too many to add at once?

[asparagus]

Hi,
I have a 29 gallon fully cycled. Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10, ph 7.6, freshwater- silk plants.
Currently have 2 female bettas, 2 female platys and one dwarf gourami plus 5 zebra danios. Totally in love w/ all the fish but I have a small algae problem. I put in an apple snail but the one female betta harassed it and it never came out again (now its in my other "peaceful" tank w/ a platy and 2 panda cories). I want to get 1-2 more dwarf gouramis and 2 bronze cories (for now) plus 2 otos. Knowing me and fish, it sounds awful, but I was going to get 3 otos and assume only 1-2 would live.
So am I adding too many fish at once? Would a dose of biospira take care of this? (I always keep an extra package in my fridge in case of an emergency evacuation or fry birth).
I was going to try and get 2 more different varieties of dwarf gouramis- they have red ones and silver ones in the LFS I got the current red and blue one in. Totally neat looking.
My plan is to get 3 more bronze cories in a few weeks to give them a school- Ill max out with the 5 but I wanted to get the otos and gouramis settled (whether I get one or two and how many otos live) first.
Thanks!

 

[yvez9]

adding 3 otos at once won't do much damage. I'm pretty sure you bio-load can adapt rather quickly with the load it's currently handling.

Adding bio-spira will help however, if it is still effective!

JUst wait at least 1 or 2 weeks before adding another group of 2-3 fish and all should be good

 

[Yenko]

Otos like to be in even larger groups than that; I would skip the Bronze Cories and get 5 otos. Its best to have lots of one type of schooling fish than a whole bunch of small schools.

 

[modernhamlet]

It looks like you want to complete the tank with otos, corys, and a couple more gourami. I'd suggest a different stocking scheme than you're considering, but giving you the tank you want in the end...

It doesn't sound like the tank has been up and running for long after cycling, so I would wait on the otos until all your other fish are stocked. In the meantime, cut back on the # of hours the light is on as well as how much you feed. Those are the two main algae culprits. Doubling your water change schedule for a few weeks would help too.

I would suggest starting with 3 corys, waiting 2 weeks for everything to restablize, then add enough to complete the group up to 5 or so. If any die, then I'd wait an extra week just because. Then, after another 2 weeks, add your otos in the same staggered manner, up to a good little group (4 or 5?). I'd add the gouramis along with the second batch of otos and your little community will be nicely stocked.

Not sure if that helps. Hope so...

Good luck!