[TryingPlanted111]

Not sure if a Cichlid or maybe a gourami is right for me. I've kept fish for 20 years but I just set up my first real planted tank with CO2. It will be completely planted with not a bare spot of gravel anywhere. It is cycled, I currently have a group of platys and nothing else. Waiting for the tank to mature to add amano and cherry shrimp. The stocking list will look as follows:

5 platys (and their offspring)
10 amano shrimp
15 cherry shrimp (and their offspring)
bottom dweller (dwarf corydoras? bushynose pleco?)
"FISH X"

Now fish X is ideally a type of fish that will not harass the inhabitants of the tank, and won't eat too many shrimp, but WILL eat platy fry. It needs to fit in a standard 15 gallon tank (24x12") comfortably for its lifetime, so it needs to be small.
I was thinking of maybe a honey gourami or a pair of honey gouramis but they have tiny mouths. I'd really rather avoid blue rams as my water parameters would not be ideal for them, and bolivians are too big... so IDK what to do.

 

[Mcdaphnia]

The closest I can think of is Apistogramma cacatuoides. I don't think there is a fish that will meet all your wishes, but I believe this species comes closest. You already have a well populated tank so another soft water loving, low pH species would have to be small. Platies are from hard high pH habitats in nature but are very adaptable. I think you would have more problem with platies eating shrimp than this widely bred dwarf New World cichlid. The Amano shrimp are kind of aggressive and like cooler water than tropical fish. Their offspring are so small they could be called pelagic, and they not likely to breed in captivity successfully without a specialized set up. A small schooling fish like a small tetra would be a better choice than the platies. You can also add a few oak leaves or Indian almond leaves to the aquarium since these help keep the water soft and are much like a natural part of the aquatic environment. Producing shrimp usually requires a shrimp only setup since shrimp babies are just too much like Daphnia and other small crustaceans and aquatic bugs that fish fry and their parents would eat.

 

[fmueller]

Great response by Mcdaphnia. As far as I know, Amano Shrimp need marine water in the larval stage. They definitely will not reproduce in a freshwater environment. I always wanted to breed them and got as for a purchasing a bag of marine salt, but the salt never made it into water... :lol: