New 75Gal Tank

[mckinleyy9]

Good afternoon All, 
 
My name is Sam and I'm from New Jersey, USA. I have recently purchased a 75 gallon freshwater aquarium and I am looking on input on my ideas for stocking it. I grew up helping my parents care for numerous different freshwater tanks as a kid and now I am planning on starting my own. For now my tank is empty as I am still starting up the nitrogen cycle, which probably has at least another week to go on it before I can introduce any fish. So basically my question is regarding stocking my tank and if I should make any changes/modifications to my ideas.
 
First of all as far as plants go. I intend on stocking numerous live plants within my tank, however this is something I don't know too much about. I know which plants look cool, but aside from that I don't know much. haha! Most of the fish I am planning on stocking my aquarium with enjoy a planted environment with an open area to swim. (see below for fishes) I currently have an area in the middle of my tank with some caves/smaller items to decoration. I also have a medium sized driftwood, as I intend on having shrimp in my tank. My idea is to have taller/larger plants on the two ends towards the back of the tank and then gradually shorter plants to the front on the ends. (pretty typical layout I suppose) I'm not sure which plants would work best though.
 
As far as the fishes I plan to stock the tank with, these are my ideas:
5 Panda Cory's
5 Red Cherry Shrimp
5 Ghost Shrimp
5 Blue Emperor Tetras
5 Cardinal Tetras
5 Platys
4 Dwarf Gouramis
8 Neon Dwarf Rainbowfish
 
and then I'm not sure about adding maybe
5 Scarlet Badis and 3 German Blue Rams
But I have heard that they might not get along and the Rams may snack on the shrimp, but I'm not sure how true this information is.
 
Any and all advise/comments/concerns extremely appreciated!
 
Looking forward to hearing back!

 

[Mark Z.]

Welcome from New Jersey!

 

[Munroco]

While the rams may not eat your shrimp, and that's very questionable, any baby shrimp will be eaten by almost everything on your list.
 
Rams should be fine with the others except possibly when breeding. but I'm not sure if they will terrorise the badis who occupy similar areas of the tank and are also territorial.
 
Four dwarf gouramis sounds dodgy though. Maybe in such a large tank you could get away with it.
 
Rams like water a bit warmer than most tropicals, platties do better in higher PH than cories, tetras and rams.
 
I'd up the number of tetras and cories.

 

[Byron]

I'm with Neil.  First, though, what are your source water (tap presumably) parameters?  The GH (general hardness) is most important, but also the KH (carbonate hardness or Alkalinity) and pH.  The latter is tied to the GH/KH.  I know from others that New York City has very soft water, which is ideal for fish such as those on your list (except for livebearers like platy), but I've no idea if this applies to neighbouring New Jersey.  If you can track down the website of your municipal water authority you should be able to find these numbers.
 
Temperature was mentioned by Neil and that is very important.  In your list you have fish that need warmer temperatures and fish that need cooler temperatures and this doesn't mix.
 
Byron.

 

[hobby5]

Welcome to TFF!
 
I totally second Byron, first you should find out about your water parameters.
 
Imho your fish list is way too long! Less species but larger numbers is always the better option. So I would recommend to go for 3 species only - bottom, middle and top. If everything works well, with this tank size you might later add 1 or 2 more species.
 
Scarlet Badis will not work in a community tank.