If You Could Have Anything In A 10 Gallon...

What would it be? Looking for "outside the box" ideas here. Have a tank full of Rosy Red Minnows that I've bred and had fun with, but I'm looking for something new in the next month or so. Open to fresh, brackish, or salt. Here are things I've considered!

Pea Puffer Paradise!
The idea behind this tank is to get one pea puffer and spoil him/her rotten. Plant it up, give it tons of good meaty foods, and give it the life every puffer deserves. Puffers are awesome.

Goby Resort!
The plan with this one would be to take a species of goby (probably a brackish bumblebee goby or something like that) and to create an "ideal" tank for a colony of them. Probably some salt-tolerant plants, tons of hiding spots, and some good food. This one is a bit undeveloped - I'd have to fill it out more!

Red Claw Crabitat!
This one is probably the most simple on the list. Get a red claw crab or two, some nice aquatic/semi-aquatic plants, and set up the "ideal" tank for them. I like this idea a lot, I just worry that they might be super inactive and I might get bored with them.

Saltwater Mini-Predator!
Now, this one is stretching the rules a bit - this guy really needs a 24-30" tank or so, so an upgrade to at least a 20H would be in order at some point. But a Fu-Manchu Lionfish only gets to between 4-5" long, tends to just hang out on the live rock all day, and look amazing. I've wanted to do this one for a while, but I've always been a bit wary just due to the fact that "predator" fish are pretty unexplored for me. These guys are supposed to be somewhat difficult to switch over to frozen foods, but I also have a pretty much endless source of ghost shrimp that I can gutload until I can get him to switch.

Anyways... what are you guys thinking?

 

These are the type of threads I raise fish for

 

I wanna follow this. I'm just a novice community fish keeper. But I will say I think I may want to do the pea puffer thing eventually. Not super rare but still interesting species.

 

If you've never done a puffer, I think it's a pretty great experience. I've kept pea puffers, Figure 8's, GSPs, and now a couple different saltwater puffers - and they're all pretty awesome.

If oscars are water puppies, puffers are water children.

 

If you've never done a puffer, I think it's a pretty great experience. I've kept pea puffers, Figure 8's, GSPs, and now a couple different saltwater puffers - and they're all pretty awesome.

If oscars are water puppies, puffers are water children.

I already know I'll do a puffer eventjally

 

I would love to keep a group of chilI rasboras and green neon tetras in a 10! Get some active behaviors from the fish.

 

That's a cool idea! A tank full of contrasting micro fish!

I've actually never seen either of those species locally, though. I know I can order them somewhere but yikes!

 

I would love a 10 gallon with a few pound block of gold sitting at the bottom!

wouldn’t move much but I would still appreciate it

 

So many choices... love all of your ideas. I love the puffer idea. I would love to set up a deliberately planted tank for a paradise gourami. I think they are cool and underrated for beauty. Orrr Kilifish...not the golden wonder, but some of the bright ones, like clown killies...or even some of the annual varieties.

ooooo edit - THREADFIN RAINBOWS. I win.

 

I think we'd all appreciate a golden bar!

I've had some not so great experiences with smaller rainbows in the past - namely with Pseudomugil species just not faring well, regardless of salinity and PH. Threadfins are new to me though - so, maybe?

Paradise fish would be cool! There's only one store around here that carries them though and they always seem super beat up, so I'm assuming they like to pick fights, right?

A chocolate gourami would be pretty awesome, but I've heard some people say different things about minimums. Some say 10, some say 20, and some say 40.

There's also the possibility of going with a heavily planted tank and a few brightly colored Badis.

Or... I could set up the tank as a guppy/platy breeding tank and start experimenting with selective breeding.

 

I think we'd all appreciate a golden bar!

I've had some not so great experiences with smaller rainbows in the past - namely with Pseudomugil species just not faring well, regardless of salinity and PH. Threadfins are new to me though - so, maybe?

Paradise fish would be cool! There's only one store around here that carries them though and they always seem super beat up, so I'm assuming they like to pick fights, right?

A chocolate gourami would be pretty awesome, but I've heard some people say different things about minimums. Some say 10, some say 20, and some say 40.

There's also the possibility of going with a heavily planted tank and a few brightly colored Badis.

Or... I could set up the tank as a guppy/platy breeding tank and start experimenting with selective breeding.

Pseudomugils are hit and miss. Some people have no trouble with them at all and some can't keep them from dying (maybe something in the water we don't test for?).
I have some currently because I just adore them too much to give up but my previous ones passed slowly over the course of several months and nothing I did helped. They came from the same source though, so now I'm trying a group from a completely different source (different strain too, different colour variation of the same species).

I was told paradise fish went out of fashion precisely because they were notorious for aggression, but this is hearsay so I can't confirm or deny.

Chocolate gourami are also really hard to keep alive, beautiful as they are. I've heard if you don't dedicate to a serious blackwater set-up they won't last long. But I would love for someone to confirm or deny this one too. Cause if not I'll definitely get some From what I've read the difference in tank minimums has to do with problems in grouping behaviour, as in they like to be kept in groups but can also display aggression towards conspecifics, or something similar to that? Not 100% sure.

Threadfins are also super delicate. Haha, you all have some nice picks but there are reasons you don't see these a lot I think I've heard 15 or 20 recommended for threadfins not because they need the space but because they require supremely clean water which is hard to maintain in a smaller tank.

