Stocking Suggestions 55 Litre Fish Tank

Hi there! I have a question I was hoping someone may be able to help with haha.

I'll be getting a pair of rams for my 55l. My water is naturally hard so I'll be softening the water of this tank. I'd also like to keep some celestial pearl rasbora. I used the tool on this site and it suggested that with 2 rams and 10 rasbora i'd be 50% stocked, but this seems like a lot of fish? My tank is very heavily planted with bog wood and a sandy substrate. The temperature is at 26.5c at present (the rasbora near me are fine in warmer water!). Would I be able to have some neons in this too? Or should I go for more rasbora? Would neons be better in general than the rasbora? I plan on adding shrimp once there's more algal growth.

Thanks!

Would a 55 litre be able to take 2 rams and a shoal that large? The tool puts me into amber with 20 rasbora, so I'd be very loath to do that when rams can be so temperamental. The tool suggests 15 would be the maximum I could keep whilst staying in the green. Do you think this would work or is it too many?

Cheers for the help

I agree - best to go with 15, at least for now.

I too would go for more cpds rather than a third species.


Can I ask a couple of questions.
How do you intend to soften the water?
Do you know about fishless cycling?
Do you know that rams need to choose their own mates, and how to select a bonded pair from the shop tank?


OK, so that's four questions not two 

I hope you didn't mind me asking  Some people seem to think that adding pH down or some such will also soften water 

You know what you are doing so I didn't need to worry 

I absolutely wouldn't be adverse to some cardinals, especially if it means I can have a bigger group of cpd in my larger tank Would I be looking at similar numbers of stocking in the cardinals or should I go a few less.

I don't mind you checking my knowledge at all! I'm not new to the hobby though, I just fell out of it on the year CPDs were introduced to the hobby since a family member thought putting a pair of very mature blind cave fish with my CPDs was smart (CPDs were very rare and expensive at the time). Needless to say i had some very fat cave fish and no CPDs by the end of it

I'll just have to do more research on this RO system and try to find some mature filter media. That stuff is as rare as hen's teeth!

Yeah I'd assumed 10 would be more in line. Had the tank been more mature I'd have gone for neons

I hadn't seen that thread! I'll drop you a note in the next week or so if it warms up; that'll be a great help. I'll be keeping spare mature media in Harvey's tank (my betta) once it's going so this won't be an issue in future. The filter in my 55l just didn't permit it so easily, especially given I'm going to need to take the active carbon out and put more sponge or ceramic in 

I've never had the water conversation but when I told my friends how cool it felt to have a shrimp on my hand I got the same sighs! 

Sorry to cut in on this, but what dimensions are your 55l? I have an Aquanano 40 which is 55l, but as it's cube shaped, it's just 40cm long. Cardinals are beautiful, but in a tank of that size I'd go for the smaller Green Neons (Paracheirodon simulans). They also like the softer water and their smaller size would allow for a larger shoal.

If you want to avoid the hassle of RO water, you could keep Apistogramma hongsloi instead of Rams. They're suited to the smaller aquarium and hard water. They'd look great with a school of Nannostomus beckfordi.

As you seem to have done you're research I'm guessing you're aware of Emerald Dwarf Rasbora (Celestichthys erythromicron), a beautiful small fish that adores hard water. Pseudomugil species are also great in small hard water tanks.

Good luck whichever route you choose!

Sorry to cut in on this, but what dimensions are your 55l? I have an Aquanano 40 which is 55l, but as it's cube shaped, it's just 40cm long. Cardinals are beautiful, but in a tank of that size I'd go for the smaller Green Neons (Paracheirodon simulans). They also like the softer water and their smaller size would allow for a larger shoal.

If you want to avoid the hassle of RO water, you could keep Apistogramma hongsloi instead of Rams. They're suited to the smaller aquarium and hard water. They'd look great with a school of Nannostomus beckfordi.

As you seem to have done you're research I'm guessing you're aware of Emerald Dwarf Rasbora (Celestichthys erythromicron), a beautiful small fish that adores hard water. Pseudomugil species are also great in small hard water tanks.

Good luck whichever route you choose!

We actually have the same tank, and you raise a very good point. I think that's probably why I considered the CPD in retrospect. I don't mind the RO water route because I just adore rams; they're my favourite freshwater fish outside of Betta.

I'm not too keen on the EDR personally, but thank you for the suggestion! I've been toying with the idea of Apistogramma hongsloi in the larger hard water tank I'll be setting up. I don't like them quite as much as rams but they're a very very close second I think I'll take your advice on the green neons though; what would you suggest for them # wise? I'm not totally familiar with that specific fish. They look to reach similar sizes to the neons though so would it be suggested to have about 15 of these little guys?

It also occurs to me to ask how high nitrate is in your tap water? Rams are nitrate sensitive fish and if you have nitrate at near the legal maximum of 50 ppm you'll need to use a fair amount of RO water to keep nitrate low.

6.46 ppm, so I think I should be good? Nitrite is 0.009 if that's any relevance.

edit;

actually here's my water in general