Thinking about restocking

[bemgelado]

I've come to the conclusion that my minnows and danios need more room to swim, and I have a friend who is looking to fill out some herds she has in her 55 gal. So, I can undo my mistake, and choose some different mid-level fish.

So, I need some feedback.

First off, I've got a 20 gal high, with a Bio-Wheel 150 and an AC 20. I test my water parameters daily, and am keeping it right at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and between 10-20 nitrate. I do two, sometimes three water changes per week. I have a gravel bottom, and a moderately planted tank.

My tank is in my office, away from where other people can mess with it, but twice a month I see a lot of my employees' kids, so it needs to be kid-friendly. Right now, my tank is very natural looking, but what I want to do is introduce more color.

I'm thinking about swapping my substrate from a gravel/eco-complete mix to CaribSea's Super Naturals sand. Although, I've got some concerns about my plants when I do this. I just don't want my cories to get hurt from my current gravel bottom.

As far as stocking goes, since I really want color, I'm thinking guppies. I don't want to deal with fry, so I'll probably get all males. My gourami has gotten over his aggressiveness. (I figured out what was stressing him out, and have corrected it. He's much more mellow now.) I do want to add to my cories as well. So I was thinking 7 male guppies, the gourami, and 8-10 cories. Now I know that this will make me a little overstocked. Other than needing to pay close attention to my water, is there any other reason this is a bad idea?

If you guys have other stocking suggestions for pretty colorful fish that don't need to dart around like minnows, please let me know!1

[imma24]

You could get a school of small tetras like neons or glowlights - they are very pretty and very small. I also picked guppies for color - 2 male tequila sunrise ones so no babies.

[bemgelado]

I hadn't thought about tetras. They are pretty! Would you say that they dart around less than your minnows and danios?

[Angel keeper]

I had kept glowlights before and thay have been very active for me and i managed to keep all 10 for 5 years before each one started to die over time and they had really been a joy to keep.

Other tetras that you make like are neon or cardinal tetras. I currently have rummy noses though which arent bad at all.

[imma24]

No fish in my tank are like my danios! My neons are much more sedate than they are - sometimes they school together but they normally swim separately and don't dart at all. The only fish I have that "dart" around are my black skirt tetras but they only do that at feeding time - they dash up to the surface to grab food & then dive back down really fast - otherwise they are also pretty peaceful.

[totalaquariumaddict]

There's lots of different tetras. You should research them their really cool.