Really only a choice you can make. Be sure to look at parameters when researching combining different types of fish. I personally like corys so a vote for those dwarf guys and shrimps are always cool as well.
If it was me I would research some more on the dwarf rainbow fish and probably go with those, the pygmy corys, and shrimps. Or chillies, pygmys, and shrimps. Chillies are pretty cool little fish. Either way you could have a decent school of either the dwarf rainbows or ecspecially the chillies.

Only reason not for gouramis is trying to have a shrimp colony may prove difficult. Not saying it cant be done, been a long time since I dealt with gouramis but remember they were pretty good at tracking down and munching on small live items.
Neons can have some issues and they like to swim so I prefer a longer tank if I was getting them. If you want a tetra try Ember tetras. They stay smaller and in my experience do better in a tank thats not as long like the 20H.

Just a few thoughts,
Tank looks good by the way.

 

My 20 gal fish stock:

6 Neons
10 ember tetras
6 Harlequin Rasboras
6 Albino cory
3 Otocinclus catfish
1 Honey Gourami
1 Betta

My water parameters are perfect. I've got a canister filter fully planted which are thriving. I can stock this many because I've got so many plants and I do my weekly water changes, monitor my water parameters from time to time.

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

It's hard when they are all so amazing.





I love the plants in your 20 gallon. Mine have since all melted really badly. What do you have growing in yours ?

I love the white clouds. I wanted chili rasboras but there so hard to come by in my area.

1 Honey Gourami
6 white clouds or neons
3 Otto
6 ember tetra
6 pygmy cory

Can I get away with that ?

 

I really want a Gourami and some small tetra schooling fish and either shrimps or pygmy corydoras.

But the blue eyed rainbows are just so interesting also.

Ugh I want them all. Lol

But 20 gallon is all I had room for.

Shrimp I think is the way to go as a clean up crew so what fish should I go with if cheey shrimp is my choice..

Haha, I feel your pain. My nitrogen cycle is almost finished and I also really want gouramis with tetras and corys. Good luck deciding. Your tank looks great!

 

@YodaFishGrl thanks, im no expert as this is my first planted tank but I'll share you what my current experience. I had plants that melted the fist time i put them in as they we're grown emersed (hygrophelia polysperma & rotala rotundifulia)at first i didn't even know why they look so different on the sellers pic lol and my lotus plant also melted. Anyway fast forward a couple of weeks later my polysperma & rotala started to bounceback like crazy althought it took about a month for they're true submerged form to show. What i did:
1.) Your light is important. I have a T5 HO light and started at 6hrs and just bumped it last week to 7hrs and thats after i setup my tank in last week of Aug.

2.) I started dosing right away which i would not advise you'd do as you will just shock the plants more, luckily it was just a lil dose and about once or twice a week. I'm currently dosing excel and potassium. I was also dosing flourish but had stopped it as my polysperma didn't like it. I may try again but maybe this time just a lil bit and will do it once a week. I may also try iron but im just currently battling a lil bit of hair algae not sure if its BBA. Good thing is I'm winning the battle a lil bit lol by just doing water changes and injecting affected area with excel everyday. I would say Excel is really great with planted tanks, specially for non hi tech one. My schedule for now is dose excel everyday and potassium 3x a week. Water changes weekly. That's all im actually doing with my tank.

I've put in the plant that i trimmed from my 20g and put it in on my 3.5g with stock light and my polysperma just started melting.

3.) Substrate. Im using AF lava soil. I've got limited options here in NZ. There's not much information about this but i tell you they are doing great so far. Oh i use root tabs for my dwarf sagittaria, lucky dip sword as they are heavy root feeders.

Research about your plant that your putting in. What light do they need. For me i think light really plays an important role for plants to thrive.

As for your stocking question. Yes those are really great ideas. Just a tip, im pretty sure you already know but just in case. Add them slowly and then keep checking your water parameters before adding another fish. Again i believe that you can overstock your tank as long as you've got good filtration, lots of plant to battle ammonia and keep your nitrate stable. I still check my water parameters from time to time, check my plants for growth, I'd know that my fish are doing well and are happy. Sorry for the long post. Hope your plants bounce back. May i know what are they? My plants are bigginer plants thats why maybe i haven't killed them lol.

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

If your plants are melting slow down. Something is out of balance and your tank is not stable. My advice right now would be adding 6-7 ramshorn snails, changing 20% water twice a week, sucking up whatever melted plant matter you can in those water changes. Monitor ammonia/nitrites/nitrates and phosphates. Do water changes as needed to keep them inline.

