FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I have all the fish listed below in my 20 gallon and the guy at the fish store told me i could add a school of small bottom feeders but i was worried about over stocking. Any good suggestions or ideas?

you don't necessarily need a school, why not a variety.

e.g a few algae / ghost shrimp, couple of skunk botia and a couple of khuli loaches, eat species is pretty unique and it will add variety to your tank

WOuld a school of cory cats be ok?

You could add some cory cats, I think that a group of 3 would be fine for your tank... I know that a lot of people think they have to be in groups of 6 but mine are very active and happy. I personally love the albino cories (I have 4) and the peppered cories (I have 2 of those). As to whether or not you'd be overstocking really depends on how diligent you are on water changes, etc. Of course if you add 3 and decide you want more you can always end up with 6 later.

HTH,
Beth

Cories are schooling fish and should be kept in groups of 6 or more. If you returned the 3 zebra danios that need a school, you'd probably have room for a school of small cories. I recommend panda, skunk, hasbrosus, hastatus, or pygmy cories, since they all stay small.

Shrimp don't really add much to your bio-load so you could get quite a few of them.

---

They shade the glow of it with their mossy-misty costumes,
They wear masks of silk, porcelain, brass, and silver,
So as not to mislead with their own, ordinary faces.

I feel bad returning the danios as they were the first fish i had when i rescued them right after i set up my tank . Would a group of three cories be too small?

No a group of three cories is fine. Some people think that they have to be in a group of six or more or they will die or something. BUt i had 3 in a 55 and they spawned!!!!!! So apparently they were happy enough. SO put as many as you can fit but definintly no less than 3 but put as many as you can because the more the merryier.

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-07-25 11:17][/span]

CORIES ARE SCHOOLING FISH.

Argh.

They are schooling fish just like tetras or barbs. They should be kept in groups of 6 or more. There are MANY threads about this.

How do you judge "fine"? That they were alive? Have you seen cories in a real school, and have you seen how they act when they are among enough members of their own kind? I saw a noticable difference between a group of 5 cories and a school of 6. When I had less than 6, they tried to stay with the other school of cories. When I added more, they stayed with their own kind.

Cories really are schooling fish, and they should be kept in groups of 6 or more.

---

They shade the glow of it with their mossy-misty costumes,
They wear masks of silk, porcelain, brass, and silver,
So as not to mislead with their own, ordinary faces.

Cories are shoaling not schooling.

shoal (noun): A group, crowd, or throng

school (noun): A large group of aquatic animals, especially fish, swimming together


So, typically, if several different types of shoaling fish are in a tank together they will group together, whereas, with schooling fish, for example, neon tetras prefer only to group with other neon tetras. Another example of schooling is that the group of fish actually appears to move as one entity swimming in one direction, while the shoaling group of fish appears to hang out but the fish may all move independent of each other. I hope that clears up any misconceptions about the differences between shoaling and schooling fish.

On a different note, I have noticed that my corys are more active and playful now that there are more of them BUT they are 2 different varieties of corydoras. This is a shoal.

-Beth

if several different types of shoaling fish are in a tank together they will group together

IME, cories will only school/shoal with other species if they do not have a sufficient school/shoal of their own. My cories completely ignore each other now that they are in schools.

---

They shade the glow of it with their mossy-misty costumes,
They wear masks of silk, porcelain, brass, and silver,
So as not to mislead with their own, ordinary faces.

If you want bottom feeders for the sake of cleaning up, and you want to keep the bioload small, i'de say otto's or a bristlenose, then throw in a few shrimp on the side.

veteric, how would a BN keep the bioload small? they are a very messy fish.... I'd just go with shrimp

cfd


--------------------------
Billy was a scientist, Billy is no more. For what he thought was H20, was H2SO4

A little tidbit of info:

In the wild, corys only loosely associate with each other. Unless a predator is chasing them or something else stressful is happening, corys in the wild are found in an average density of no more than one individual per square meter. Corys are not schooling fish like tetras and danios are. They are shoaling. There is a difference. If anything the fact that we keep them in such large numbers in a confined space is unnatural and possibly stressful to them.

As long as there is nothing stressing them, three corys will be perfectly fine, healthy, and happy in a 20 gallon.

[span class="edited"][Edited by Cory Addict 2004-07-26 02:56][/span]

---

I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

its performance for the size in the case of BN's- one little 1.5 inch BN keeps my 33 gal algae free. I'de say 1 messy bristlenose isn't as bad on bioload as 5 clean bottom feeders of another kind.

Yes, cories are shoaling, yes cories are happiest in groups of 6+, as then they are much more gregarious, yes lone or small numbers of cories can be under stress, however they can be kept in smaller numbers. I and many others have kept lone or small numbers that live as long and are as healthy as large groups, but they do generally better in numbers of 6+, and are usually more entertaining as well.