Looking for opinions on stocking a 10gallon tank

[Nara]

I have a 10 gallon tank (which I realize is quite small); that I intend on turning into a planted aquarium. I want to add some fish to it as well but with the tank being so small and the plants taking up a lot of room I'm concerned about overstocking. I don't have any equipment for the tank yet as I'm not entirely sure yet what I'm going to put in it.
Ideally the fish I want to put in there are:
1 Male Betta
5ish Neon tetras
and some kind of sucker fish (though I don't know any small enough that don't need to be in groups)

I feel like this is too much though - I've been doing a lot of research but haven't come across an example of my exact problem and am seeing a lot of conflicting information with things like rules of thumb for deciding how many fish you can have per gallon, etc.

I'm now concerned that anything other than a betta would be too much, so basically I'm looking for a second opinion and also help regarding what kind of filter I'm going to need.

Any help is appreciated
Thanks

 

[Brian Feeder of Fish]

Over-filtering is good. I am actually running two small filters in my 10 gallon, rated for 10 and 5 gallons. You could consider something like that, or one larger capacity filter. The benefit as I understand it of my setup compared to one filter of equal capacity is that should one filter fail, you still have a backup.
Your stocking is probably alright, although a little heavy. (Like me; I have 4 zebra danios, 3 harlequin rasboras, and 2 otocinclus. I know the danios usually like more space, but they seem to do alright.) Space is not usually the issue so much as the bioload of the fish is. Although space can present problems, I believe the fish you are considering don't need too much. As for the suckers, I have a pair of otocinclus, which are very small catfish. One last thing I'll throw out, I have heard (not certain) that in small groups, odd numbers of schooling fish generally school better because they can't form pairs instead.
One thing to consider, some betta may not like the heavy filtering required for such a stock list. This is because the flow it produces pushes on their long fins. Therefore, I would recommend a shorter finned variety.
Brian

 

[calivivarium1]

Get an AC20 for a HOB filter and be done with it. Plants are going to help "filter" the water to a point so that is a good thing as well. Why do you want a sucker fish? Because you like them or??

 

[henningc]

Everyone is giving solid advice so far. I would use an airdriven sponge filter rated for a 40gal and hide it in the plants.

I would go with one or two nice female bettas as they don't mind a little current if you produce them with some sort of other filter. By using the sponge, you can skip the sucker and go with some sort of dwarf shrimp like red cherry shrimp. In the plants the betta (s) will have to work too hard to catch them and are likely to leave them alone for the most part. I'd add at least one trio of least killies, they are not flashy but will supply your betta (s) with a nice supply of live food and some fry will survive. For schooling fish I'd look at one of the oddball dwarf rasboras. The Aquatic Arts has some oddballs as do many others.

If you just go with the bettas, you could add a pair of badis badis. they will live and spawn on the bottom while adding color. I'll bet know body in town, regardless of where you live, will have these little guys. Another choice would be pigmy gouramis instead of a betta (s).

Wow, clear as mud some help I am!

 

[Tifftastic]

My ten gallon was probably over stocked if you talk to a lot of people, but I never thought it was. My fish were healthy for the two years I had them in it (upgraded to a 34 gallon) and my nitrates never rose above about 10-15 ppm or so. Here were the specs on mine:

Aquaclear 20, no carbon but extra biomedia
EcoEarth substrate
Mopani drift wood (extra space for BB)

Plants:
- 3 Anubias nana
- 2 Java fern
- 5 Cryptocoryne wentii
- 2 melon swords
- 3 Cryptocoryne undulata
- handful of Java moss

Livestock:
- 1 Male betta
- 5 ember tetras
- 1 rubber lip pleco (1.5 inches)

Maintenance:
Fed one light feeding 5 days a week, 1/4 algae wafer 2x per week
Water change: 20-30% once per week
Light gravel vac with every water change, just to get any decaying leaves up
Filter maintenance every other water change

The rubber lip plecos are very slow growers and pretty widely available. However, I would like to point out that the only reason I got him is because I knew that they were slow growers and that I would be upgrading the tank or trading him out as soon as he hit 2.5 inches. I also didn't get him for algae cleanup, I got him because I like the look of them. I actually still scrubbed the front of my tank with every water change and just left algae on the back and sides for him to munch on. But he spent most of his time munching on the algae on the driftwood.

