What To Pick Next?

Morning Tracy

It's exciting getting your fish, isn't it? Are you new to fishkeeping?
Sue will call in and help you out properly with advice, but in the meantime, I thought I would just ask, is your Siamese fighter male or female? If it is a male you will have to be careful who he lives with. They are generally better (pardon the pun ;)0 in a smaller tank on their own or maybe with a snail.
My own fighter, Rafe, had to go in to my main tank when his tank sprang a leak. I was very lucky that he and all the other fish, which included a male dwarf gourami, behaved themselves and got along ok. I believe this was helped by Rafe being a bit of a gentleman and not one to flex his muscles and that he went in to the tank last, so he was not in a situation where he felt he had to guard his territory. If you add other fish to your tank....especially larger ones, I think you may have problems. You may be better advised to get another tank for the fighter, and then look at your stocking levels.
If you go to the community creator bit on this site, you can put in your tank dimensions and current fish and it will tell you how you stand with how many other fish, (if any) your tank can accomodate, and which ones will be compatible.
The other thing to say is that you will increase your numbers quite dramatically as your platys will keep on producing fry. Some will get eaten by the other fish but not all. You need to have a plan for what you are going to do with the ones that survive mealtimes My own platys breed like....well..platys but I have been lucky in that my local shop takes the babies....most won't. In fact, I am taking a load in today.
Also, while I think of it, if the CC says you have space for more fish, you should increase your oto numbers, they need to be in a shoal of six or more.
I'm sorry to be a bit of a damp squib about it all, but I should hate for you to have problems and upset your happy little community. If it works out you can add more fish, I can't recommend highly enough, the corydoras There are a lot of different ones to choose from, but they are all lovely friendly, peaceful fish with loads of character....I wouldn't be without mine. I have pepper cories (not salt & pepper, they are different.) and panda cories.  Have a look at them all, there's one for nearly every set-up, just find one that suits your tank size, water conditions and hardness of water. They just need to be on a sand or round gravel substrate, (to protect their barbels from damage and infection) and their water needs to be kept really clean (but it should be anyway ). They are wonderful fish and get along with everybody.

Well, enough blathering on at you, see what you think, and I'm sure there will be other suggestions posted in. Good luck with it all and let us know what you decide on in the end....pics are always good too We love pics and I don't think we have had a corner tank on our gallery yet

Have a good Saturday!

Welcome Tracym73 

In addition to fab advice from Resa you may want to peruse the Fish Profile section for a little additional  inspiration - you might also want to try the fish community creator too.

An example of one is at the bottom of the page here .

Unfortunately, it's not tied to the forum software so you'll have to login with a username and password and then start picking. It's very handy though and great for giving you an idea of fish compatibility and sizes and what not!

 

Thanks guys, I 've been using the community creator. It is a brilliant tool.

Thanks for the info about the ottos, to be honest I haven't had much luck with them up to now in my daughters tank but I did like them. Only had one at a time in there as well but they died after a month or two and algae definitely wasn't a problem - maybe they were lonely  Will try a few together if I can.

I will check out some of the tetras, I have always had a soft spot for neons so I will def think about them or other tetras and harlequins (never had them before).

Like you said though I want to be really careful, I have been really lucky both fighters and the gouramis are nervous by nature but mine are looking really happy and are seriously friendly so I don't want to upset them.

I do love guppies but a few people have said fighters might go for them, do you think they are a definite no no or do you think it is just personality dependent?

Thanks again you have given me a lot to think about 

Hi Tracy,

It's an absolute minefield, isn't it? You'd think you could just decide which fish you fancy....and go get'em! I found it really frustrating when I was choosing my fish. It seemed every one I liked, couldn't be with another I wanted, or not that size tank or some other reason
That's why the CC is so good though. You can play around with different ideas and see what community you would be happy with.

Just for info, I had a male dwarf gourami, male betta, guppies, platys and otos all in together...I was SO lucky that they all got on really well and I had no instances of fin nipping or aggression. Other things to know that may be useful in your decision making are, oto's are known for being a bit difficult. It seems that if they make the first month to six weeks in your tank they should be fine. I bought three (before I knew this or that they needed to be in sixes :-[0 One died within a week or so, the other two I still have...nearly a year later
I read somewhere, (don't remember where now) that the reason that they can die so quickly is because of how they are treated between capture and fish shop. If they are not fed or don't feed because of the stress, after capture and during transportation they obviously begin to starve, and sadly these little fish can't just start eating again once they have gone without...again..I can't remember why, I must try and find the article again. I should file them like Sue does. So, a tip for buying otos is, try and find out from the shop how long they have had them in stock...the longer, the better, and choose busy, plump looking ones. I drop a few algae wafers in my tank for them but to be honest they don't really get near them and prefer instead to munch on the algae. The other thing that is useful is a little softened courgette put in as a treat...but make sure you remove any uneaten bits after about an hour.

Guppies also have a tendency to die these days. This is due apparently to weakness developed from the breeding required to obtain those wonderful colours. Again, in my experience I bought 5, lost two within a few months but had the rest for a year...my last one recently died I think locally bred ones (perhaps a hobbyist fish breeder) might be more reliable.

Lastly, yes, cories would be out of the question with your slate...a pity as they are lovely, lovely fish...but I'm probably biased

Anyway, war & peace over, good luck with your choosing.....at least that's part of the fun!

Depending on where I get fish from, I do. Mine is 25 litres. I just steal some media from the filter in my main tank for the QT filter when I need to set it up.
Whitespot is very common. New fish tend to bring it in. Because of the way the parasite attacks fish it is invisible at first, we can only see it when the bugs grown. A new fish could well be infected at purchase. And because being bought and put into a strange tank is stressful, the new fish tend to come down with it quite badly.

 
Zebra danios and bettas - when people have problems it's not the danios nipping the bettas, it's that danios are so zippy they stress bettas out.

In my QT, I don't use a substrate, but I do use plastic plants and caves made from sections of drainpipe - decor is necessary or the fish will get stressed. The lack of substrate makes it easier to keep the tank clean see if any poo looks odd. The decor is all easy to sterilise if that proves necessary. The tank also doubles as a hospital tank. If the tank does need to be sterilised, the filter media has to be forfeited, otherwise it goes back in the main tank's filter when the fish to in that tank.
You can chop up a bit of sponge to get it to fit in the QT's filter. The main tank's bacteria will be spread out evenly between the bits of media; the amount you'll need to take is the same proportion as the fish in the QT to the fish in the main tank.