Starting From Scratch

Hi Everyone

I am new to this site but would really like some advice on restocking by tank
I am currently in the process of restocking my Jewel 180 Vision. It is a planted low tech tank and I currently have -

1 Dwarf Rainbow ( the lone survivor )
5 Amano shrimps

I have also just put in 13 Microdevario kubotai which I planning to increase to at least 20 in total.

Readings are Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrates 20 ppm and PH 8.0

I would love to add more shrimps maybe cherrys but I have heard the amanos would be aggressive - is this true?
Ideally I would like to add 5/6 corys, but not sure which to get, and another shoal of small fish.
All recommendations and advice welcome.

Thank you

Having added 4 more Peppered corys this week to my community tank i have to agree they are the cutest things and fun to watch.

Adding Red Cherries with Amanos should be fine. The Amanos are bigger and can get very aggressive during feeding, so just ensure that you put enough food in for all the shrimps and it should be fine.

I enjoy large shoals of small tetras (black neons) If you get 18 plus they behave differently to say 6 plus and are visually pleasing.

Good luck with whatever you decide

How do you feed shrimp without fish eating it all!? My fish have been after my poor shrimp's food all week and have developed gravel forraging to eat it!

That's the thing.. you dont want to feed too much because of water conditions! Very complicated ha

Thank you everyone for your comments. I really appreciate all your advice
I think Corys are really cute but am spoilt for choice  I don't have a sand substrate though - would smooth gravel be OK?
I have quite hard water so am quite wary of what I choose for the other shoal which is why I was thinking Penguin Tetras. . .
Sue - I will not be putting anything else into the tank for a good week even though by new additions are tiny not even 1cm long at the moment! I think the next addition will be the shrimps so as not to overload the tank.

Resa - I will try and take pics but although my little fishes swim so fast they come out as a green blur 

I have looked at rainbow fish varieties and they are tempting but I really wanted to keep smaller fish this time around.
I have also been looking at the Golden Pencil fish as another option. What do you think?
It maybe that I revert back to my Dwarf Rainbows as they are lovely fish, my only concern is the old man in the tank maybe aggressive due to any new stock being quite small in comparison to him!

Thanks for all the pointers.
Tracey

Sorry I missed the link to Pseudomugils  I am sold, now all I have to is find them as I can't say  have seen them locally.
Thanks once again for the tips it is really appreciated.

The gouramis or apsitos could work - the main problem would be your water.

Of all the apistos, cacatuoides would cope best, though they might not breed. I have pH 7.4 but softish water (7 german degrees/125ppm with the API GH tester but 5 deg/90ppm on my water company's website). This is a common thing for south american fish, the ones that can live quite happily in hard alkaline water can't breed because the calcium that makes the water hard does things to the eggs. Although in a community tank the eggs, and fry if they last that long, would be eaten quite quickly. Fish that have been commercially bred will be more likely to do well in your water than wild caught ones. It is quite easy to tell the difference as with these cockatoo cichlids the wild ones don't have as much colour.
The only confliction might be if you did get cories and the apistos spawned. The female can get quite aggressive defending her eggs. But I have dwarf chain loaches, another bottom dweller, and my female apisto hasn't harmed them, she just chases them away.

Honey gouramis do prefer a slightly lower pH than yours but can cope with a hardness up to ~14 german deg/270ppm. These fish are all commercially bred, and it is very hard finding any wild coloured ones these days. I can only assume no-one breeds this colour as the female is silver-beige and people want colourful fish. Mine are the yellow form, and there is also red.