Favourite Aquarium Stocking Pairs

What is your favourite combination of fish to keep and why? Perhaps another way to pose the question would be, what are you favourite two fish (species) to keep together and why? Have you had any that you thought would work great, and didn't? Have you had any unexpected matches between species that you weren't expecting?

Often aquarists will keep certain dither fish with species of other timid fish, which often reduces their shyness and really allows the hobbyist to see that fish more often.

For example, my favourite so far was keeping rummynose tetra together with my checkerboard cichlids. The rummynose are always beautiful to watch, as they stay grouped quite tightly, while my checkerboards seemed to feel much more comfortable to visit more open parts of the tank (making them much easier to watch).

None of my goons tolerate others, but I am able to keep a good community consisting of Oscar, Severum pair, JD, Green Terror, Tinfoil and Bala. After almost 5 decades of Oscar keeping, its just been over 2yrs keeping a pair together. Very difficult cichlid to pair up for the long term, but if you get lucky its a great combo.

That's a tough one to answer.
Having recently gotten into killifish,
tanks are generally single species.

I used to have a display tank
with micro rasboras and a pair of honey gouramies.

Currently I have a display tank that is very hands off
That has some limia and is paired with an algae crew
Siamese algae eater, Otto cat, and amano shrimp.

It is a tough question as I pair things up when I can't give them their own tanks. I like to keep Pelvicachromis dwarf cichlids of any species with Procatopus lampeye killies.

I have some livebearers in a 40 long with Telmatochromis sp Lufubu cichlids. Both are hard water species, even if they come from different continents.

My Tateurdina peacock gobies, which everyone on the Forum but me can breed, are nice with rainbowfish in a deeper tank.

At one point, I had pygmy Corydoras in a tank with the tetras they school with. Neither had a lot of colour, but other than their body shapes, they looked almost identical. It was a great "wait just a minute - what did I just see!" tank - fun to watch.