Cory suitable for a ten gallon tank?

[AnnaEA]

What kinds of corys, or other bottom feeders, would be suitable for solo living in a 10 gallon tank? I'm looking with two things in mind -- a nice hardy little fish that could live with a betta and school of WC minnows, and a possible future "tank star", to live with the minnows as the big fish in the tank if/when I set up the betta tank.

I'm keeping my eyes open for another Indian Leopard loach (a fish that will definitely provoke a case of MTS if I find one when my tank is full!), but I sort of want to add a bottom feeder to this tank -- the difference between how it is now sans bottom feeder, and how it was when I had the loach is pretty signifigant.

 

[jri4]

IMO Corydoras will help clean the tank of excess food more efficiently then it will "poop" out, making them nice additions to any tank. They preferably school with 3 or more together, but it is possible to keep just one or two. IMO, I would get 2 so each only has to cover 5 gallons of tank space to keep clean. I just got mine with 5 Danios and love them! They should do okay with the White Clouds and a Betta, at least temporarily!

 

[atmmachine816]

I have to disagree. Cory's like minimum but perfer 3 corys of their own kind since they are schooling fish to be happy. It's not a big deal if they have 3 or 5 gallons to clean. You can and should feed them other food anyways like wafers. I would not advise WC minnows since they perfer cold water and get fairly large. If you plan to have a school of those, corys, and a betta your tank will be pretty heavily stocked. I would more go for just 3 corys and a betta. If that helps I don't know, not quite sure what your final stocking was going to be?

 

[Luniyn]

One other thing to think about is that Cory's do not clean algae, so if you were looking for a tank cleaner... they aren't what you are looking for. In an established tank you could use 2 zebra oto's. They only get to be about 1.5" to 2" (4cm to 5cm) in length, so 2 at max would only take up 4 of your 10 gal limit. Cory's are great fish and so much fun to watch as they endlessly search the tank for bits of food, but as mentioned you should really have 3 minimum. They get to be about 2" to 2.5" (5cm to 6cm) so 3 of them at max would take up 7.5 of your 10 gal limit which would only leave room for the betta and nothing else.

 

[atmmachine816]

Well put Luniyn, though if you go with oto's you won't really have a bottom cleaner so essentially whatever AnnaEA wants is ok between those two, but not both. I've never seen zebra oto's though in any of my stores, only regular oto's so if you see oto's in a store, there the same more or less as zebra oto's just different color.

 

[Luniyn]

Oh really? Huh... all of the stores that carry oto's (well the main one's I've been visiting... PetSmart, PetCo, PetSupermarket, etc. not the mom and pop's) all have the zebra oto's, so I thought they were the most common. But yeah as ATM said they are all fairly similar in overall size just different colors.

 

[atmmachine816]

Ya I've never seen zebra oto's by me and I have some large store's by me. I don't know why but it's all just common oto's.

 

[AnnaEA]

The tank schema is this -- school of minnows, and one "tank star". Sounds like cory's aren't a good choice for me-- if they're a schooling fish I don't want to keep one single. I certainly wasn't thinking of them as algae eaters -- I've just noticed that the tank bottom get's a bit muckier without a bottom feeder.

My ten gallon currently has 6 WC minnows, and Byron the betta living it - lots of top of the tank action, and I was sort of hoping a cory might be suitable, as it would provide a little bottom of the tank action, though it would push my stocking rate a little high. My water is good (runs 7.6 ph, and I test bi-weekly and change the water (50%) whenever nitrates get to 5.0 - or once a week if they haven't gotten that high.) and the tank runs warm - about 82 degrees, which doesn't seem to bother the minnows a bit, and which my loach and now Byron both loved.

I don't think water quality would be so much an issue, since I'm a massive frequent water changer, but I don't want to add an unsuitable fish.

It sounds like 1 betta and 3 -4 corys would a nice 10 gallon tank though -- and might be a suitable solution to my worsening case of MTS.

 

[atmmachine816]

Indeed a school of corys and a betta is a good combo.

My question is do you have a loach or no in your current tank. How much water do you change when your not doing 50%?

