what kind of fish for a 10 gallon??

When you say the filters are running, do you mean the water is moving through the system? Any cycling efforts? If not, take a gander at the FW Archives for the threads on cycling--I urge you to go fishless.

As for what you can have long term: planted or no? I've really enjoyed some cherry barbs I recently picked up. They are very active, and always visible (it's for a tank at work, so this matters). They stay smaller than many other barbs, and are not as aggressive. In a 10, you could have 5 cherry barbs, a trio of otos, and an apple snail. The otos would be added last, after the tank is established and stable.

Edit: There are lots and lots of fish grouped at 'catfish'. Many of them are not appropriate for the aquarium, much less a 10. Identify the kind you want, and we can find out if they will work in a small tank. Other than cories, very few will. A trio of cories would also work with the above fish suggections, in place of the otos.

You still need to cycle the tank Preferably before adding any fish. As OG said, check out some of the cycling links - specifically the fishless method.

For "catfish", you should get some corydoras They're so cute!! I'd say three of them.

Also, a common but beautiful choice for fish to add to this is neon tetras/cardinal tetras. You can also use glowlight tetras.

Other options are harlequin or scissortail rasboras, guppies, platies, African dwarf frogs...scissortail rasboras. Or a dwarf gourami - also very lovely. Even danios will work.

You could do 3 cory catfish, a couple of mystery snails and 6 neons/cardinals or glowlights

Or 3 cories, snails, and 6 guppies

3 cories, snails 6-8 harlequins, etc.


My advice is to head to your local fish store - and write down the names of all of the fish you like. Then do some quick research on them and weed out the ones that don't work in a 10g. Then, post your final considerations to us and we can help you out more! This can all be done while your tank is cycling!

Okay--so a brief introduction on cycling. Cycling refers to the process of establishing bacteria needed to process wastes from fish. These bacteria are responsible for breaking ammonia (a natural fish waste) into nitrites, which are then broken down by another type of bacteria into nitrates. Ammonia and nitrites are highly toxic to fish, even in very low levels. But, without ammonia, you can't start the bacteria growing. So--the options are to manually add ammonia (fishless cycling), or to add 1-2 small fish, and do daily water changes to prevent the ammonia from becoming toxic. Both courses require test kits.

More details can be found in the Archives...

My choices on a 10g tank would start with 3 panda corys. After that you could add say 6 small tetras or harlequin raspborra. Otherwise you could just add a pair (M/F) of dwarf gourami. I'd probably stay away from guppies and snails myself, but that's just a personal thing.

Make sure you know about tank cycling. It is never fun for owner or fish if you buy what you want and have to watch them all die.

My ten gallon has 3 cory catfish and 5 white cloud mountain mnnowws. Resist the urge to get 1 of each cool tetra you see. Most small fish require a school to be happy and healthy. So if you want a small school of cory catfish then get a small school of another fish.

Of course 3 cory catfish and 1 betta plus maybe an apple snail would work as well.

Well the tests that you'll want are going to be ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

You can get a pH test if you wanna spend the money all at once, or you can hold off on it, I suppose. Later down the line, you might want to pick up a kH/gH kit - but I wouldn't worry about it too much