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I'm setting up a 20g long planted tank and was thinking about putting a few smaller catfish in to mix things up a bit.

A little about the setup:
The hardsacpe will be mostly driftwood and maybe a few choice rocks. For the most part the tank will be open, but their will be some good caves around the driftwood and if need be I can always alter it some to include more.

For plants I am thinking of completely blanketing the bottom with riccia fluitans or Hemianthus callitrichoides. The driftwood will be covered on some sort of moss, I haven't decided which will work yet. There will also be a few small sword plants and some vallisneria nana(or similar). Oh, and I'm looking into adding one fern too, but haven't decided which yet.

It will be a bright tank, which is my only concern for the catfish.

The pH will be around 5.5-6.5

The water hardness will be soft to medium.


Any suggestions of what might work well?
I'm not a huge fan of corys or plecos, but I'm open to anything else.

thanks

Don't do riccia. What a mess. They don't attach to anything, and grow like a weed if you use CO2. HC would be much nicer, but only works if you use CO2, from my experience. It's good that you don't like cories, because unless your carpet is really well established, they root it all up. I think they also like resting on bare substrate, so if you have carpeting plants, they might never come to the front.

Yeah, I've heard that riccia can be a pain, but when it works it looks amazing. I am most likely going with the HC since this is my first try at a heavily planted tank. I will be using CO2, so no problems there.

If the bottom is carpeted then corys should be avoided.

Maybe a shoal of or

The brightness might be an issue but you could consider a group of either , or

Another alternative might be a group of , , , or an oto species

Will it be catfish only? I ask because many small catfish school.

Take a look at
Bagridae

Mochokidae



Many trichomycterids would also do well in this set up.
-Shane

What a jinx Richard! We must have posted at the same time. I left out the small loricariids as the poster said they did not like plecos.
-Shane

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

There will be a small shoal of tetras as well and maybe some shrimp. but I want the catfish to be the main focus out of the fish.

I was thinking maybe 3 or 4 catfish that reach around 3", but ofcourse the catfishes needs come first. So if they need a larger group thats fine.

I really like Microsynodontis batesii. I also really like most synodontis, I have a group of multipunctatus in my african tank. The Synodontis contracta is nice but maybe a little smaller than what I'm looking for.

How many Microsynodontis batesii would be best kept together?