freshwater 55 gal

Question
Thanks for your reply to earlier question...as it turns out my tank cycled in 6days!  Forgot to mention that I also added sponge filter from old tank as well.  Definitely a way better way to cycle than using fish!!  So now my question is how many fish would you put in?  I know rule of thumb is 1" of fish per gallon, but thought I'd get your 'experience' answer.  I have all small community fish...right now 7 neon tetra, 7 black phantom tetra, 7 glow light tetra, 7 harlequin rasbora, 4 dwarf african frogs.  So so far 32 fish 4 frogs...was considering some copper rasbora, have 4 black neon in another tank I thought of possibly moving over, maybe a couple more frogs, maybe taking neons to 10 instead of 7.  Of all these thoughts, what do you think would work?  By the way, have 2 aquaclear 30 filters instead of one bigger one to keep filtration good, but no strong current for frogs etc, and have a 24" bubble wall to add oxygen too.  Also, intrigued by the kuhli loaches, but not sure if I could do it (they kinda freak me out, but intrigued) are they compatible with aquatic dwarf frogs?  Read somewhere someone had a frog bite a kuhli and ended up dying as it got punctured from the barbels...??

Answer
Dear Tamara,
You are very lucky to have such a quick cycling tank! I'm sure the sponge filter helped tremendously.

Your aquarium already has a very nice community aquarium going on, I really like your fish combinations and especially that you make sure to keep your fish in schools just as they should be. Even the Dwarf frogs get to have friends!

I think you could definitely move your Black neons into the 55gallon. And you could try adding 3-4 more black neons. With your 55gallon and all that room, you could also surely add a few more frogs as well as bring your Neon school up to 10 easily. The good thing about little tetras and such is they produce a small "bioload" as they call it (in otherwords, amount of waste a fish produces) and don't impact the biological (bacteria) filter much at all. You don't want to go overboard however of course. The 1 inch rule doesn't apply to all aquariums, for example, you could easily put ten 1 inch neons in a 10gallon but you certainly would never put a 10 inch oscar in a 10gallon. Of course that's just common sense anyway. Also keep in mind thicker bodied fish have more mass and tend to require a little more room. But the majority of tetras and the tiny frogs you have shouldn't be any trouble at all.

With the Kuhli loaches, you never know how your frogs and loaches will interact with them. With really tiny Kuhli loaches and their fast wriggling behavior, a frog may mistake one for a live worm and try to bite. But maybe if you got ahold of some Kuhlis that were several inches long, then maybe you wouldn't have any trouble and the frogs would not consider the kuhlis the least bit as food. You could try it, just make sure to get some larger Kuhli loaches if you can. Make sure your frogs are getting enough to eat, the biggest problem with mixing frogs and fish is the fish getting all the food before the frogs even realize it. It's best to handfed frogs with a brand new eyedropper or turkey baster.

I really hope this helps!
You are doing a very good job at caring for your fish, keep up the good work!

Karen~