Could I Add More Fish?

[koinukun]

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since I've though about getting something new for my tank but I'm starting to get the itch for some new fish. I was wondering if you think thee would be any room...
It's a 155L (40g) AquaOne AR850 tank with a single Bolivian Ram, 2 Keyholes, 5 Lemon Tetra, 6 Harlequins and a 4"ish angelfish.
It's soft water with a pH of 7.4

I had a M/F pair or M/F/F trio of Pearl Gouramis in mind as nice and colourful and not as aggressive as other gourami. Would this work? How would they go with the angel?

Or Some swordtails. I wanted some larger, colourful fish that live in the middle to upper region of the tank. I would have preferred something South American but there's nothing that lives in the upper tank region that has colours to match a male pearl gourami.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

koinukun~

 

[Corleone]

Your under the inch-per gallon yet, and that rule's there to keep beginners out of trouble for the most part, not to set a hard ceiling. How old is the tank? If it's been up for a while, you could probably go with a trio of both the gouramis and the swordtails if you added them a couple weeks apart. It would only put you to about 1.25 inches per gallon (52 inches by my figures - the rasboras account for about 10 of that and are tiny, so that'll help too), which is about where my 55 gallon is currently without issue.

 

[koinukun]

Thanks for the reply Corleone! The tanks been up and running with fish in for nearly 6 months now.

Another question about the swordtails...I've read that you really need 3 females to 1 male or so. Can you just have all males together like guppies? I don't really want the infamous livebearer breed-a-thon happening and the girls lack the cool tail spikes.

 

[ALW]

I have two male Swordtails in my tank and they get on fine, no probs at all!

 

[Corleone]

Six months, you should be good. The tank's old enough that the inch per gallon rule goes out the window, so just monitor water quality and make judgement calls from here.

My understanding is swordtails are a bit more boisterous than other livebearers, so I'm not sure how a group of males will work as I don't have them myself. My platys constantly give birth, but I've worked out an easy system to keep them in check. Make sure hiding places are big enough for adult fish to get into, and just leave fry to the tank. I've yet to have a fry survive more than two days except the ones I net out myself and raise in my other tank.