Need advice to start this hobby :)

[pbecot01]

Okay, basic issues...

My wife bought me a ten gallon tank since I wanted to have fish. Assuming I don't hate doing this, I will eventually be getting bigger aquariums etc...

I like carnivorous fish, but haven't seen any small ones. I was thinking of doing a fish cycle on the tank (just reading, no actual experience) with guppies or something and then adding something that can eat them after the tank is cycled properly. Any suggestions on what fish to look at?

In addition... I know that 10 is really small... any suggestions on an actual stocking plan for a small tank? fish that will get along considering that I like carnivorous fish

More questions... should I get plants for my tank? Do fish eat the plants and control their size?

If I go with something like guppies and they have fry... what do I do with them if I DONT put in something carnivorous to eat them all?

 

[Copper]

Carnivorous fish are pretty territorial and will require a good amount of space, much more than you could provide with a 10 gal tank, and likely won't really get along with much of anything considering that they will eat whatever cannot defend itself.

You're either going to need a bigger tank, or you will have to satisfy yourself with a small group of "friendly" fish for a while until you decide if fishkeeping is something you wish to keep up with. I recommend the latter to keep from putting a significant investment in new eqipment that you may later decide you don't want.

Hope this helps.

Copper

 

[pbecot01]

Thanks, I figured I would need a bigger tank to get anything agressive... my original plan was to cycle it with feeder fish, add a baby something and buy a bigger tank at the same time.

Don't know though, may just go with a bunch of itty bitty fish. As I said above though... what do you do with the fry if you're not feeding them to something?

 

[Aqualung]

You could give the fry away to friends that have tanks, or maybe see if a local fish store would be willing to take them. When I bred platies as a kid, I had a deal with a fish store and they bought all of my fry from me. It solved my problem and also gave me a bit of extra cash to buy more equipment and supplies. It would be good to have a plan for the fry ahead of time. Good Luck to you!

 

[Copper]

Fry may only be a problem dependent on what type of fish you stock. Tetras, rasborras (a personal favorite), and other fish such as those do not generally breed as much in captivity as mollys, platys and other livebearers. Not to say that they WON'T, just that it will probably be less of a concern.

 

[gonefishin]

You can do agressive fish if your not the type that gets too attached to your fish. most people here don't like that I have a jack dempsey in a 10 gal, but hes only 1/4" and he will either move to my 55 or get traded once he matures. Same with my 55, once that jd gets too big, ill trade for a smaller one, another fish, or mabey a can of fish food. There are some smaller species of cichlid like the auratus or mbuna that will take a while to outgrow a 10 gal. JUST MAKE SURE YOU DONT FORGET TO TRADE THEM/GIVE THEM AWAY.You can also look for dwarf species.

 

[soupdragon10]

If you decide on guppies, platies etc. I'd be very surprised if many fry survived unless you had a well planted tank and they were very lucky. I started with livebearers and found only the odd fry survived unless I took steps to help things along with special breeding trap etc. which prevents the babies being eaten.
Whatever you choose, try to make sure you get fish that swim at different levels in the water. Nothing more boring than fish that swim at the surface or on the gravel with nothing in between.
Small tetras or barbs are a good bet - get a good book and sit and enjoy browsing through to see what takes your fancy. Part of the fun I find is planning what I'm going to keep next, and then finding out as much as I can about them.

 

[pbecot02]

Sorry about the two user names... lost the password and can't access my other e-mail from here. Will be fixed by tomorrow :/

Thanks for the info guys. To start the tank out I ran it for a two days. Today I added 6 itty bitty mollys and 5 plants. Water tested slightly basic.

I followed the advice about getting the fish used to the water before adding them to the aquarium, have the heater and the filter working. I figure that between the fish and the plants things will hopefully cycle all right... but I'll be testing ammonia and nitrate levels daily and making small water changes every couple days.

The substrate is just plain gravel and I have 50 watts of lighting. Question... the LFS told me that would work to keep the plants alive with fish in the tank... seems odd to me that plants can root down in plain gravel?

My future plans include letting this thing cycle out. After that... what would you guys do? My initial plan is that I think it would work good to set this one up as a breeding tank so that I can breed my own feeder fish for later on... and until then the fish will look cute. If I do that... how many adult fish should I have? Can I add a few of another type of fish in there for variety? What kind? What kind of plants do I need to help the fry survive if I don't want to go to the trouble of a breeding trap or seperate spawning tank?

Thanks guys... any info you post will be usefull, so don't worry about if it's on topic


EDIT: Where do you find more specific information about a specific species?