My Tank - One Week In

A bit of a mini-blog follows! I finished my fishless cycle a week ago and I'm very pleased how things are going with my fish so far. Thanks to everyone who helped me get this far in other threads.

Colin asked me for some pictures, links below - I am a bit embarrassed to share them because you can see my tank is very green. I spent an hour yesterday cleaning out blue green algae, and I'll be doing the same tomorrow. It has been my main problem so far - it died back a lot when I had a three day blackout, but that nearly killed all my plants - so I'm going to bite the bullet and try a chemical. Probably Easy Life Blue Exit based on reviews, unless someone has a recommendation.

I'm hoping to have all real plants in time, but I bought some cheap plastic ones for now, to give the new fish some cover. Actually the fish mostly prefer the end with the real plants, but that might be because of their reflection in the side of the tank. My water ok so far, near 0 ammonia and nitrites, nitrates ok if not great, currently < 50. A 50/50 tap-RO mix is giving me gH of 12 and ph 7.4.

The Tiger Barbs have been great so far. I think they are a bit of a marmite fish, not great for mixed communities, but very entertaining. They are constantly hunting around, exploring and playing. They use the full 120cm  tank, often swimming from end to end. The main site says the minimum tank is 60cm, and I have seen them chase each other at top speed at least that far. I decided to increase from six to ten before adding any other fish, since one was generally hiding at the opposite end of the tank. I couldn't see any evidence of it being bullied, but it seemed a possibility, since I do not know the male/ female mix. It does now seem to have stopped, and so far they have been ignoring my snail, which is also good.

I think I will probably add Kuhli loaches next. I was very tempted by Yoyo loaches, creating an Arkham Asylum of bad community fishes. But looking at some Clown loaches at my lfs that had grown to full Yoyo size, I am not convinced my tank is big enough for six of them. Dwarf Chain and Zebra loaches are nice, but I've seen reports of Tiger Barbs harassing them. The Kuhli's strategy of hiding probably serves it well living with Barbs in Sumatra, so I'm hoping will work in Berkshire too :-).

I would like to add another species to the middle of the tank at some point - Black Ruby Barbs, Zebra Danio and Cardinal/ Neon tetra seem the most likely choices. The last one surprised me, but I've seen several people saying that inexplicably Tiger Barbs which will generally harass anything, ignore them completely. But no rush.
Thanks if you've read all this , suggestions and advice are very welcome.

tank pic

fish pic

Nice looking tank Mogwai ( i like the band with the same name as you )

I`ve 10 tiger barbs in my tank as well and they don't bother any of my other fish as like you have said they are too busy playing and chasing each other around.
i went for a school of emperor tetras (21 fish ) to add to the middle and then i go off the grid with my other fish as ive got a mix of cichlid`s and gourami`s but they all seem to get on well as was all bought around the same time and plenty of rocks and plants to hide in

Thanks all, very kind.

The name is inspired by the band Gummy . I might've gone with Sigur Ros if I could have thought of a decent avatar .

Can I ask which Gourami you've got? I like the idea of adding some top of tank fish, but thought it was too optimistic.

I like 'Brotherhood of Man' 

Gorgeous fish!!