Adding a Fish
 

I transfered/upgraded my tank a little over a week ago, my ammonia reading is/was 0ppm, the nitrite is/was 0ppm and the nitrate is currently around 5ppm. Yesterday I added two more zebra danios (now a total of five in the tank) and the levels for the ammonia and nitrite today is 0ppm.

I have read that it is a good idea to only add around 2-3 fish per week.

A LFS has a spacial for buy one get one free and have neon orange cory cats in stock. I was wondering how soon I could safely add two of them to my tank (I plan to add more cory cats to keep them happy with time).

Thanx for the help.

also any opinions on cory cats are welcome

You should be fine adding another one or two but it's important to keep checking the levels to make sure you have no ammonia spike. Prime conditioner will neutralize ammonia and nitrites for approx. 24 hours at a time so that might be a good idea to get some if you don't use it already.

I have a 55gal that's fully cycled, I slowly added neons til I had 15 and then I waited a month for the bacteria to be well established (It's also well planted) and then I added 6 cherry barbs. Two weeks after that (last friday) I added 2 more cherry barbs and ten harlequin rasboras. No one seems to be bothered and it never dented the ammonia or nitrite :) Personally I would get all 5-6 cories at once but then I'm not familiar with your tank as far as size and plants so maybe not.

How big is your tank and is it planted? I initially added up to 6 at a time, but I have a heavily planted 65 gallon.

You could always ask your LFS to hold X amount of the cories and you could pick them up slowly if needed.

its a 37g w/ fake plants. thanks for the advise guys.

I would definitely get the corys together in one group. With the buy 1/free 1 deal, 4 corys of this species would be good. You could get another species later. But, if you only want this one, getting 6 now is fine too.

Live plants would give you more leeway as was mentioned, and you should consider live plants even if only floating, not only related to adding fish but generally. But with your tank and from what you've told us, 4 corys should not be an issue. And this is a fish that always is better with more, they adjust better; netting and moving corys is very stressful on them, much worse than many other fish. The more there are together, the quicker they will settle.

Byron.

Thanks Byron. I just got back from a "real" fish store (all they do is fish) and talked for a while with a worker and went with four panda corys. I plan on adding some more down the road. The bag is floating now and my hybrid drip method is about to begin.

Does anyone have any thoughts on laser corys?
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The various laser stripe corys (there is a gold, orange, green, black that I am aware of, possibly more) were initially believed to be variants of the species Corydoras aeneus. Some ichthyologists question this, believing these may be one or more distinct species; as far as I know, this has yet to be resolved. I note Planet Catfish has used a C number, but refers to C. aeneus.

C. aeneus has a very large distribution, over more than half the South American continent from the La Plata basin in northern Argentina up through every country and even onto Trinidad. In nature, this often results in geographic variations within the species, and evolution of a new species may occur. The laser stripe forms are mainly coming from Venezuela and Peru. They are being bred in aquaria, so you may encounter commercially-raised fish. If the fish is wild caught, attention should be paid to the water parameters; while this species is clearly versatile, adapting to different water parameters within so vast a natural range, this is a natural selection process and does not mean that a wild-caught fish can easily adapt quickly.

I had a few of the gold laser fish many years ago.

So right now I have 5 zebra danios and 4 panda corys.

I want to plan it out ahead of time so here is what I am thinking (in addition to what I have):

2-3 more zebra danios

2-3 corys of some type

6-7 neon tetras

I have only read up on the types I currently have and plan on reading more about any new fish I get. My current plan is to add the fish in that order spaced apart. If anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears.

[for any information on my tank check "my aquariums" it is all up to date.

thanks as always for the help.

Those for sure won't overload your tank =) Sounds like a good mix too me. Have you thought about having a few live plants? When I got my first few I was hooked and completely got rid of the artificial.

And I don't know if you've seen them or not but I have Cherry Barbs, and they have quickly become my favorite fish in my community tank. Awesome characters.