For shoaling fish I have zebra danios and they are amazing to watch, also red eye tetra (not the balloon variety) are very pretty and mine survived a number of disasters at the hands of my not-so-expert-as-he-thinks boyfriend, so they seem very hardy!
I think I must have picked the most aggressive ones in the shop!
From the moment I put them in they argued with each other, then it seemed they had their pecking order sorted so they just argued with every other fish in the tank - the only one they left alone was the 6" bristlenose!
In the end I got sick of it so returned them to the LFS who kindly took them back and replaced all the fish they killed , as they had previously said me they should be fine if I got a group!
I have 3 Golden Barbs, 2 Dennison Barbs, 2 Cherry Barbs in my comunity tank and have no problems with them, in fact when I get an empty tank I am thinking of having a go at breeding the Golden's.