65 Gallon Suggestions?

[attibones]

Today my sister and I picked up (and dropped on her foot) a 65 gallon tank. I'm not quite sure of the actual dimensions, but I'll post those as soon as we get home from the hospital.

This is a used tank, so it may already be cycled, but if it doesn't do as we need it to, we will do another cycling.

Tank stats:
65 gallons
Penguin 300 filter
(Unsure of heater watts)
Large strip light (unsure of strength or of inches)
Water pH 7.4
Eventually heavily planted

With the tank came two giant tiger oscars which we plan to rehome, and a good gourami which we would like to keep. We plan on doing sand as a substrate.

Fish we want:
Corydoras (10-20)
Gold gourami (about five inches)
Apistogramma or other dwarf cichlids

What sort of fish would do well in this sort of setting? Ideally we would like some schooling fish. Any ideas are appreciated. Conversation would be nice. This waiting room is wicked boring.

 

[TallTree01]

Tbh I wouldn't do so many cories. I would do maybe a trio of gold gouramis ( 1:2 m fm ratio ), maybe 2-3 pairs of cichlids, 10-15 cories and maybe 10-15 tetras/ rasboras.

 

[attibones]

What is your reasoning for fewer cory? I always thought they were better in large numbers?

 

[TallTree01]

They are better in a bigger school. it's just that I'd use space in other sections. It's up to you. A Cory tank may be quite interesting actually.

 

[Lunar Jetman]

Firstly, I hope your sisters foot is ok!
 
A nice big shoal of corys might actually be interesting to watch! They're fairly lively and placid so you might actually enjoy that. You might want to think about the dwarf Cichlids though as they will get quite territorial, especially around breeding time and will chase off the poor corys.
 
I've got a pair of Kribs and 7 corys but they have enough space in my tank to go off somewhere else if the Kribs are being aggressive. Just have a think about what you want is all I suggest.

 

[attibones]

The foot is alright. She has a bad contusion, but she'll be able to walk on it by Monday.

In my 55 I have six corydoras and four rams, no issues with aggression except for at feeding. I assumed this was everyone's reason, but just wanted to double check.

Of course, I just did the measurements, and the tank is not 65 gallons. We have been miss led. The dimensions are nearly identical to my 55, but when I put them in the site calculator, it says the tank is actually a 51 gallon (mine holds 52 gallons according to this same calculator).

Instead of 10-20 corydoras, we are now looking at 6-10. Unless my sister wanted to do a species tank, but I don't think she does. Keeping that in mind, we have a gold gourami in a five gallon right now (until we can get the water back in the big tank), and we really like him (her?). Would the rams or any other dwarf cichlid be alright with this species?

 

[attibones]

Updated tank stats:
48x13x19 inches