Caswal

Sterbai's get to 5-6.5cm.  love my Sterbai's, cute little guys.

The other day I saw Elephant nose fish advertised at a different place than I have bought all my others from, and they were substantially cheaper than my others cost, so I thought I would go ahead and get a couple - out of curiosity over the low price as much as anything, and because with all but one of the discus now gone, there would be room in the tank for another two EN. I wasn't sure what to expect, so I waited with anticipation for them to arrive.
And arrive they did - healthy, active... and teeny tiny itsy bitsy, coming in at just 1" (2.5cm) I didnt know they came that small! The congo tetra youngsters I got the same time were the same size, maybe even a little bit bigger.  All my others are between 5" and 7", with Jack - the baby of the group - at a "tiny" 3 1/2".
Like Africa, the African tank is WAY to dangerous for them (OK, so it's only African above the ground level, the plecos and bottom-hugging catfish are all South American). They like hanging around the surface floating plants, but in the tank the African Butterfly fish would quickly make a meal of them. If they decided to hang around the bottom instead, there are 2 spotted dorydids, and 2 chocolate striped dorydids that would find them a delectable snack. And if they managed to avoid the top and bottom of the tank, once the lights go out there is 7 inches (18cm) of Featherfin Sydontis that cruises back and forth through the middle like a hungry shark. I currently have them in a breeding net in the African tank until I decide what to do with them. 
They are just sooo adorable though! The brine shrimp and bloodworms are to big for them, so I am feeding them frozen daphne (luckily I had some on hand). They also seem really keen on the Hikuri Gold Discus pellets, so I might see if I can get some even smaller pellets for them, as those are a little big for them at the moment.
 
 

New Tank is coming along, filled with water, substrate, some plants, some ornaments etc.
 

 
Sump is plumbed up. Needs a few alterations to be works correctly, but getting there:

Sand filter had an issue, my siliconing was not up to snuff, and the bottom started to leak. Causing a little bit of a mess, but all sorted now. Added some blue plastic gem stone things to float around at the top:

 
 
 

A good stocking calculator I generally use is http://aqadvisor.com/
Should give you a good idea of the stocking levels you can have in your tank depending on the filtration you have.

Yea I'm really considering getting a school of about 50 rummys, they're one of my favourite  fish  

I am probably going to keep a tank, or slightly smaller tank where I have one now. So will always have the option of keeping them in there. My male gourami does try to makes nests, but doesn't help that they get destroyed/damaged each water change with the change in water levels. The advantage of the new tank is water changes will happen with the sump so the display tank never changes water level.
Tank Design Thoughts
So I picked up a cheap 2nd hand, 100Lish tank to use as a sump. Also came with plenty of other little odds and sods (airpump, in tank filter pump, test kits, etc). So was pretty happy with the deal.
I am most likely going to document and build a fluidized sand filter. Out of 100mm clear acrylic tube, end capped with standard 100mm drain fittings/end caps. Very similar in design to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz0WgaRHcJA around 80cm tall. I will probably also set this up as an exposed piece as I like the look of the cloudy/storm sand look.
I have seen that these are both great filtering/converting ammonia to nitrate, but with enough column height also decomposing nitrates as well. But as these are both anaerobic and aerobic processes it is also great at stripping oxygen from your water too. So I probably inject air on the outlet of the filter, and 3D print a gauss like pipe insert to try and break/smash the air bubbles up into small bubbles to increase the surface area as they travel back up the return line to the display tank.
As almost all of my filtration will be happening in the FSF, the sump just needs to handle mechanical filtration/polishing, place for heaters, automatic drip water change and overflow/drain. This gives me plenty of space for a good sized refugium or 2. For whatever i feel like/need. So if I am lucky enough to get some fish to spawn, I have somewhere safe with the same water to move them too.
 

Yes, they are supposed to be a very good community aquarium fish.
http://demitry.co.nz is where you can get some if you are interested. I have gotten quite a number of fish from her, and all have been very healthy and are doing very well.
 

If you get a pair, in no time at all there will be fifty.
If you get two males, one will be bullied.
Two females would be nice, I think?
:-)

All rainbow fish are fast constantly moving fish and noes mani get quite large so when planting give consideration to the fact that you will need to leave a large space in the tank for them to zip up and down in. I think that your dwarf gourami, unless they stay well out of the way, may be frightened and injured. This is just from my previous experience in keeping rainbows in s 450 litre tank

Hi All,
I started fish keeping back in March/April with a 100L Tall tank, as a good solid start in the hobby. I read the bigger the tank you can get away with the better. And 100L was about as big as I could squeeze in my initial space. And stocking with some cory's, tetra's and a dwarf gourami seemed a good place to start.
I have lined up a new space in the house, and just bought a 300-350L tank for a good price off trademe. (Dimensions 153Lx43Dx53H cm). The tank will be planted.
The new spot is a big tricky to build for (will be explained as I document along the project), but has a couple of advantages, it has a great spot to keep a sump, aiming for 60L-80L. May use the Blueplanet cheap 65L tank from Animates as the basis. It has Access to the kitchen sink through an internal wall that I can cut access through. So I can setup an automatic drain/fill system to the sump for water changes. No more buckets for me! As well as the other sump benefits of hidden filters, heaters, refugium etc.
Of course the first thing that comes to mind is stocking a tank link this. I am after building a community tank (although I may partition the tank if needed), and have become quite attach to my little 'Napolean' Dwarf Gourami. He does needsa couple of females to distract him. But would be great to have a few larger eye catching fish. Using trusty aqadvisor I have built this up as an initial stocking. Thoughts, opinions, options?

 

Thanks guys Im really happy with how this breed turned out, particularly since I only got one fry off my last lot of corys

The 3 corys are super skittish after their buddy died. I probably need to get 1 or 2 more to keep them happy and with company. How long until yours are ready JJWooble? Or are you not willing to ship them?
One does have a white spot infront of its dorsal fin ontop of it's body. But whether it always had that, and my paranoia has made me notice, or it's a missing scale. I'll keep an eye on it, and it was happily eating last night.
I do love watching the corys, they are more like little fish dog spaniels, foraging around etc.
 

Only the usual dash to refill their bladder/intestine thing they have. No more than before I added the co2. 
 
I also assume that as the ph hasn't changed, the co2 is still pretty low. I'll do a 20% water change tonight, they are about due. 

Sorry was in a rush and in my phone, I meant 0 nitrites and 0 ammonia. I cycled the tank for a month and then stocked it with 5 tetras.  After cycling/adding fish I have never seen any levels of ammonia or nitrites. Nitrates have not been over 20ppm, but didn't have time to test it this morning. 
The ph always sits at 7.8 from the tap and left in the tank. Testing the water from the local fish shop it's 7.4. I'll leave a bucket of it out, but I doubt it'll drop. 
I have 5 tetras in the tank, and the others all seam fine. Eating etc. I saw the other 3 Cory's eating from a food pellet I gave them last night. 
I do have a co2 generator (fermentor)  rigged to the tank. But that hasn't nudged the ph down.  (wasn't the aim, just wanted some carbon for the plants) 

the water will keep indefinitely so long as it is in the dark to stop an algal bloom, you can put a pump in it to keep it moving and oxygenated if wanted
ifg left for 4 days all planktons etc die off and settle to the bottom

Ideally you'd mix them into water first, stir it up until everything is dissolved and then pour that into the tank.  
 
You're stressing over nothing, they're not particularly dangerous chemicals.  Keep them in a sealed container, don't eat them, don't breath them.  Avoid exposure to mucous membranes, etc.