How To Add More Fish

[CrustyOnEastCoast]

So, you can see below in my signature the makeup of fish that I have in my 35 gallon.
This crew has been living together for about 9 months now. Over these last 9 months I have been trying to add new fish and they keep dying.
Always takes them at least 2 or 3 days to die, sometimes as long as a week. Ammonia and Nitrites are always 0. Nitrates are usually between 40-50. I do my regular weekly 20% water changes and sand substrate vacuuming, carefully rinse filter media in tank water, etc. I never top off evaporated water so I shouldn't have a water hardness problem (but I don't have test kits to test for water hardness).

Anyway, when I add new catfish, they swim around looking healthy and fine, but they go on a hunger strike (never eat even once) and then die in about 7 days.
Some of the new ones I added in ate a few times, but died anyway.

I have been trying to add more guppies to get the count up to 6, especially since 1 of the current 3 gets picked on a little by the others. One of the Pearl Gouramis (the biggest one) .. chases the new guppies that come in mercilessly ... so they hide in the plants ... and I think they die from stress and fear. This Gourami will occasionally chase the existing guppies, but not as often, and they are either used to it, or just not concerned about it. (I did the right thing and added the Gouramis in last when I was populating the tank from the beginning).

Anyway, maybe I should just be happy with the set up I have, but I would really like to add a couple more fish. Not sure I really have any options, it seems. Wondering if there are any fish I could add in? I guess what I am sad about, too, is that in about 2 years or so .. all the guppies will die off (based on their expected life span). These Pearl Gouramis, I like them a lot, but they live a long time (about 7 or 8 years) and they will make it difficult for me to add fish to my tank! When all my guppies die, I don't feel like I will be able to add any more fish .. and I will have even less fish in the tank! (I guess I could add more Pearl Gouramis .. but maybe that would be too much aggressive chaos).

Any ideas for me?

 

[crazyforcordoras]

How are you acclimating? You may want to remove your gourami for a few days after you introduce, if he is the problem.

 

[CrustyOnEastCoast]

Acclimation (I use my own method):

Float bag in water for 15 minutes. Scoop out a little of the water in bag and discard (like a tablespoon or so). Add in the same amount of water from my tank into bag (using different scoop).
Repeat this water replacement strategy every 5-7 minutes for the next 45 minutes to an hour. Now the water in the bag is mostly my tank water and not the water from the fish shop. Still, to get the fish in the tank, I dump the whole bag out into a fish net, (and under the fish net is a bucket). and drop the fish into the tank (so no fish shop tank water gets into tank).

Unfortunately, I have no location to which to move the Gourami to.

Maybe there is some other largish species of fish that swims in the middle, that I could introduce one or two of, that the Gourami would leave alone (based on its size)?