Catfish

Question
Hi Tina,
I just recently moved out of a 10 gallon tank and now have a 20 gallon up and running with a honey gourami,two swordtails one male one female,and a mystery snail. I want to try and put in some cory catfish but every time I buy some they end up dying after a few weeks :( (the same goes for oto cats) I feed them algae wafers and they have plenty of food to scavenge out in the gravel but I keep randomly finding them dead behind a plant or rock :( I've tried having catfish in my tank at least three times now and I cant seem to find out why this is happening. My ph is normally 7.6-8.2 the temp. is 78 and the water is clear. Also another option I was thinking of instead of catfish was getting 2 kuhli loaches and two female silver lyretail mollies would that work? Cause I know that gouramis can be aggressive and that kuhlis don't have or have barely any scales to protect them.
         Thanks,
         Cameron

Answer
Cameron,  What is happening even if you used the water from the other tank which I hope you did, you are still going through a case of new tank syndrome. You have added 10 gallons more water and you have to grow more bacteria to handle it. You might have clouded abit. Your ammonia is stronger at the bottom so as with your other tank you would add your catfish last after the tank settles. Give it about 2 weeks and you should be fine. Algae wafers are great but I also add some shrimp pellets occasionally for protein. Good Luck, Tina