Fish for a 10 gallon tank?

G

Ghapy

New member
Great Dane just recommended Clown Loaches to you. The darn answer got a thumbs up. Someone else mentioned bristlenose pleco.

This is a reason why to double check anything you hear on here anyway - clown loaches get to 10 inches long and need groups and are not even close to suibable - a very irresponsible suggestion. Bristlenoses get to 6 inches long and are quite messy - not a great idea either.

Danio's are small, but very active. Personally, I would not go with them because of this.

Small calm fish are best for a small tank.

In my 10 gallon tank I have 1 betta and 6 corydora catfish. Betta can easily be substituted with a small type gourami.

You can do also something like 6 small tetras (cardinal, neon, head-tail light, etc) and 4 corydora catfish. You can substitute the tetras for a small type of rasbora or a small type barb like cherry barbs, or guppies. You can substitute the corydora catfish for a bunch ghost or cherry shrimp or kuhli loaches.

When stocking a 10 gallon tank keep in mind that most suitable fish are schoolers, so we want less variety, bigger groups. Variety sometimes seem a good idea to beginners, but tanks with schooling fish look much better with groups too.

Fish that are not suitable: anything labeled 'shark', anything labeled pleco, algae eater, or sucker fish (except Oto cats, but they need mature, well decorated tanks), any goldfish, All but the small type gouramis, ANY cichlid, any large fish like clown loaches, silver dollars and pacu, and any very active or aggressive fish, even if small, such as tiger barbs and serpae tetras, and in my opinion, danios.

Glad to see you cycling your tank (with ammonia right, because an empty tank is not cycling, it's just running). Don't worry about PH - fish are very tolerant of this, plus our fish have been bred in captivity anyway. Messing with these parameters is more likely to cause issues than leaving it alone.
Good luck
 
I kept my 10 gallon for 10 years without any problem...the secret is not in the fish themselves so much as it is in how you set up the tank from bottom up and how you manage the water. But since you asked about fish I recommend you don't go more than 5-6 fish that are compatible with each other, the store can help you on this. I would most definitely stay away from large sized fish or ones that become large. Stay away from goldfish. Stay away from fish that need a lot of food. Small freshwater fish are best. A single Beta alone is nice too. Don't feed them too much either. Keep the right PH. Keep the right temperature. Read about your fish and what environment it likes best, or google it and set up the tank around that. I found that plants help make oxygen and help in maintaining the water but you'd have to read about each plant a bit too. Use Google or Library. Hope that helps
 
You can get some clown loaches they are cute to me.Guppies don't clean tanks but they are cute fish.Catfish or Algae eaters.Snails would be a pretty good option.
 
We made a lot of mistakes with our last set of fish (one of them being listening to the pet store employees) so unfortunately we have to start over. It is a 10 gallon freshwater tank.

Last time we had 4 fish (although one died before we added the last fish so really there were only 3 at a time) 2 of them were regular goldfish, 1 black moore and the other was a Chinese algae eater. We would like to NOT have any goldfish this time (although I LOVED the black moore). We'd like to have something to help clean the tank a little if possible.

Please DO NOT tell me we should get a bigger tank because we live in an apartment and it's the largest we can have. Also please do not leave rude answers, that's not appreciated by ANYONE.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance :)
No heater. We aren't sure if we want to get one.
Thanks for all the help. I really loved the fish we had last time, we just has some trouble with them. The tank IS being cycled right now and yes I completely cleaned it and all the decor/rocks.
 
Zebra Danios are hardy schooling fish that you could keep...I would get no less then 5 and no more then maybe 7. For cleaning be careful some of the plecos they sell get VERY LARGE. Maybe a snail would work out better for you. Allot of people will say cories but they need to be kept in groups as well and after the danios you prob wont have the room for a large group of them. Neon tetras are also a good schooler, get them in the same number as the danios (either or, not both). You could go with a Betta and some cories...that would be a nice set up. I would look up how many cories you would need for them to be happy.

Good luck

PS most pet store people know very little. If you have a local FISH STORE try them out, they are usually allot more knowledgeable and would be able to give you many good ideas.
 
I kept my 10 gallon for 10 years without any problem...the secret is not in the fish themselves so much as it is in how you set up the tank from bottom up and how you manage the water. But since you asked about fish I recommend you don't go more than 5-6 fish that are compatible with each other, the store can help you on this. I would most definitely stay away from large sized fish or ones that become large. Stay away from goldfish. Stay away from fish that need a lot of food. Small freshwater fish are best. A single Beta alone is nice too. Don't feed them too much either. Keep the right PH. Keep the right temperature. Read about your fish and what environment it likes best, or google it and set up the tank around that. I found that plants help make oxygen and help in maintaining the water but you'd have to read about each plant a bit too. Use Google or Library. Hope that helps
 
you could put 1 dwarf gourami, 5-6 neons, cardinals or rasboras and shrimp or cories for the bottom, if you have driftwood you could probably get a baby bristlenose or oto cats (oto's do prefer to be in groups and like an established tank)
 
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