need advice on starting new tropical aquarium

want to start tropical 55 gal aquarium, what is good mix of fish to start with? I know I need bottom feeders, middle and top fish.dont really want gold fish, like guppys, angel fish, teras, cory cat , algie eater. Looking for advice on nice mix, how not to overcroud but have a nice community going on?

 

Welcome to the boards!!

You don't want to put gold fish in with the tropical so that's good. Make sure you hold off on the bottom feeders/algae eaters until your tank is well established. And feed them bottom feeder food as well as they don't eat only algae. There are many different kinds of tropical fish my suggestion would be to visit some good fish sellers and see what all you like to look at. Enjoy and keep all of us informed...

 

I have fish now

Thanks for the tip! Well I have fish now, little nervous. 6 little jumbo neon, 4 pristella tetra, 4 sunset wag plattys, 4 black neon, 4mollys, 4 cherry barbs,. Is that too many?Theyare all little so the guy at the pet store said should be fine. Tank is very busy.I used CYCLE and STRESS ZYME+. My friend said he had well established tank and could give me ten gallon of water from his tank{do I really want to do that?}. next I want to get some live plants and some bottom feeders. I hope these guys do ok.I was at pet store for a couple of hours and couldn:t make up my mind and finally just decided to try variety.[/b][/i]

 

26 fish..... did they all go in at once?? How are they doing? General rule is 1" of fish per gallon (full grown). That's a nice combination of fish it should look really nice.
Do not add your friends water..... Let your tank establish itself it will be fine. Just takes time and several cycles of water changes. Be careful how much food you feed them only feed them what they will consume in 10 min. If you overfed the tank will have too much nitrates which will harm your fish. Also make sure your tank is not by a window as to that will grow bad algae that can really take over your tank.
Don't overwhelm your tank too soon...... Make sure your live plants are clean and healthy...and free from snails.....unless you want them. I found that they just made my tank dirty but that's just me. I also changed to African Cichlids so that wouldn't work anyways they would just destroy them with their digging.
Do your research on your bottom feeders.... Algae eaters don't eat just algae you need to supplement their diet with dry food or veggies... my bruno pleco loves cuc's. Also they don't eat certain types of algae.... Cats will eat all sorts of things but also need supplements....

Good luck!!!