Wait for plant growth to pick up/resume slightly, light dosing at probably 1/3+- recommend rate, absolutely no extra iron supplements etc, easy green only at 1/3 rate.

Healthy plant growth+healthy circulation/substrate=healthy aquarium that can support livestock. Right now you if you try to add stock my prediction is you’ll get a whole heaping portion of aquarium fail that will set you back weeks in aquarium setup/stability.

Also Blue Eye rainbows covers a whole family of species. Some like harder/clearer water and would be perfect tank mates for endler’s, others like like softer/more tannic waters and would be good matches for gourami, neons and Cory. Go to “Home of rainbowfish” and study types and their preferred water conditions.

Also, if your using tap water it’s always best to match fish/plants to water parameters that you have access to rather than force a fish into waters where it’s not in optimal conditions. If you’ve got hard/high PH water forget about neons. Get some Gertrude rainbows and some ramshorn snails to start off with.

 

I also started dosing right away. Maybe not the best from everything I've heard so far.
I got 4 white clouds yesterday. I am going to add fish very slowly. I'm going to remove my stem plants. And cut back my melted crypts and maybe add some jungle Val in the place of the stem plants. And add some floating water lettuce.

Here are my specs

20 Gallon Tall

Light: Stingray 2 LED
Filter: Oasis Filtrosmart 100
Planted Substrate: Fluval Stratum
Decor: Dragon Stone
Sand: Caribsea Sunset Gold
Dosing: Aquarium Co-Op Easy green, Easy Carbon, Easy Iron, Seachem Prime

Water test results
Ph 7.4
Ammonia .50
Nitrite .25
Nitrate 10
Tempature: 73°

Plants:
Bucephalandra Purple
Bucephalandra Blue
Staurogyne Repens (tissue culture) Cryptocoryne Beckettii
Cryptocoryne Balansae
Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green (tissue culture) Ludwigia Repens
Bacopa Caroliniana Red
Tiger Lotus Bulb
Dwarf Aquarium Lily Bulb

 

I also started dosing right away. Maybe not the best from everything I've heard so far.
I got 4 white clouds yesterday. I am going to add fish very slowly. I'm going to remove my stem plants. And cut back my melted crypts and maybe add some jungle Val in the place of the stem plants. And add some floating water lettuce.

Plants:
Bucephalandra Purple
Bucephalandra Blue
Staurogyne Repens (tissue culture) Cryptocoryne Beckettii
Cryptocoryne Balansae
Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green (tissue culture) Ludwigia Repens
Bacopa Caroliniana Red
Tiger Lotus Bulb
Dwarf Aquarium Lily Bulb

Jungle val grows really fast and the leaves will drape over the top of the tank shading what's below. It's a great look, but it will lower light levels for everything else, and you'll need to stay on top of the trimming. All those dire warnings aside, happy to gift you some val if you still want it.

Your Crypt balansae, once it recovers, should slowly grow into a great low maintenance background plant. At which point you can decide if you still want to keep the val.

I did a water change and stopped dosing completely. my crypts had completed melted. But my repens has new leaf growth at the very base of what melted. And still is holding it's shap and standing up straight. My bacopa also has new leaf grotlwth at the very tips. But my ludwigia lost like all of its lower leaves.

I'm thinking of pulling them out and cutting off the bottom and replanting them since I stopped dosing and see if they grow better.

I've decided I definitely want shrimp because with the fluval stratum substrate I noticed the fish food really falls into the cracks. I want the shrimp to keep everything well eaten.

I'm thinking of doing 3 small schools of different schooling fish. And the shrimp.

-6 white clouds
-6 ember tetras
-6 ? Of another small tetra
-12 Red cherry shrimp

I'm not sure need to research some shrimp safe tetra or rasboras that won't get to large.

White Cloud Mountain Minnows like much lower temps than most tropical fish--upper limit of about 72. There's not a lot of overlap in temp range between them and the embers. So just be sure to carefully research the optimal temperature ranges for your desired fish and shrimp. 70 might be a good temp for what you've chosen--in which case you might not even need a heater.

Tetras school better in bigger groups, so you might just want to go with 12 embers rather than trying to mix species. A nice sized group of embers schooling is a beautiful sight....

If your plants are melting slow down. Something is out of balance and your tank is not stable. My advice right now would be adding 6-7 ramshorn snails, changing 20% water twice a week, sucking up whatever melted plant matter you can in those water changes. Monitor ammonia/nitrites/nitrates and phosphates. Do water changes as needed to keep them inline.

