After a good 15 years without having an aquarium I finally went out and picked up a small 10 gallon tank and I've had it set up for about a month now. Aside from a nitrite problem that may have been encouraged by a some overzealous cleaning on my part (I've been getting in there twice a week) and a small outbreak of ich which we caught right away, things are going fairly well. The fish have kept their color nicely and are moving around just fine.
Once I have the ich cleared up, I'm hoping to have everything stablized enough to finish off the tank. This may be nothing more than adding another rock or two and some more plants.
Currently I have a small school of 4 Bloodfin Tetras, a single Mickey Mouse Moon, and a Waterfall Shrimp.
Aha! you say, you're full, stop. This is certainly an option, however I'm somewhat concerned that I may be stressing the tetras and the platy a bit by not having enough of their kind in the tank. From what I've read the Bloodfins really want to be in a school of six or more, and platies tend to like being in a group of two or three. When I picked these up from my LFS, which has a fairly good reputation as far as I'm aware, I was told 3 or 4 of the bloodfins should be plenty and wasn't given any particular warnings on the platy. On the other hand, he never told me that putting a Black Ghost Knifefish in a 10g tank is absolutely ludicrous when I mentioned being interested in one, so it's entirely possible that he got some of his facts wrong.
So I suppose my first question is will the tetras and platy be perfectly happy with their current numbers? If not, I have to answer another question. Will the stress caused by adding a few more fish be worse on the fish than the stress caused by having too small of numbers?
Thanks a lot for any help you can give me.
Once I have the ich cleared up, I'm hoping to have everything stablized enough to finish off the tank. This may be nothing more than adding another rock or two and some more plants.
Currently I have a small school of 4 Bloodfin Tetras, a single Mickey Mouse Moon, and a Waterfall Shrimp.
Aha! you say, you're full, stop. This is certainly an option, however I'm somewhat concerned that I may be stressing the tetras and the platy a bit by not having enough of their kind in the tank. From what I've read the Bloodfins really want to be in a school of six or more, and platies tend to like being in a group of two or three. When I picked these up from my LFS, which has a fairly good reputation as far as I'm aware, I was told 3 or 4 of the bloodfins should be plenty and wasn't given any particular warnings on the platy. On the other hand, he never told me that putting a Black Ghost Knifefish in a 10g tank is absolutely ludicrous when I mentioned being interested in one, so it's entirely possible that he got some of his facts wrong.
So I suppose my first question is will the tetras and platy be perfectly happy with their current numbers? If not, I have to answer another question. Will the stress caused by adding a few more fish be worse on the fish than the stress caused by having too small of numbers?
Thanks a lot for any help you can give me.
not enough "dart space" in a 10