Hello guys, could use another word of friendly advice! I've started to stock my 55 gal. It's cycled and beautiful, but its lack of fish has left me wanting. I do have a problem though, my red dwarf gourami is a fin nipper...bigtime . I would like to know of a few species that would to well with him. I've considered fish larger than him but im not sure it's the right answer. Aside from that I have a rainbow shark and a pleco in the tank. Thanks for any time and advice guys!

Hey Jake,

Forgive me if I missed something but is this the same tank that you just started cycling? The reason I ask is because you might be a bit premature in stocking the tank, leaving yourself and your fish open to quite a few potential problems. The first thing we all need to keep in mind, especially when we have a new aquarium, is that the process of purchasing fish, bringing them home, and then acclimating them to a new environment is very stressful even when they are housed in a well established aquarium. This stress really does play a huge role in your fishes' ability to fight off illness, disease and parasites and often times these issues can lead to death long before poor water quality. Like I said though, I might have missed something and of course, it is your aquarium so perhaps you know something I don't but I thought I would mention this anyways.

In any case, another important consideration is that stocking your tank with large numbers of fish too quickly can cause problems, including the potential for your fish to produce more ammonia than your current beneficial bacteria population can remove it. The reason I point this out is because one good way to curb a "nippy" fishes' aggression would be to increase the population of fish in your tank. Technically, this may not actually "cure" the aggression completely but the idea is to give the problem fish(es) more "targets" and hence, one fish isn't taking the full punishment. You would want to use a little strategy here though. Of course, you only want to keep fish that would naturally get along and enjoy a similar environment but you would also want to make sure what each of your fishes' disposition might be when it comes to dealing with others of its own kind. For example, I believe that the dwarf gourami should be kept singularly or in a pair while a "the more, the merrier" approach can be taken with Tiger Barbs - another 'nippy' fish. Again, you wouldn't want to go out and bring a dozen fish home tomorrow but instead, stock slowly.

Another point you might want to think about is selecting fish according to their preferred area in an aquarium. For example, your rainbow shark is going to spend most of its time in the bottom area of the tank. This is important because having too "bottom-dwellers" could result in aggression as they would all jockey for certain territory or another. Likewise, many types of fish will be reluctant to swim out in the open areas of your tank unless they have places to dash for when they sense danger and in some cases, perhaps even with your gourami, a lack of hiding spots may force a fish to defend a specific area of an aquarium.

Do you have any specific fish that you would like to keep? Knowing that might help us help you come up with a good plan as you move forward with this tank.

TG

Sorry about the delay in reply there man! Was out of town the past week or so. I failed to mention that I moved everything from the gravel, to (for a short period) my filter media to the new tank which really killed the wait. I kept the fish at a friends place while it did it's cycle. They are all alive and doing fantastic. I have also added a few tetras, and 3 dojo loaches to the setup. It's all really well balanced now and looking great. Adding more fish steadily was a great way to chill out that gourami. I'm going to stop stocking for a while as I know these guys all still have some growing to do and I don't want to exceed the bioload capacity. Thanks for all the help man, and again sorry about the delay!

No problem with delays...I'm probably the worst at delayed replies lately around here.

I agree with the idea of holding off on adding more fish for a while as there will probably be a delay between adding the fish you have and when they start placing their real demands on the bioload. This will be an important time to keep up with the water testing because it will be the best way to see potential problems as your ecosystem adjusts to the new fish.