I am cycling my 29 gallon right now with 5 albino x-ray Pristella. I need opinions on adding the occupants of the other tanks I have when it's safe and of course adding them slowly:

From my 3 gallon:
7 neons

From my 8 gallon biocube:
2 peaceful honey gourami
2 badis badis (peaceful, but can't believe they are quick to snatch food from the honey gouramis)
1 reticulated hillstream loach ( know it would be better to add him toward the end)

I also have 1 bamboo shrimp in my 8 gallon and he can stay there until the 29 gallon is established enough for him.

I'd also like to add later to the 29 gallon a couple of red platies and 3 panda cories. Would that work?

Thanks so much for helping me in this!

I don't see any major issues combining these fish especially seeing that the gourami and badis are already together in a smaller tank.

How is your loach doing? I've always been interested in them but have never kept them because they like a nice current in the tank. Do you have any flow from a powerhead or something for it?

As far as adding platies and cories...I'd recommend not to. I think you would be better off adding a few more neons or pristellas instead. You will like the looks of a larger school better than seeing different types of fish IMO. Definitely add fish slowly and watch and see how they interact before you add more fish. Good luck with the 29.

So in your opinion the hillstream loach and bamboo shrimp are enough as far as bottom cleanup crew is concerned for the 29 gallon? What do you think about a khuli loach for that purpose.

The 8 gallon biocube has a decent output . Last night the bamboo shrimp spent much of the night filter feeding on the artificial bamboo plant that I placed directly in the current.

As far as the reticulated hillstream loach goes, I've had him for a several months. First he was in a 3 gallon with an otocinclus and a betta. Then betta got his own tank and I moved hilly and oto to the 8 gallon, supplementing with algae wafers. Oto died. Hilly spends two thirds of his time eating algae from the back and sides.

Thanks so much for responding!

I agree with dirtydawg10. For bottom fish I would just use the loache and shrimp for now and just see how things go with them before adding to it.

Thanks!!

I think the loach should be fine. I have no bottom feeders in some tanks and it's not a problem if you don't overfeed and do regular tank maintenance. Yes they do help with algae but there is always some amount of algae scraping even with bottom feeders. I'm not a fan of buying fish to clean your tank for you because it simply doesn't work that way. They can help but won't do all the work