How many Black Phantom Tetra should my school include?

[MichiganMan]

The stocking plan for my 6x2x2 180 gallon aquarium currently consists of the following:

-6 Albino Cory
-8 Congo Tetra
-4 African Butterfly Cichlid

I have decided to introduce a school of smaller Tetra to the aquarium as well, and I have decided to introduce the Black Phantom Tetra which is considerably smaller than the other species. My question at this point is how many? I have read that the Black Phantom Tetra needs to be kept in schools of at the least 10 with a 1:1 male/female ratio. However, I want my school of small Tetra to be an attention getter. Is it conceivable to introduce a school of two dozen Black Phantom Tetra to the above aquarium with the above stocking plan?

-Robert P. Lewis

[MichiganMan]

Is 24 of these small Tetra too many for my current aquarium, and stocking plan?

-Robert P. Lewis

[ScottishFish]

In a 6 foot tank 50+ of them wouldn't be too much

[Honey Badger 1]

I agree with Scotty. Your 180g is still very lightly stocked and you shouldn't have any issues introducing 24 black phantoms. I would introduce 12 at a time if it is newly cycled, just to play it safe with the bio-filter. A large school of them would look great in your tank, especially if it is planted.

[MichiganMan]

I am glad to hear this. I will now be adding 2 dozen Black Phantom Tetra to my aquarium stocking plan.

-Robert P. Lewis

[ScottishFish]

I forgot to say in my last post - in such a large tank you should keep a minimum of 10 fish per school, so 10 corys will thrive better than 6. I also meant to say to you to make sure you want albino corys, their quirk wares off quickly and you are left with very boring corys, regular bronze, sterba, schwartzi, green, peppered are all 100x better and nicer than albinos in my opinion/experience.

[MichiganMan]

@ ScottishFish - I do not want you to think that I am saying that I believe you to be wrong, but could you explain to me why I need to introduce a minimum of 10 fish from each species. The only reason that I ask is because I like to know why I do the things that I do. It also poses a problem for my current stocking plan. I can easily introduce 10 Congo Tetra as opposed to 8 Congo Tetra, but I would need to introduce 12 African Butterfly Cichlid. I do not know if my aquarium is big enough for 12 African Butterfly Cichlid to create 3 different territories. Not to mention the primary reason behind my choosing smaller schools is to allow for more variety of species. Concerning the Albino Cory, call me a little off, I find them to be the most visually appealing of the Cory.

-Robert P. Lewis

[Lady Hobbs]

I had 23 of them in my 55 gallon.

You can have one school of tetra's if you want and have a big school of 50 of them. You don't have to have numerous species.

[MichiganMan]

I prefer to have more variety, and smaller schools as opposed to less variety, and larger schools.

-Robert P. Lewis

[PhillipOrigami]

I'm pretty sure about all of the people with experience there will tell you they had much more enjoyment with bigger schools. Click the link in my sig "Clicky!". It changes a lot about the behavior of the fish and increases welfare.