Tank mates for the Bristlenose?

Well at the moment I have a variety of livebearers in the tank (guppies, swordtails & platies), I know these are pretty much begginer fish but the tank is mainly set up for show at the moment. Anyway, now that I have a few Bristlenose in the tank I thought it was time I got rid of the livebearers and put something new in there since they don't seem to live very long anyway, and of course I feel I have taken a step backwards in the fishkeeping world by putting them in there!

What I am trying to do here is establish a list of fish species that would live with the Bristlenose in almost harmony, even if you was trying to breed your Bristlenose what fish would be classed as OK to put in the tank with them, and be now named as.. ideal tankmates?

My opinion on this would mainly be aimed at surface fish such as the smaller shoaling species like tetras, barbs, danios etc. (but again these are what I would call beginner fish). I would consider any bottom dwellers such as corydoras, sharks (red tailed, albino etc), catfish etc to be a big no no but I could be wrong here?

What's your view/experience?

Bristlenose can live with almost anything to be honest as long as its not to agressive

i think it would be best if you said what you want to put with them because that would be easier

i have BN in my 4ft and in there i have L134s, Corydoras, Tetras, L190, L104 and there fine

well to add to this i saw my female platty pecking at my large male L182's Eye's.... and went mad and have now removed the platty and she is now living with goldfish...
i have minnows in there and they have never once gone near him or pesterd..they arent great to look at but they stay away from BN's...

when i kept guppies in with mine they were eating the eggs so to were the neons

"L Number mad wrote:

when i kept guppies in with mine they were eating the eggs so to were the neons

i think if anyone is serious about breeding BN's then they should be only BN's in the tank so they are left to breed and not fend off over fish...
all my mid and top dwellers will be out of the tank by saturday...

Another livebearer I know, but I have halfbeaks in one of my tanks with plecs. There is a floating mass of wisteria fern on the surface and the halfbeaks have their babies living in it. Halfbeaks will very seldom stray far from the surface.

I also have a few otocinclus in the tank and haven't seen them to be any problem to plecs.

I have glass shrimp and cherry shrimp which without nippers can't do much damage to any eggs and some breeders even swear by them to clean eggs in frysavers.

In other tanks I have pure endler guppies but they don't get very big and are usually too busy doing their own mating and breeding to bother the plecos.

In my tiger pleco tank I have a few Rainbow fish but the tigers aren't old enough to breed yet so can't tell how fry will go.

In yet another tank 3ft, I have a pair of Flash plecos which haven't bred yet either but they share their tank with a siamese fighting fish who has learned now to steer clear of the powerhead.

"L Number mad wrote:

when i kept guppies in with mine they were eating the eggs so to were the neons

All fish will eat the eggs

i have never kept Platties but will make sure i never do now lol

if these are for a breeding project like already said have them in a species only tank or with just some guppies or endlers because they will spawn and the hormones they put in the water will trigger the BN

the only tank that i don't have my ABN's in right now is the Jag tank. He is way to aggressive to even attempt to put one in. The ABN's get along fine with everyone else though

I now have bns with a couple of young electric blue jackdempseys, bronze corydoras and two bolivian rams.

In an oddball tank I have two adult bns with Synodontis eupterus (featherfins), clown loaches, a siamese algae eater, and a pictus catfish.
Its a free for all scrum at feed time.

My BNs are with a bunch of mollies. I had the mollies first as the local water is hard (180ppm) and when I set the tanks up I didn't feel like fighting the water. Anyway, in my tanks there are no problems between the adult fish, but certain of the mollies have learned that there are tasty goodies to be had on the bottom and do eat the little BN wigglers. I get about half a dozen survivors from each spawn so if you plan to raise fry the best bet is probably a BN only tank.

The tank that i keep my BNs in had a couple of gourami's but i soon found out that they were eating the fry that had left the cave, so i removed them and out of that batch there was only 10 surviving BNs. :|

Surface fish would be Rasboras
I have a group of 7 Hengel's Rasbora, very active fish, tend to stay in the upper regions of the tank! It's quite sweet to watch them when they play their favourite game of swimming up the filter flow, riding it back and doing loops around the heater suckers at the end
Various Tetras are good, have 5 (well, 11, but the pack is split) Glowlight tetras, they always get on well!

In all honesty, with some of the more 'exotic' fish is you will, it can be very hit and miss. I've always counted myself lucky that my Red Tailed Shark and Kissing Gourami get an amazingly with the rest of my fish (with the exception of the red tail and my male guppies, he HATES them lol). It's all about trial and error really. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose D:

i now keep no other species atol with my BN's so 100% survival for them...