 

[Nara]

Get an AC20 for a HOB filter and be done with it. Plants are going to help "filter" the water to a point so that is a good thing as well. Why do you want a sucker fish? Because you like them or??

I've been seeing lots of good feedback on the AC20 in my travels and I found out I can get a hold of it at my local pet supply store so i think that's the one I'm gonna go with.
And yeah I'm just after a sucker fish because I like them, but I don't really want to get something I'm going to have to rehouse due to growth.

 

[Nara]

My ten gallon was probably over stocked if you talk to a lot of people, but I never thought it was. My fish were healthy for the two years I had them in it (upgraded to a 34 gallon) and my nitrates never rose above about 10-15 ppm or so. Here were the specs on mine:

Aquaclear 20, no carbon but extra biomedia
EcoEarth substrate
Mopani drift wood (extra space for BB)

Plants:
- 3 Anubias nana
- 2 Java fern
- 5 Cryptocoryne wentii
- 2 melon swords
- 3 Cryptocoryne undulata
- handful of Java moss

Livestock:
- 1 Male betta
- 5 ember tetras
- 1 rubber lip pleco (1.5 inches)

Maintenance:
Fed one light feeding 5 days a week, 1/4 algae wafer 2x per week
Water change: 20-30% once per week
Light gravel vac with every water change, just to get any decaying leaves up
Filter maintenance every other water change

The rubber lip plecos are very slow growers and pretty widely available. However, I would like to point out that the only reason I got him is because I knew that they were slow growers and that I would be upgrading the tank or trading him out as soon as he hit 2.5 inches. I also didn't get him for algae cleanup, I got him because I like the look of them. I actually still scrubbed the front of my tank with every water change and just left algae on the back and sides for him to munch on. But he spent most of his time munching on the algae on the driftwood.

Nice~ that kind of setup is pretty much exactly what I'm after; so it's good to know you had success. I'm after a sucker because I like them a lot and; I can get a few different types of small ones where I live (unfortunately there's very limited options in my area if you're not after platys and guppies).
At the moment I'm also thinking about not bothering with a betta and just sticking with Tetras and a sucker as I think that'll pretty much solve the space issue.

 

[Nara]

Everyone is giving solid advice so far. I would use an airdriven sponge filter rated for a 40gal and hide it in the plants.

I would go with one or two nice female bettas as they don't mind a little current if you produce them with some sort of other filter. By using the sponge, you can skip the sucker and go with some sort of dwarf shrimp like red cherry shrimp. In the plants the betta (s) will have to work too hard to catch them and are likely to leave them alone for the most part. I'd add at least one trio of least killies, they are not flashy but will supply your betta (s) with a nice supply of live food and some fry will survive. For schooling fish I'd look at one of the oddball dwarf rasboras. The Aquatic Arts has some oddballs as do many others.

If you just go with the bettas, you could add a pair of badis badis. they will live and spawn on the bottom while adding color. I'll bet know body in town, regardless of where you live, will have these little guys. Another choice would be pigmy gouramis instead of a betta (s).

Wow, clear as mud some help I am!

If I can get my hands on any of those I'd be shocked - I don't know what it is about my area, but it doesn't matter what it is; if it's not super basic it's not here - which is why usually I buy everything online but I'm a bit sus on buying fish online since I know they'd have to travel a fair distance to get here~

 

[NeverFadeAway86]

Ember Tetras would be good, or maybe some endlers

 

[calivivarium1]

You can buy most any equipment online (and often pay less anyway); I have had good success with thatfishplace and Drs Foster and Smith. Just shop around for a good deal (or even the classifieds here/craigslist/etc for some used gear). There is nothing wrong with supporting a local shop either if you have one. I just noticed you are in Australia; so I am not sure on what (if any) the restrictions would be like on ordering aquarium stuff from companies based in the US or Asia.

If you are hurting for ideas; try building a tank around a specific part of the world. Even if you can't get everything exactly correct; you can probably get pretty close. Mongabay has some good pages to peruse for finding flora/fauna stock lists.