New fish for my tank, opinions please.

[fishbum]

I disagree on the pet store bit. I work in a pet store and im there to make sure the fish gets a good home and the customer is satisfied
"big ball of light, spits out dinosaurs" - Mac, Primeval New World

Would you have suggested adding a African cichlid to this tank? OK. So not all employees at a pet store give bad advice. But this one did.

With tiger barbs, the females are bigger. I just don't think you have a lot of room in a 30 gallon for much if you want to keep the tiger barbs. Your tank is not big enough for a tin foil barb, or a common pleco. If you re-home those two fish, you could get 16 more tiger barbs. Having a large school of them should help to spread out the aggression among a larger group. You could then add a rainbow shark, and a bristle nose pleco. That would make a decent tank IMO.

 

[RequiemTCE]

Get a little Altifrons earth-eater. Find one that looks spunky in the store.

Very fun fish, grows slow, really terribly-crafted mouth for eating smaller fish(I've never seen a big EE eat even a feeder goldfish), will never get too big to definitively outgrow the 60gal tank, although they do get almost as large as Oscars if you take great care of them for about a decade.

Don't get more than 1 unless you get like 5. This is a good rule of thumb for most cichlids. They usually hate their own species, so if you want more than 1 you have to short-circuit their little brains and give them too many targets to choose one.

 

[xApostle]

Would you have suggested adding a African cichlid to this tank? OK. So not all employees at a pet store give bad advice. But this one did.

With tiger barbs, the females are bigger. I just don't think you have a lot of room in a 30 gallon for much if you want to keep the tiger barbs. Your tank is not big enough for a tin foil barb, or a common pleco. If you re-home those two fish, you could get 16 more tiger barbs. Having a large school of them should help to spread out the aggression among a larger group. You could then add a rainbow shark, and a bristle nose pleco. That would make a decent tank IMO.

Ofc I wouldn't recommend an African Cichlid for this set up.
Definitely remove the Tinfoil barb, too big and better in shoals. re-home tinfoil and plec, +1 for more tiger barbs and Rainbow shark and BN Plec

"big ball of light, spits out dinosaurs" - Mac, Primeval New World