Help with my 10 gallon tank

[ckeck]

What are a good fish for a 10 gallon freshwater tank? My surface area is 136" so I figure I can have 11 1" fish. Correct?

Also, what plants are good? I have had trouble keeping plants alive when I did this years ago. What is a good food for the plants that seems to work?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Every time I learn something, I realize how small I am in the universe.

 

[LittlePuff]

Male betta,female bettas,3 cories, tetras,platys,danios,barbsguppies
swordtails,dwarf puffers,shrimp,fig8 puffer

That's all I can think of at the moment.

Kim

 

[ChicoRaton]

^^ but not all of those at the same time! hehe

the only thing I disagree with is the swordtails. they like a lot of space to swim and can actually get kind of big. platies do well in 10gs though.

 

[Blinky]

If you really want to keep 10 or 11 fish, I'd suggest a combination of things like neon tetras, pygmy cory cats, female bettas, pygmy rasboras, and guppies. All of these fish stay pretty small, and are good fish for a quiet little community tank.
If you're willing to keep fewer fish, you could try a pair of honey or dwarf gouramis and three cory cats (pick a species whose adult size doesn't exceed 2")
If you wanted to set up a species tank you could consider shell dwelling African cichlids (2 pairs), a pair of rams, a pair of kribs...
It really depends on what your preferences are, and how you set up the tank. Enjoy!

 

[vato]

Yes you are correct Ckeck you can have 10-11 one inch fish, but keep in mind this has to be their adult size.

I can see that you have recieved responses as to fish so I will focus on plant life. If you want easy to keep plants that can grow in low light and don't need co2 try: Java fern, Java moss, milfoil, banana plant, water onion, and hornwort. These are all very easy to care for plants that will need minimal care from you. the java moss and fern will attatch to anything, but try not to bury their rhisomes, because they will rot most likely. The moss will grow in to a large mat. The milfoil and hornwort, are feathery types ans all that needs to be done with them is place the stem into the substrate and they will grow. The banana plant is called so because it's root system looks like a bunch of bananas, all that needs to be done with this is allowed to rest on the substrate, do not bury the "bananas". And lastly the onion is easy to care for and will grow long leaves that will reach the top of your tank. When planting make sure that you don't completely cover the "onion" bulb. These are all great plants that will work out well for a novice aquarist, and plant keeper. Good Luck.

 

[9tails]

Being a novice aquarist myself and having spent fortunes on plants, the ones that have worked really well for me are Cabomba, Elodea, Wisteria and Crypt.

 

[PumaWard]

My surface area is 136" so I figure I can have 11 1" fish.

Yes, but that doesn't mean you have have necessarily 10-11 inches of total fish. I personally wouldn't use any tank measurements to determine fish count.

Here's a good post by richer regarding using measurements.
http://aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=26409

You could have a nice little tank with a small centerpiece fish (like a betta or dwarf gourami) a shoal of 5-6 small tetras (neons or glowlights) and 2-3 cories, kuhli loaches, or otos.

And, as already mentioned, you could have 10-11'' of 1'' fish, like you said yourself. But this would be limited to smaller fish like dainty/pygmy cories, small tetras, and similiar.


Good beginner plants, IME, are hortwart, java fern, java moss, anubias barteri, anacharis, and ozelot swords.

 

[hcgirl80]

First, which small fish is your favorite? Platys make great beginner fish and are very colorful.
If I were you, here's what I'd get:
3 assorted platys
1 male betta
3 assorted mollys
2-3 1" corys
Ooh! SO much color!!

 

[vato]

Puma is correct do not take these "rules of thumb" as gospel truth. Some are, however, better in predicting the amount of fish that can survive in your tank than others, but none is the set standard. The only thing that can help you with tank stocking is knowledge and information. It's been said before that you can keep fish, but as long as you don't read you will get nowhere. Although, experience is invaluable, you still need to be reading as much aquaria based material as you can.

Every single fish has different requirments, and it is impossible to take into account all of those factors and have a perfect formula, it could just never work. But as a begginer there has to be a place to start, and by calculation of the surface area you can give you that place to start out from.

 

[sdb]

My 10g has one male betta and 4 peppered cories. I enjoy that tank the most, the cories tease the betta, so the betta steals their pellets. They're fun to watch. I was going to add some neons, but I dumped the idea because the tank is great as is. Visitors are also drawn to that tank first. Sometimes less is more.