PlanetCatfish.com

A faq, no doubt:)

I've got a 20 gallon tank that I'm turning into a planted tank. I was thinking about cory cats for the bottom of the tank and some white clouds for the middle of the tank. It'll eventually have either hairgrass or chain swords over the bottom, depends on which likes the tank better. Right now it has got fluorite as substrate, but I could put sand over it if I needed to. Though since it is already loosely planted I'd rather stay away from that if possible.

I know I would at least need 6 cats in the tank for a good school, so I was wondering what species of cories would stay small enough that I could do that without them being crowded? It's a tall tank, not a long one, if that helps.

Thanks in advance

As long as you stay with coolwater fish as your whiteclouds are, I would consider choosing Corydoras panda. They do best in the mid to low mid 70's. They are a relatively small species of Corydoras without being a dwarf species and they are one of the more attractive species, imo.

Before I added the Corydoras I recommend blending in some med grain sized sand with the flourite. All the flourite substrate I have seen is really more of a fracted gravel. This sort of substrate is hard on the delicate nose barbels characteristic of Corydoras

*gets a little cartoonish exclamation point above her head*

Ah, good thing you said that! I wasn't even thinking about temps. . . I remembered they were cooler water fish, but it just didn't click until then. My tank stays WAY too hot for them >_> By close to 10 degrees! Oops. Lol, I'd originally wanted cardinals since the tank is a constant 80(no heater) and was just concerned that I wouldn't be able to keep them alive, so someone suggested white clouds. Rats. Back to square one I guess

Aha! I think(90% sure) I found some of these little ones at my local store tonight. They were just labled as "spotted" and since it was petsmart no one knows WHAT species it is. . . The cat-elog says that they're fine in around 80 degree water and they stay at 2.2" max I got 4 of them for my tank, but do you think I should try to make a school of 6 of them, or since it is only 20 gallons should the 4 be an okay school?

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/sp ... ies_id=485

You can certainly keep 6 in a 20g tank, no probs at all.

Of course, this assumes that you don't already have a fairly full tank, but if there's just a few or small fish (such as white clouds, cardinals, etc), that would be fine.

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Mats

*nod* I was thinking of making a school of 12 or so small(like cardinal or white cloud) fish in there too.