kahuna

So yesterday I bought my first 3 Corydoras (punctatus). I just love them. They have been so shy and skittish and I understand that is normal, but I felt it might be a big help if they had more numbers, so I went back to LFS today and bought the last 3 remaining.

This is a 55 gal tank with ammonia 0, nitrites 0 and nitrates 10. Other inhabitants are 3- Boesmani Rainbow, 1-Pearl Gour, 1- DG Gour, 6 Platy and several Platy Fry. Question: is adding 6 new Corydoras (approx 1" ea) going to cause problems? I could take out a couple Platy and move to my daughters 10 gal which has 1-Platy and 1-Molly, but would prefer not to. I am in the process of donating some or all Platy to the local school and would like to try to keep the stress down on moves.

You are all the pros, what is the consensus?

Jonah

Rainbows 4" x 3 = 12"
Dwarf G = 3"
Plattys say 15"
Pearl whats that 6"?

IMHO you are not overstocked for a 55gal you are fine with that stocking plan.

kahuna

I did not really word my question well. My LFS said to keep my new additions to 3 or 4 fish per week maximum. So by adding 6 fish at one period, is this going to overwhelm my tank?

Jonah

6" is a fair ammount in one go but provided you keep on top of the water and check particularly for ammonia and make water changes as required you will be fine.

It will just mean a lot more attention on your part for the next 7-10 days but imagine if you had bought a breeding pair of angels and added them to the tank you would have had the same if not a larger increase in bio-load

kahuna

Well your Angel analogy definitely puts it into perspective. Thank you, I will test the water everyday to make sure I don't have any surprises. I am new at this and have not lost any fish yet and am kind of trying to take this a step at a time. Seeing the first 3 little guys desparately trying to hide drove me straight to the LFS today and once I put the additional 3 in, I kind of had second thoughts about my impulse.