If you want some bottom feeder add some ghost shrimp, say 3-4 and see if they live, if they end up dieing, probably eaten by the betta then don't buy anymore, if they survive than you can buy some more, they add very little bio-load so don't worry about them. Make sure they have some hiding places to molt if you do buy them.

 

[COBettaCouple]

The tank schema is this -- school of minnows, and one "tank star". Sounds like cory's aren't a good choice for me-- if they're a schooling fish I don't want to keep one single. I certainly wasn't thinking of them as algae eaters -- I've just noticed that the tank bottom get's a bit muckier without a bottom feeder.

My ten gallon currently has 6 WC minnows, and Byron the betta living it - lots of top of the tank action, and I was sort of hoping a cory might be suitable, as it would provide a little bottom of the tank action, though it would push my stocking rate a little high. My water is good (runs 7.6 ph, and I test bi-weekly and change the water (50%) whenever nitrates get to 5.0 - or once a week if they haven't gotten that high.) and the tank runs warm - about 82 degrees, which doesn't seem to bother the minnows a bit, and which my loach and now Byron both loved.

I don't think water quality would be so much an issue, since I'm a massive frequent water changer, but I don't want to add an unsuitable fish.

It sounds like 1 betta and 3 -4 corys would a nice 10 gallon tank though -- and might be a suitable solution to my worsening case of MTS.

Bettas do get along good with Corys but you have to watch for the Betta eating their wafers. Our Bettas developed a taste for them and would eat most of the wafer pieces before the Corys could.

For your tank with Bryon & the minnows, what might work for you is a dwarf pleco but to get a really small one can get pretty expensive and/or hard to find. It would still make a heavy bio-load, but you sound willing to keep up with the water quality.
- you can check this site & see all of the pleco varieties, how big they get and if they're algae eaters.

Yea, atmmachine is right - I'd forgot about ghost shrimp. Those could be a much better & cheaper option than a dwarf pleco.

 

[atmmachine816]

Yes, most dwarf plecos are not very good algae eaters and overall almost all plecos poop more than they help clean and essentially should not be kept in 10 gallon tanks except for species only tank with maybe a betta since most small plecos have some special requirements and like FLBetta Couple said are hard to find and can get expensive.

 

[AnnaEA]

No loach right now. He was an Indian Spiny Loach aka Indian Leopard Loach (Lepidocephalicthys thermalis) and died two months ago, after nine months in my tank as the "tank star".

I always do a 50% change when I change the water -- it's just as easy as doing anything less, given the general inconvenience of where my tank is relative to the water source, and I got in the habit when I had the loach, who was *extremely* sensitive to water conditions.

Ghost shrimp is a good thought - I'll have to check my LFS and see if they have any. I've never really paid any attention to their inverts.

The pleco is an idea, but I'm not interested in putting too much money into fish right now -- I'm fairly new to this hobby (only involved about year) and one of the very first pieces of advice I was given was to "buy cheap fish for a coupla years- they're cheap because they're hardier and easier to keep". *lol* So far, it's proven a good guideline.

 

[COBettaCouple]

Ghost shrimp is a good thought - I'll have to check my LFS and see if they have any. I've never really paid any attention to their inverts.

The pleco is an idea, but I'm not interested in putting too much money into fish right now -- I'm fairly new to this hobby (only involved about year) and one of the very first pieces of advice I was given was to "buy cheap fish for a coupla years- they're cheap because they're hardier and easier to keep". *lol* So far, it's proven a good guideline.

Yea, atmmachine is right.. forget the dwarf plecos (dumb idea) since they are major waste producers and not the best at algae control. Hopefully your LFS will have some ghost shrimp, since I see them a lot.
atmmachine - what's a good hiding place for them? cave-type decor or some sort of plants?

 

[atmmachine816]

I find with mine they perfer a dark cave or under a piece of driftwood that sort of makes a arch/hangover that makes them feel protected. I see mine sometimes go and hide in plants also. They like places to explore but it's best to have a small cave where they can molt and the fish can't get them if possible such as two pieces of slate or a overhang or something.

 

[wolfman21]

Corys are excellent for a 10 gallon tank. Give them enough places to hide, gravel that won't hurt their barbels, and make sure they get food and they will do all the work and will clean the tank of excess food. They are excellent, not to mention fun to watch.