Stocking 4 (10 gallon)
1 dwarf gourami
3 platies- all male or all female unless fry are wanted
4 pygmy corydoras- stay very small, getting to around ¾ of an inch to an inch long. great for small tanks, but needs yo be kept in groups of 4 or more.
1 snail
This is almost exactly my stocking in the first tank I ever had.
I had no cories, and because I didn't know better I put 2 chinese algae eatters in the tank. They cleaned it in half an hour and started trying to kill the other fish, so they had to go back.
Eventually my cleanup crew was 2 amano shrimp, 1 clown pleco, which seemed perfect.
Also cool about this setup is I had 1 male, and 2 female platties, and one day I noticed the gouami had a HUGE belly. Well he had been eating platty fry all day long, but I did manage to save 1 last fry, and raise him to adulthood! Took me about half an hour to track down that pair of eyes that I kept seeing swimming around. Eventually I figured out he was hiding under a rock, between the gravel.
I think I was hooked from then on.