How Many Fish Can I Get In A Ten Gallon Tank?

[eldaldo]

My friend got guinea pigs and decided he didn't want his fish anymore; so he gave me his 10 gallon tank which was in really bad shape. I cleaned it out and set it all up. the only living fish left in his tank were 2 black skirt tetras, right now I am cycling the tank so I'm not going to add anything for a few weeks. However, I was wondering how many fish I could put in. I was think of getting three more black skirt tetras for a total of five, and then three sterbai corys. Is that too many? or could I add a few more after that?

 

[l337dave]

My friend got guinea pigs and decided he didn't want his fish anymore; so he gave me his 10 gallon tank which was in really bad shape. I cleaned it out and set it all up. the only living fish left in his tank were 2 black skirt tetras, right now I am cycling the tank so I'm not going to add anything for a few weeks. However, I was wondering how many fish I could put in. I was think of getting three more black skirt tetras for a total of five, and then three sterbai corys. Is that too many? or could I add a few more after that?

ok not a direct answer to your question but are you cycling with the 2 tetra left in..?


dave.

 

[eldaldo]

My friend got guinea pigs and decided he didn't want his fish anymore; so he gave me his 10 gallon tank which was in really bad shape. I cleaned it out and set it all up. the only living fish left in his tank were 2 black skirt tetras, right now I am cycling the tank so I'm not going to add anything for a few weeks. However, I was wondering how many fish I could put in. I was think of getting three more black skirt tetras for a total of five, and then three sterbai corys. Is that too many? or could I add a few more after that?

ok not a direct answer to your question but are you cycling with the 2 tetra left in..?


dave.

Yeah, sorry, I know its pretty much a sin to do that, but I dont have anything else I can do. I did keep some of the old gravel and have it along the bottom and attached to the intake of my filter. That, I'm told, will speed up the process and hopefully reduce the amount of ammonium the fish are exposed to.

 

[eldaldo]

anyone have an answer for me?

 

[Boxermom]

That's too many for a 10g tank.

 

[SnowyzMom]

Hey, it's the same old same old rule---one gallon of water per inch of fish. How big the mature black skirts get and doing the math from there. A two inch mature fish means 5 in a 10 gallon. Coreys and tetras live generally on two different levels of the tank(middle and bottom) so there shouldn't be any competing for living space problems there but using these two black skirts to recycle with may weaken those two fish. I hope not but it's a tough thing for them to go through. Hopefully using the old gravel will help lessen that stress. Make sure they're not sick before introducing the newer ones okay? I haven't had black skirts so am not sure on their mature length. If it's 3 inches that's only 3 fish. You might want to try something a tad smaller for a ten gallon. Just a thought....if they pull 2 inches mature then 5 is good.

And FYI my coreys are running closer to 4 inches when mature. Which would be two in a 10 gallon, if females. If males---well maybe 3, but you could blow through some filters putting in too many fish. If you don't mind replacing filters often, keeping good aeration, you could put 3 corydoras in there. It's very difficult, to me impossible to tell if a baby cory is male or female, I've had to wait til they grew abit. If anybody knows how to tell the sex when young, do tell! The males are much skinnier and smaller.

It helps balance a tank if you've got live plants in there too but make sure to pick plants that like some current if you're putting heavier filtration in there. Some plants just hate moving water--found that out the hard way. Java moss will grow danged near anywhere if you can get a handful of it. Good luck on your tank!

 

[Scott MacAdam]

Yeah, sorry, I know its pretty much a sin to do that, but I dont have anything else I can do. I did keep some of the old gravel and have it along the bottom and attached to the intake of my filter. That, I'm told, will speed up the process and hopefully reduce the amount of ammonium the fish are exposed to.

if the fish are living in there and your friend had the tank before you, would it be already cycled? and then adding the ammonia only being a step backwards, hurting the fish?

just add your other fish slowly and you'll have no problems, the nitrifing bacteria will gorw and accomidate to how ever many fish you have in there. you could add fish now, and if your worried about the ammonia just do lots of water changes, maybe 2 20% a week

ok this is in the beginner section so i'll run through it once again... and i mean No offence what so ever, we all have to learn somehow...

basically when you say that the gravel will speed up the process... the thing is, the process is already done...the nitrifing bacteria changes ammonia so it is not harmful to your fish so in other words, your tank IS cycled for your 2 tetras, and will be fine as long as you don't add a lot of fish at once. this is because the bacteria is very bennifical to your tank and all of your fish life depends on it so it needs time to grow and provide enough to hold up against your ammonia

any questions? i know it can be confusing.....

