wavedragon

ok, so if you've read my profile you already know this, but here's the scoop: I just set up my first tropical fish tank a few days ago and am putting in some plants today, the tank is in the midst of it's ammonia spike with nitrite and nitrate readings negligable. I know it's way too early to add fish yet (instant death accordinng to my test strips) but I'm thinking about what I want to add when it's ready and would love some advice from more experienced fish keepers. My list of wants(obviosly too much for my little ten gal. tank) is: guppies, tetras (not sure which breed yet), ghost knives, glass cats, cory's, fiddler crabs, kuhli? loaches, danios, dwarf frogs, and ghost shrimp. the list did have clown loaches, but after doing some research, they're gonna get way too big for my tank. If anyone would like to give their oppinion on these fish, their combinations and numbers, I'd really appreciate it. I've been doing a lot of research on line and reading aas many threads here on fish lore as I can, but am still feeling a bit lost in the sea of information out there, and unfortunately, there's only 1 LFS here in juneau, alaska and the staff are only very basicaly trained. Thanks alot on the help with my first question here on fishlore!

TFA101

Welcome to Fishlore!


Well, you're going to want to stock lightly with small, generally inactive varieties of fish. For smaller tanks and smaller fish, you can use the guideline one inch of adult sized fish per gallon of water.

For example, a 10 gallon tank can have 10 one-inch-long fish, 5 two-inch long fish, 3 three-inch long fish, and the like. You can not however have a fish that grows 10 inches because the animal would be cramped and unhappy, it's a matter of common sense. You can go over your limit by a couple of inches, but you just have to keep up with routine maintenance.

Some suggestions for you would be some of the smaller tetras such as neons, small livebearers like dwarf platies, guppies, smaller anabantids (air breathing fish) like dwarf gouramis, sparkling gouramis, and the smaller catfish like dwarf corydorases, to name a few.

agabr123

of these fish that you listed

you can have guppies, tetras, cories, danios, dwarf frogs, or shrimp, and some combinations of those.

the glass cats get to 4 inches and need large schools (more than 6 is much better) and for that i'd recommend at least a 29, but a 55 is better.
the black ghost knifes are really neat but need at least a 75
the kuhli loaches MIGHT be okay but IMO a 10 gallon doesn't have a large enough footprint for them, they'd probably feel a bit cramped.

here's a stocking list i'm working on that should answer most of your questions 10 gallon is in post #2 and the tetras you can keep are in post #3
Work In Progress: Freshwater Community Stocking List