Advice On What To Put With My Existing Odments Of Fish

 
Hi

My tank currently contains remnants of shoals and odd fish rather than groups. having left it for ages without adding any additional fish I added a shoal of neons (Wasn't sure ... but shop said they'd be ok in a big enough group) sadly they brought some illness or got stressed by something in my tank and only 4 out of 12 survived!)

Existing Fish - 1 Angel fish moderate size approx body size estimated 6-7cm  2 clown loaches - fairly large now, possibly 9cm long. 1 clown pleco, 1 scissortail (similar length to clown loaches), 1 bronze cory and 1 albino cory and of course the 4 neon tetras.

So my question is what would you add? I'd rather like a largish shoal or two of not too expensive fish, with some colour in them, possibly red as we have just redecorated with red and brown and cream colours.

Get a school of Odessa Barbs. Stunning males and very active fish. They will happily contend with your current crowd and, provided they're kept in a large enough shoal, won't bother your Angelfish. A mature and settled male Odessa really is a sight to behold!

Get a school of Odessa Barbs. Stunning males and very active fish. They will happily contend with your current crowd and, provided they're kept in a large enough shoal, won't bother your Angelfish. A mature and settled male Odessa really is a sight to behold!

Thanks for this I have had some of these before. They are great!

Are Harlequin Rasboras too small?

First of all you do need to rehome the clown loaches. A 180 litre tank is far too small for them. They need a tank with a footprint of at least 180 x 60 cm. http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/chromobotia-macracanthus/
The scissortail also needs a bigger tank http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/rasbora-trilineata/
I would also rehome the angelfish. Few people realise that angels are shoaling fish and should not be kept alone - though of course a shoal needs rather a large tank.

The plec, cories and neons are fine, and I would build a new community around these.


As for hardness, I'm afraid the calcium and magnesium levels are not the hardness. Hardness is all the divalent metal ions added together and a number assigned as though it was all calcium, or all calcium carbonate. Using the actual amount of calcium can be misleading.