Restocking A Small Tank

[littlest]

I have a 28L tank which I fully cycled before adding some sparkling gouramis and three algae shrimp. Unfortunately I had an outbreak of ich and lost 3 of the gouramis. A couple of months later the remaining gourami died unexpectantly.
For the past two months or so the tank has been running with just the three algae shrimp. I want to re-stock the tank again soon. I am thinking of male endlers this time.

I want to ask though, how should I restock, as in, how many fish should I add at a time. Because the tank only has 3 shrimp the bioload is pretty low at the moment, so I am cautious of upsetting the cycle (particularly in such a small tank).

also, I was thinking 4-5 endlers, does this sound OK?

and... anyone got any other suggestions for small fish. (instead of the endlers). I want to have a few small fish, rather than one larger one.

 

[Tommy Gun]

Hey littlest!

You might want to test the waters out a little bit...literally....by adding some type of organic matter that your shrimp will not eat or be able to get you. I am willing to bet that they are not producing a very large amount of ammonia so your tank might go through another cycling stage, or at least a mini-cycle once there are fish living in there then. In general, inverts don't really count when we stock our tanks (within reason) because they place such a small part in the entire bioload.

Otherwise, it is best to stock very slowly - which is almost always the case. Maybe add two or three fish and wait a week before adding two or three more.

I am sure that this might not hold true for everyone, but I have found that I can find male Endler's swimming around in my LFS feeder guppy tank pretty readily. They don't really enjoy trying to catch one specific fish in all of that mess, but it is not only cheaper, but you can find them at a store which doesn't otherwise stock these fish intentionally.

 

[Luketendo]

About 6 Endlers (or more) with lots of shrimp in a nano planted would be cool.