Stocking Question

[phantomlink]

Hello everyone, I've been away from here for a looooooooooooong while.  Over the past two years my stock has been lowering gradually and it's time to revamp my tank and my aspirations for the hobby.
 
That being said my 125 gallon/473 liter aquarium will be getting a rehaul.  Of the fish that are left inside it right now I want to keep my Striped Raphael Catfish ( because he's awesome ).  I wanted to redo the inside which are a lot of rocks for my loaches and go back to plants and do a livebearer with a few Pearl Gouramis because I loved the colour of my male when the two females were alive.
 
That being said I also plan to let the tank be mostly natural, any births need to live long enough to join the ranks of their elders in the tank.  Platties/Swords are easy to come by but most of the LFS around here only sell male guppies because the females are usually classed to them as feeders and dont sell, or don't live long after arrival.  I wanted a good mixture of livebearers and I'm aware of the 2:1 or higher ratio of females to males.
 
What kind of stock levels do you think I could initially get away with?  My filtration are two eheim 2217's which have been running just perfect over the last two years

 

[fishlover101]

sword tails are nice! I only have bettas atm... I breed them... but I had blue gouramis! they were a nice addition but be careful of aggression! goodluck!

 

[RyanTheFishGuy64]

I think a livebearer tank would be awesome! A moderately (live) planted environment with female platies and a few male swordtailes would be awesome. The color of platies and the astonishing tail of male swords would be great. Platies/Swords can mate so my idea would be cool. You have a big enough tank to do a "mother nature surprise tank".  A MNST is pretty much when you get a livebearer breeding clan together and let them mate, dont take the fry out but let them hide and grow with the rest. This doesnt only sort out the most active/healthy fish (the ones that live), but gives you a nice mix of swords/platies to fill the rest of your gigantic mazin tank. Just a suggestion!

 

[phantomlink]

All female platties and all male swords?

 

[RyanTheFishGuy64]

All female platties and all male swords?

Maybe some balloon mollys? Id also add an addball that would stand out in the tank. Maybe look into a black knife?

 

[phantomlink]

The last time I attempted mollies I had sailfin and they were just too large for the rest of the livebearers
 
My Striped Raphael catfish I have is fun when he comes out, I was thinking of getting a few banjo catfish as well  but they don't have them often.  I've read they get really excited around fry but don't eat them.  The ones I had before never made it to seeing fry