Freshwater goby species, most north american fish, most livebearers, most rainbowfish...all of these do quite well in hard water. Many other fish, such as bettas and danios, come from somewhat softer environments but will nonetheless still do well in most water as long as the parameters are not absurdly off the charts (think PH 9, GH 15+, etc...)
As for which ones will do well with shrimp...boy, that's a hard question. Almost ALL fish will eat shrimplets and tear up adult shrimp when molting - even little H. formosa (a tiny North American livebearer with half inch males) have been observed to gang up on ADULT dwarf shrimp, flip them over, and then devour them. Amanos are probably much safer with tank mates, but I would still stick with small species such as endlers, ricefish, threadfin rainbows, pseudomugils, and the like.
Whereever it is that you would buy fish from, go in there and ask to see their water's PH.
If it's not a shop that does regular water PH adjustments for their stock tanks, it should be the same as your tap water. If that is the case, you should be able to keep any fish they have if it's a type they regularly keep. They usually won't keep fish that won't live long in their tanks. A Ram might be an example of such a fish.
Most fish can adapt to almost any PH. What harms them most is when someone changes the PH regularly. Often referred to as bouncing the PH up and down.
For example if your tank had crushed coral in it as a decoration/sub...this raises the PH.
In such a tank, putting in a PH changing chemical will work for only a few hrs and then the PH will rise back to where it was because of the coral...bouncing it.
I might research the fish you like and avoid those which state that the preferred PH
is below 7.4, but any which have a mid 7 like 7.4-7.8 should do well if the store already has them in the same water you have.
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I don't know why, but I just can't get on board with cichlids. I don't like their pointy little faces lol!
This leads me to think you may be overlooking a lot of cichlids. Many people think cichlids are all African cichlids when there are actually tons of cichlids that are not like that at all. Angelfish and Oscars for instance are cichlids! But then when you speak of aggressive, cichlids of all types do tend to have more opinions than other fish. They do consider the tank to be their home in many cases and you are just there to help!!
But then that is the part of them I like so much. I love to watch them and how they do think about things rather than just swimming and eating.
Lol! I've kept bolivians, gold rams, and electric blue rams, and all were bright and colorful and lived normal life spans. They spawned regularly and the babies made it to hatching a couple times, but they were in community tanks with angels, cories, tetras, plecos, etc. and didn't stand a chance. I did get mine from sellers on here and on aquabid who raise them in water that runs in the mid 7's and is a little harder than ideal thinking that would up my odds. Whether it ultimately mattered or not I don't know, but they did very well for me. My neighbor has got a couple of GBR she picked up at a lfs that are doing equally well in her tank.
Would something like mopani wood or indian almond leaf be able to lower the ph naturally?
My ph runs 7.8 also.
I keep livebearers, pristella tetra, bristlenose, bettas and fire red shrimp and angels. Not all in the same tank of course.
The OP has a much lower KH than I do, so he might have better luck than I did, but NOTHING is effective at lowering my PH. I've even set up tanks that were 1 part tap to 9 parts neutral RO, and within 3 days the PH is back up over 8 in the tank. Early on, I tried peat, driftwood, almond leaves, etc to bring the PH down. Some would work very temporarily, but nothing would get it down and keep it down. Also, using those methods to lower it means that you have to pre-treat your water for water changes to avoid swings. In the end, it was way easier to just work with what I have, and that's been find for the majority of fish.
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