Reply To: Suggetions please
For a good combination of beauty and “good neighbor” community fish:
– Marble hatchets for the top — they “fly” in formation and never bother those dwelling in the lower regions.
– More cardinals when you can get them — the more the better!
– Dwarf (praecox) rainbows — larger rainbows can be somewhat, well, not truly aggressive, but at least a little obnoxious at they crash back and forth in the tank. The dwarfs are silver-sided, and the males have bright red/pink fins, while the females have bright yellow fins.
– if you have a fairly passive tank with enough vegetation for them to hide in when they feel threatened, I really like honey dwarf gouramis (Colisa chuna). Beautiful peaceful little splotches of yellow that poke around in the tank. Also, these little gouramis won’t out-compete your bottom dwellers for food like the larger ones can.
– a lone angel or black knife fish adds interest to the tank, but when they get larger, the cardinals will begin to disappear!
– Rummy-nose tetras: keeps the Amazon / South American theme going, make nice counterpoint to the cardinals.
– Ram (one of ste1200’s of course) — also maintains the south(/central) american theme.
– I’m also partial to loaches — sidthimunkis are my favorite, but some of the fast water hillstreams are very interesting too, as long as the water stays remarkably clear: Schistura cf. balteata and Sewellia lineolata are fun ones! (But just like kuhlis, the Schistura will try to spend some of their time up inside your waterfall filter!)
Have fun, and post some px when you get a chance.