Okay, well here is the update. We took back both of the gouramies. They were extremely shy, literally in one place the entire time, and this morning each were hiding in the fake driftwood caves, I had a hard time trying to find the pearl one.
Instead, we got 8 tiger barbs. These fish we really enjoy, much more then zebra danios (9), which are not really schooling at all and just dart around the tank.The plan is to remove the danios and add 4 more tiger barbs.
I also added three melanistius cories.
I noticed that the cories like to stay in the cave most of the time, occasionally they do come out. When they do come out, the tiger barbs sometimes tend to nip at them, and Im not sure if they are causing the cories distress or not. Or maybe im overly concerned, but I dont want them to feel uncomfortable and not want to come out. Any concerns??
I btought algae disk wafers for them, but noticed the other fish quickly getting to them before the cories, which didnt seem to make even an attempt. i even dropped a couple with the lights turned off and it dropped right in front of them and they didnt even notice!
The plan is to turn the lights off tonight and feed them shortly after i extinguish the lights to give them a fair chance.
Is this setup OK? I definitely dont plan to add anymore once I make the changes mentioned above for awhile