 

[Boxermom]

if the fish are living in there and your friend had the tank before you, would it be already cycled? and then adding the ammonia only being a step backwards, hurting the fish?

I think that would depend on how he cleaned it all out.

 

[voo]

What kind of filter does the tank have, and how did you clean out the filter media inside?

 

[eldaldo]

Thanks for all the help guys,

just to answer some questions, the real story is a little more complicated than the one i told.
basically, my friends ten gallon tank was more than a mess, he hadn't replaced water in months and i had evaporated to the point where the filter couldnt intake anymore so it was turned off, its amazing there were any fish still alive, what I did when he gave me the fish was put them in a five gallon tank with an undergravel filter because I was moving out of the apartment for the summer, this was before I knew anything about cycling, but anyway, they survived and lived in that little tank for two months, and then I moved back into the old apartment, and then i cleaned out the entire ten gallon tank thouroughly because the water had evaporated even further and it was disgusting, then before i set it up, i decided I might as well learn about what I'm doing so i don't kill my fish, and thats when I learned about the cycling. so I bought a new filter (one that hangs over the top or the tank, and "aquaclear" for a 20 gallon tank), and then when i set up the tank and the filter, i took gravel from the 5 gallon tank and put it in a small layer right before the filter media in hopes that the bacteria from it would spread to the filter media, and the rest of the gravel i just laid across the top of the gravel on bottom of the tank. So im not sure if that means it's cycles or not, the tetras got fin rot right after I put them into the tank, but its almost fully healed now, so I don't know if it was the water or just the fact that they had their environment changed so drastically. Thanks for all your help, I wish I had learned all this stuff before. thanks

 

[Scott MacAdam]

ohh ok, well then if you were using an under gravel filter you should have no problem because the gravel will contain sufficient nitrifing bacteria and it WILL spread to the new filter soon, i'd say leaving the gravel in for a week would be fine. now about adding ammonia.... i would stay away from it because of your current situation. By adding the gravel(containing the old bacteria from the other tank) you are doing a kind of "instant cycle" as in, it is done. but to allow it to spread to the filter, leave it in the tank for a while. it will take care of any ammonia that your fish put out untill your filter media can handle it on it's own! so no worries! thanks for elaborating, and sorry if my last post came out wrong or sounded mean.

 

[skhan27]

soo to answer the original question, you can get around 6 school fish(should be around 1 or 2 inches) and u should get like 2 cory's or 2 good size fish.

 

[JDonner]

There is no golden rule. All those stories about so many inch of fish per gallon or complete bull.
I kept 29 fish happy for a very long time and in another 10 gallon 17 fish are doing just fine and most reached more than average length. It's all about good water quality and little stress. Hell... I even have a 6" pleco in that tank with 17 fish for a few years now.
Some of the fish in there are over 4 years old and although I had a few sick fish in the beginning (I blame it partly on the LFS), but now that this tank had really matured after 5 years I never had any illness in the last 3 years, none, zero, nada.
I always have one golden rule: look at the behavior of your fish, it often tells a lot. It's very simple; if your water quality is good and the fish are not stressed (a descent amount of hiding places and chosing the proper fish) then you can stock a lot. But make sure your tank is at least a year old and make damn sure that the water quality is indeed top notch and often that means that you have to go overboard with filtering. And you know what; once things do work every larger tank is simply a piece of cake. If you think that 100 gallon tanks are a challenge then think again. Keeping 15-25 healthy fish in a 10 gallon tank for years is much more challenging, a single small mistake can have desastrous consequences. People who say that you can only keep 5-8 small fish in a 10 gallon have no clue what they're talking about.

Oh, and btw; forget about tetras in a 10 gallon if you don't want any stressed fish.

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

Tetras like to be in groups of 6 or more...this helps them feel safer because they are schooling fish.

Not all species of cory get to be big. Pygmy corys only grow to be about 1 inch. But corys like to be in groups as well 3 is absolute minimum, with 6+ being preferred.

My recommendation is that if you want to keep the tetras get several more of the same species. Then go with a low bioload "cleaning crew" of small shrimp like Cherrys and/or perhaps an Apple Snail. They don't actually clean the tank for you, but they will feed on excess food that the fish miss, and eat some algae, etc.

Yes experienced fish keepers can keep more than 1 inch of mature fish per gallon, but they have also put in a lot of time to understand things like TDS (total dissolved solids), water chemistry, preventing stunting, behavior of individual species, proper tank maint., etc For now keep it simple, and as you learn more about the hobby you can think about purchasing some corys. ^^ Welcome to the addiction.

 

[RiiCKYOMD]

He hasnt been on since august 2006