Newbie here!

M

muttmama

AC Members
Feb 25, 2006
8
0
0
Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum and to aquariums as well. I just got a 10 gallon kit from walmart (i know its not the best, but for now it will have to do).

What I REALLY wanted was a 29 Gal, but i can't since I'm renting in an older house and the landlord really doesn't think the floor can support all the weight.

So I figure this 10 Gal will either make me love fish or hate em :) lol (not really, but at last it will make me decide wether or not I enjoy the hobby enough to invest big money for it)

So I've been reading alot the past few weeks about fishless cycle, and stocking guidelines, i think i'm pretty informed already about that, I'm still not sure what I'd like to stock in my tank, but for now, I'm taking my time, and not even gonna bother putting anything together yet. If there's one thing I don't lack, it's patience.

Someone told me that I HAD to get a bottom feeder/sucker fish/pleco/catfish or something along those line in my tank. Why? is it really necessary? It's only going to lower the amount of other fish I could possibly have. I don't have any interest in any of these at the moment, I'd like a bristlenose Pleco, but not till I get a bigger tank. (maybe in a year or so) With the amount of fish I could have in a 10 gal, is it really necessary? I do understand the benefits, but for a 10 gal with only a few fish, would it make that much difference?

Any suggestions?
 
really, so long as you don't mind cleaning the tank of algae and dropped food, no, you don't need a bottom feeder or algae eater. i never had any in my 10 gallon. i had a lot of algae, but it scrubs off, and my other fish nibbled on it a bit too.

in my new 20 gallon long, i'm going to have a few otos to eat algae because it does get to be a bit of a pain trying to scrub it all off the plants and the walls and the wood and the gravel........
 
No, you don't need a bottom feeder, and, quite frankly, a 10 gal is too small to house many of them anyway. If you were to choose to get a critter to eat algae, you can consider otocinculus, shrimp (amano for example), a snail (zebra snail is a good choice), etc. However, even those are not necessary. :)
 
i thought snails reproduced quite rapidly and were a pain to get rid of? how big does a Zebra Snail get?
 
get a mystery snail, their a little bigger than most, but if they do reproduce, you can sell them to the petstore, which im' sure you won't have to worry about with them as much as some of the pest snails. they are very cool to watch also.
 
muttmama said:
i thought snails reproduced quite rapidly and were a pain to get rid of? how big does a Zebra Snail get?
Click to expand...

It's a Nerite snail (neritina natalensis) and only eats algae, not plants, plus cannot reproduce in freshwater. I have two in my 20 gal...apparently they are male and female, because they keep mating and producing eggs, but the eggs don't hatch (they lay eggs on the glass, gravel and decorations...look like white sesame seeds.) I've read they get about 2cm (0.78 inches) inches big, although I've got one that is around 1 inch...and they grow slowly. They are excellent algae eaters, because of them I never have to scrape the glass clean. :)
 
I wouldn't worry about the weight of the tank too much, in the future. Figure about 10lbs per gallon, so a 29 gallon would weigh roughly 300lbs. That's like less than two full grown men standing next to each other. Can two people stand next to each other in your house and not fall through the floor? If so then you should be fine. Also, when worried about weight, get a cabinet stand rather than a 4 legged stand to distribute the weight better.
 
Thanks guys, I still think I'll wait until we get our own place to go bigger, then I'll be able to use this tank as a breeding tank/fry tank (assuming that I continue to obsess over fishies...which I probably will :) )

So getting a snail sounds like a plan, that should be ok with 1 male Betta right? I think that might be the extent of this tank....

1 betta
1 snail
maybe a few ghost shrimp?

does that sound ok?
 
Sounds good Mom.....you can add some shrimp, that would be fine and they'll help eat up leftover food that drops to the bottom.

You know, cories are a nice bottom feeding fish...you could get by with 2 of the smaller variety in there and they'll keep the bottom nice and tidy. You have to have at least 2 in a tank...more is better but I've kept just two together and they do fine.

Don't get discouraged right off the bat with your tank...you'll probably have an algae issue at some point and things will be a bit unsettled for awhile...but once it settles in all that should clear up.

My daughter has a 10 in her room with 5 guppies and 2 cories. All fake decorations....it was a few months of scrubbing algae everytime she did a cleaning...but after a few months all that cleared up and now that thing is trouble free ! Actually, it's been setup now for about 2 years.

There's a nice crop of some kind of carpet algae on the top of the rock decoration which looks alot like grass. The guppies actually sleep on it...lol..and I imagine it helps to suck up nutrients, so we leave it there. It looks pretty cool and it's the only algae in the whole tank. Even the glass stays nice and clean !
 
Last edited:
do you mean 2 corys and a betta and a snail?
or just 2 corys?
Sorry, i just wanna make sure that i never overstock or put something really incompatible...trying to do this right :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom