what I can tell, that's what they were sold as)

I set this up as a low maintenance starter tank to get me back in the game. I was planning on doing Rasboras and tertras with, possibly, some Cory's. Now I am thinking I will only do Cory cats so I can have more of them. 10? I'll need input on that and any other suggestions you might have.

pH 6.5 - 7
GH 75ppm
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate >25ppm

Temp hovers at 72 without a heater.

Current lighting is the T8 that came with the tank (17w), and two T12's (20w each), 1 sunlight and 1 planted. In a custom hood I plan on redoing soon with LED lighting.

Since we all like pictures...

I just did a partial WC so it's a bit cloudy. The blue in the corner is a HMF. I'm also running a low flow HOB but plan on removing it once the HMF gets up and running.



Yes it's a mess right now. I have a 3D background on it's way so I haven't put much time into making it look pretty. I'm moving the higher light plants to the far right and leaving the low light plants under the cover of the duckweed on the left side. Once the driftwood gets water logged I'll be placing it running down like roots in front of the HMF and attaching the Java Moss to it. Then once everything is in it's place I'll add a layer of black sand over the flourish substrate. (Yes Byron I know I should have just stuck with sand, I've forgotten some things on my little break!)

















These suckers are hard to take pictures of. I'm sure most of you know this. They seem very happy in the tank, always "schooling" around. I'm happy with them for sure.

So should I just stick with a larger group of Cory cats? I'm not set on a specific type of Cory. I'll be ordering them from The Wet Spot since they are pretty close to me and would be an easy 1 day shipment. They do have a bunch of wild caught Cory's. Their stock changes weekly. I don't mind waiting it out to get a specific kind based on recommendations. I'm not opposed to adding more Rasboras either. I definitely do not want to over crowd the tank or fish. I just want to have them as comfortable as possible. That's why I thought of just getting a larger group of Cory's and stick with 2 species.

What about shrimp? I've seen one pond snail that hitch hiked in. I plan on adding some nerite snails at some point.

I think I covered everything. Let me know!

JDM

Looks good so far.

I think your water may be a little soft for the plants, particularly the vallisneria

25ppm nitrate just after a water change? That's a little high.

I'd say to go with the cory's. Salt and pepper cory , dwarf cory or pygmy cory would let you maximize the shoal numbers. 10 no problem. I think you would need to keep the nitrates nearer 10ppm as these are more sensitive fish though.

Jeff.

Strand

Whoops I meant >5. It won't let me edit the OP.


Yeah I might need to harden the water. The Val looks horrid. Luckily I only got 1 of those.

The 75ppm number is from a city well about 10 miles away. (My buddies dad is the city water manager) I didn't feel like buying the test kit. Out lfs sucks but they do test your water. I'll see if they have the hardness tests and take in a sample.


I was just throwing out 10 in the OP. Whatever a good number would be that would be good for the fish and not cause any tank issues.

I'm not opposed to the small Cory's. I was originally leaning towards the Bandit Cory. Although they have quite a few wild caught species listed on that website. I'm still researching them all...

Byron

You will not have luck with Vallisneria in our soft water. I'm in SW BC which like western Washington and Oregon has very soft water. I use Equilibrium to raise the GH to about 5 dGH [= 90 ppm] or my swords fail due to lack of calcium. But this was no where near sufficient for the Vallisneria, which struggled in the tank where I had the GH at 6-7 dGH, and after several months it just slowly melted away. The chain sword and pygmy chain swords will fare better, and are somewhat similar to the smaller Vall.

I would not put corys in this tank unless you remove the Flourite. I had a tank running for 2 years with Flourite, and I had to remove the corys. I had a couple of the dwarf species, and couldn't understand why they were always dying, until a catfish breeder told me it was likely the Flourite. I also had C. panda and C. similis, and they developed mouth and barbel problems and never came out normally. I moved them into the 115g with sand and they are out and about, the mouths have healed, and I'm even seeing spawning.

Mixing substrates doesn't work; the sand will fall to the bottom. Remove the Flourite, replace with Quikrete Play Sand for an authentic Amazon look. The corys love this sand.

I should also mention that the plants did no better with this substrate either, very disappointing considering the cost. The same species in the sand tanks with identical lighting and fertilization were much better.

Also, always keep upper fish with corys. As was pointed out in another thread yesterday, corys are skittish fish by nature, and having fish above them always settles them more.

Byron.

Strand

Are you saying the Rasboras are a bad match? I'm not opposed to getting a different species other than Cory's. I had them in other tanks in the past and really liked them. I'm not set on anything really. I could go a completely different direction if it makes sense for this tank.

I'm really kicking myself for putting the flourish in there. I remember doing this in my old 46 and I put a layer of sand over the top and even in the high current of that tank it seemed to stay on top.

JDM

It's not like the gravel travels to the top, the sand just filters down into it so if you have enough sand, there will still be enough to form a sand top layer.

Jeff.

Byron

Not sure why you would think I said that. My point is that corys on their own will almost certainly be skittish. But with upper level fish, they tend to feel safer. Many fish, including rasbora, are very suitable.

Strand

I get it. I had stated in the original post that I was keeping Rasboras in the tank. Then you said I needed upper fish with Cory's. That's why I thought you meant that they weren't compatible or I needed another species.