To which I'll add: Pipefish! I recently met someone who had a small tank with some of these in a lushly planted tank, and they just look great Also second colourful killi's, like aphyosemion australe gold or nothobranchius.

 

Thanks for making me feel better about the Pseudomugils! I'd love, love, love to get my hands on some Pseudomugil Cyanodorsalis, but I can't find them for sale at all. Anywhere.

I mean, I guess since he'd probably be the only fish in there, the aggression from the Paradise Fish wouldn't be a big deal. I'd just want to find one that wasn't so beat up so I could start in a good spot.

Thanks for the info on the chocolate gourami! I've never really researched into them a ton past basic care sheets, so I'm sure there's a lot I don't know - and I've always wondered why they weren't more popular, considering their beauty. Being difficult to care for would make sense.

I LOVE pipefish! I just don't want to be hatching out brine shrimp all the time. Can freshwater pipefish be weaned onto frozen? I know a lot of saltwater pipefish tend not to take anything but live.

 

Thanks for making me feel better about the Pseudomugils! I'd love, love, love to get my hands on some Pseudomugil Cyanodorsalis, but I can't find them for sale at all. Anywhere.

I mean, I guess since he'd probably be the only fish in there, the aggression from the Paradise Fish wouldn't be a big deal. I'd just want to find one that wasn't so beat up so I could start in a good spot.

Thanks for the info on the chocolate gourami! I've never really researched into them a ton past basic care sheets, so I'm sure there's a lot I don't know - and I've always wondered why they weren't more popular, considering their beauty. Being difficult to care for would make sense.

I LOVE pipefish! I just don't want to be hatching out brine shrimp all the time. Can freshwater pipefish be weaned onto frozen? I know a lot of saltwater pipefish tend not to take anything but live.

Oooh I have never seen those either, not even offered on a rainbow fish forum I was stalking when my pseudo's were previously dying, haha (there were other people there with the same problem, none of them could find the cause after parameters and water quality were controlled for). They are very beautiful though, I would love to see some. I have gertrudae myself. Previously had paskai's too.

Yes, chocolates are actually popular in pet stores around here and I considered getting one, but was wondering why you rarely see them in home aquaria despite the supply. Well turns out they don't last long in the pet shops either. Usually they get a shipment of 20 or so and every day you walk by there is a new dead one in there pretty much, and by the next week there won't be any left. It would surprise me if more than 5 of them were sold. And that is an LFS that keeps most of their non-popular stock in good condition for over a month until they sell. They really need a specialised set-up, like the croaking gourami and other diminutive gourami species from acid waters.
Apparently they adapted to water with a hardness of near (or at) 0 and a PH below 6, where bacteria cannot function or live well. They don't really need an immune system because they aren't threatened by these pathogens. This is an advantage under those conditions, but then if they are put in water with a more normal PH/hardness like our usual tank water, the bacteria thrive in there and they have no immune system to speak of that can keep them from getting ill. So it is near impossible to keep your tank clean enough for them not to fall ill. Possible though there are some strains out there that have been bred with a more decent immune system given how often my local shops stock them? Not sure, I haven't heard from anyone who keeps them succesfully in 'normal' water but that doesn't mean they don't exist. (I got this info from a specialised forum for these types of gouramis where people were discussing at length what set-ups would work because the challenge of keeping them is that since BBs also don't function below PH of 6, you can basically only keep them in an out-of-the-box uncycled set-up. Ammonia wouldn't be a problem because it is not toxic at that PH though, so it definitely isn't impossible.) I'm thinking about experimenting with a fishless tank first to see if a tank with three inches of dried leaves as a substrate would work in the long run, and if that works maybe I'll give it a shot. Or if someone tells me that you can actually keep them without jumping through all those hoops, haha.


The guy I met who had them did not cultivate live food aside from microworms (and I suspect he bought them as treats rather than staple). I didn't think to ask what he fed them, probably frozen daphnia and white mosquito larvae from what he said he fed his other fish. Maybe also pellets? And the worms as a treat as well.
But then again he seemed rather superbly skilled. I'm not confident I could maintain the tanks that he did, maybe he had a trick to the feeding as well.

 

I didn't know any of that about threadfins. An LFS near me has them quite often. I only was able to keep mine a couple of months, and it was after they died I found out I am battling camallanus (but that's another thread) so I assumed that is what took them.
I've never seen a chocolote gourami in person either. Very interesting read!
I like the guppy idea. Thought about doing that myself, but not in a 10.

 

Thanks for everyone's input!

This has been solved - at least for a few weeks.

Someone at work brought in a Green Spotted Puffer that they no longer wanted, and I fell in love. I've had them before and, honestly, haven't loved many fish like I loved that guy. A 10 gallon is pretty small for a GSP, but this guy is barely 2" - I probably have another 3-6 months before I'd have to think about upgrading. I'll either find him a great home or get a bigger tank by then.

He's in full freshwater right now, so I'll be moving him up to brackish and salt SLOWLY. Probably up by .002 every month, if that. He went straight into the tank after I removed the minnows, shrimp, and crab. I left a few snails and some ghost shrimp in there to clean up and eventually be eaten. Tank is SUPER cloudy right now - I'll post a pic tonight or tomorrow.

 

Moved the GSP up to a 20. Here's the fu manchu!