Morning Everyone

Back from my holiday and have arranged to take delivery of my new Juwel Rio 180 early to mid next week. I'm really looking forward to it!

Originally, I'd planned to do a fishless cycle with this, but recent developments have complicated matters (in a good way I hope). A friend of a friend is moving house and running down his current tank prior to dismantling everything and setting up again at some point in the future. He has offered to give me the old mature filter medium (lives only 5 mins away, so easy transfer etc.) but would like me to take 8 of his fish and rehome them in my new tank.

These are Silver Tip Tetras – all looking healthy (he's had them for about 6 months) – 3 males and 5 females (we think) who all seem to be fairly non-aggressive and haven't bothered his other fish.

So, my questions are:

1. Can I just fill up my new tank and (after running for 24 hrs to heat water and check for leaks) use all of his mature filter medium to put these fish in immediately?

2. I wouldn't put any more fish in for about a month, but had some plans as to what I was eventually going to stock:

cory cats
cardinal tetras

Will the silver tips be OK with these? Not sure about what else, but wanted to have a larger fish/fishes to set these off. I thought about gouramis, but would worry about aggression towards other fish. Does anyone have any advice on which larger fish would be Ok in this set up? I have soft water.

Thanks in advance

Diz1

Thanks Sue!

The only other thing in his tank are platies of both sexes and, being far too sentimental to cope with any cannibalism, I don't want to have to deal with fry, so I've said no to these and he's going to give them to someone else.
I think the tetras are a good solution because I'll be able to get my tank up and running very quickly. As far as the gouramis are concerned, my LFS has both opaline (3 spot?) and pearl gouramis, so I'll go for the pearl. I haven't seen any of the other types you mentioned, but will have a look when I'm next in the shop.

With the pearl gourami, would it be fair to keep one on its own, or should I get more?

Thanks again Sue.

Think I'll wait a while before adding anything else. Would 4 weeks be long enough if my water tests were Ok?
Also, should I add these fish in any particular order? I had thought cory cats, then cardinals, then gourami last – just because they're bigger. I should say that (looking way ahead into the future, not right away) I would like a couple of other species in there as well, but don't know what else yet. I like the look of the Rams, but not too sure if they'd be OK in my setup. If I did go for these (or anything else) should I still put the gourami in last if it's a pearl (probably just one, because I wouldn't want to get the wrong sex ratio) just because it's bigger, or should it go in sooner because it's shyer? 

Thanks Sue,
Will bear it all in mind as I go along with this tank.