Melting is common with new plants--especially crypts, and especially tissue cultured plants. Most commercially grown plants are grown emersed, so lose all their terrestrial leaves and grow new underwater leaves. Using some polyester floss in your filter should help trap some of the mess from the melt so you can easily remove it. In addition to snails, shrimp will also help clean up any melting leaves you might miss, as well as algae. Probably too soon to add RCS, but in the meantime ghost shrimp are cheap & easy.

Don't keep RCS myself, but everything I've read says you should start the RCS colony first, then add your fish so the shrimp have a chance to get established & breeding before their predators (for the babies anyway) get introduced. A nice patch of java moss somewhere will provide plenty of cover and a foraging ground

Good luck! Will be following to see what you end up getting, and how it works out....

 

If you decide on sparkling gouramis, I would suggest skipping the RCS. I tested just a few shrimp from another tank in with my gouramis and they were gone within a day or two.

The stocking options are endless making it very hard to choose. That's why I now have 7 tanks.

 

How long have you set your time? Start with 6hrs. Also if you can get seachem excell and slowly dose a small amount i would say 3x per week. It really helps a lot with my plant growth as this is like a substitute for CO2. Try not to dose iron as i think easy green alteady provides a small amount of that. I try not to dose a lot of things to my tank with the exception of potassium because of the deficiency and it has since bounce back. Though im still dosing a lil bit coz of the result i got from the combination of my excel. Plants were greener and rotala started to show some redness.

Also with excel it helps slow down the growth of green algae. Patience is the key, do one thing at a time. Try with the lights first and stop dosing and slowly dose 1 at a time. I'd start with excel. Not sure if some of your plants melt with excel although i never heard of it. I might be wrong so reaserch first then get one if you can.

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

I did a water change and stopped dosing completely. my crypts had completed melted. But my repens has new leaf growth at the very base of what melted. And still is holding it's shap and standing up straight. My bacopa also has new leaf grotlwth at the very tips. But my ludwigia lost like all of its lower leaves.

I'm thinking of pulling them out and cutting off the bottom and replanting them since I stopped dosing and see if they grow better.


I've decided I definitely want shrimp because with the fluval stratum substrate I noticed the fish food really falls into the cracks. I want the shrimp to keep everything well eaten.

I'm thinking of doing 3 small schools of different schooling fish. And the shrimp.

-6 white clouds
-6 ember tetras
-6 ? Of another small tetra
-12 Red cherry shrimp

I'm not sure need to research some shrimp safe tetra or rasboras that won't get to large.

 

Embers are good/fine with shrimp. Sure they will eat babies but most/all fish will except maybe OTOs.

White clouds different parameters, and I think a little more shrimp aggressive.
Other fishes, dwarf rasboras like chillies/CPDs/emerald dwarf rasboras are a few that probably wont wipe out the colony. Nice thing about the chillies and similar in my experience they hang out at the top of the tank. The embers are middle to lower, they are kind of odd tetras. The CPDs are middle and front once established. All of these stay small.

And ofcourse the dwarf corys, dont want to leave them out.

IMHO I would start with maybe one school, the corys if you still want those, and the shrimp. Not necessarily all at once. Then add others like a week or two later. Dont recommend getting everything all at once and throwing them in the tank. Ramp up the population is safer and less of a heart ache if something goes wrong initially.

 

I did some tank maintenance today my melted plants just deteriorated upon contact. Tank is super cloudy now. I removed all dead plants, still have my Lilly bulbs, 1 tiny repens, and all 3 bucephalandra. I also added more Substrate.

It cleared up the next day

I'm really loving my white clouds though. I decided I'm going to do a school of them. And go for a more grassier planted looking tank. Plant Val across the back. And some dwarf sag all across the front. Then mix in some swords.
And the beach will be open swimming area.

I noticed 3 of my white clouds swim around together and one had declared dominance over the other 2. I'm assuming he is the alpha male. He is very mean and appears to unfortunately have a bent tail bit he isn't letting it slow him down.

My 4th White cloud avoids the other 3 's shinanigans and sticks to her self. Always as far from them as she can possible be. I'm assuming gender based on behavior. I am digging there personality a lot

So this will be my FINAL desicion.

How many can I keep in a 20 gallon tall??
And are there any good tank mates ?

 

A small school of corydoras would be nice and add interest to the bottom of the tank to balance out the topdwelling White Clouds. Just look for species that prefer colder water like your White Clouds. Corydoras habrosus is one, but there are lots of options so do some research to find ones with temperature requirements similar to your minnows.

If you're doing a cold water tank, a single male paradise fish might be a nice addition. You'd wanted a gourami--they're similar, and are very colorful with long flowing fins.