Need your advice on new fish to get for my 50 gal tank

[dman]

Hello. I haven't been on this forum in a few years but got a lot of help when building my tank. It is a 50 gallon wide planted tank with a couple pieces of driftwood. Right now it has the following:

1 pearl gourami
4 harlequin rasboras
2 black neon tetras
3 sterbai corys
1 bristlenose pleco
many many many red cherry shrimp!

I had more than that originally but some died over 3 or 4 years. I had 3 pearls initially but two died within the first month, and I used to have 6 each of the harlequins and tetras, 4 sterbai, 4 otos, and a bamboo shrimp.

Since there aren't too many fish in there now, I would love to hear some opinions on some fish to add. Maybe something different, something to add more color, maybe a couple bigger ones too since the pearl is the only big one (more gouramis maybe?). I definitely want another bamboo shrimp because that looked pretty cool in there, but other than that I am open to hear your ideas. And of course nothing that will not get along with what I have in there now. Here is a picture of the tank as it looks now

2013_02_25_20_57_58_503.jpg

[rodm81]

I would leave the gourami to himself. I'd up the number of the rasboras and tetra's to ten and add 2 or 3 more cory's.

[talldutchie]

Most obvious solution. Alternative, up one of the species to a bigger shoal and see about rehoming the rest.

What's the water values?

[pckroeger]

first of all, I love the tank it looks great. I agree with the earlier posts, I think increasing the school size of the tetras, corys and rasboras would look great. Not sure but I think gourami can get aggressive to each other/other species of gourami, so i would leave that.
I love black ghost knifefish, they are amazing to watch, swim in every possible direction, up, down, forwards, backwards, everything. i would have one in a heartbeat if my tank was large enough to house one. they do get fairly big, up to a foot long perhaps even a foot and a half in some instances, but 50 gallons should be enough space :)

[talldutchie]

, but 50 gallons should be enough space :)

Sorry but NO!! A 50 gallon is 36 inches long. 12 inch is very common for this species so you'd restrict it to a tank which it can hardly swim. Add to that the fact that it's a predator. Once it grows it will eat pretty much everything else in that tank.

It's a fascinating species but difficult to find tank mates for and to do it properly you'd need a 125 gallon at the very, very least.

[pckroeger]

apologies, talldutchie & dman, i was wrong!

[talldutchie]

Word of friendly advice. Don't let your love for a particular species cloud your judgement.

[pckroeger]

sorry! ill try not to in future. got that info off this site http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...857&pcatid=857 shows you cant trust every website huh?

[talldutchie]

No... in fact there's more wrong with that website.

For the clown loach they recommend 50 gallons as well and yet they state:

Since the Clown Loach can grow to an impressive size of nearly 1 foot in length, it should be housed in larger freshwater systems

They also forget to mention that it needs a group.
Pretty much all of their big fish listings and quite a few others have unrealistic tank sizes.

[madagascariensis]

That live aquaria site sells fish. Advice from any site that is trying to sell you anything should be taken with doubt and thoroughly researched.