New to fish keeping, is this a good stocking idea for a 10 gallon?

[Elasmo]

I recently just brought up an old 10 gallon and set it up. I'm currently just letting it cycle, so in the mean time, I was of course thinking about what fish to put in it. My main idea right now is to have either 1 Dwarf Gourami or 1 Female Betta as a centrepiece, with 4-5 Platies or Swordtails. Are these okay? I've heard that Dwarf Gourami's shouldn't be in less then a 20 gallon, while other people say that they can indeed go into a 10 gallon. Same with Swordtails. Also, if I got a Female Betta, and male Platies or Swordtails, would they mistake the Betta for a female from their own species and stress it out? I'm leaning towards a Gourami and Platies right now. If these aren't good ideas though, what 10 gallon ideas would be good for a newbie like me?

 

[Essjay]

Hi, welcome to the forum

I'm afraid that 10 gallons is not big enough for platies or swordtails, unless it an unusually shaped tank because platies need a tank at least 24 inches long and swordtails 48 inches long. But a betta would be fine or a group of one of the so-called nano fish.

But before anyone can suggest fish, we need to know how hard your water is. This is because fish have evolved in water with a certain hardness. If soft water fish are put in hard water they will suffer, as will hard water fish in soft water. They become sick more easily and won't live as long as they should.
Look on your water provider's website for hardness - you need a number and the unit of measurement rather than words. If it's not there, take a sample of your tap water to a fish store and ask them to test - again get a number rather than words. The last option is to buy a GH tester. I've put this last as you'll only need to use it once and the other two are cheaper

I'm currently just letting it cycle

Can I ask how you are cycling the tank? A lot of people think that just letting it run is cycling, but it is not. Cycling is growing two colonies of bacteria which deal with ammonia excreted by the fish.


You may already know this but just in case, there are three ways of cycling a tank:
Using ammonia, and perhaps a bacterial starter to speed things up. This is called a fishless cycle and the method is here

Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First!

Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank What is Cycling and Why is it Important? Fish waste, and especially fish breathing, plus uneaten food and other organic matter breaking down in a tank all produce Ammonia. This can quickly become toxic to fish if it is allowed to build up to any measurable...

www.fishforums.net

Plant or silent cycling - live plants take up ammonia faster than the bacteria and if the tank is well planted, once the plants actively growing fish can be added.

Fish-in cycle - this is not approved nowadays as it subjects the fish to ammonia and nitrite in the water.

 

[Elasmo]

Thanks for the reply. Here in Edmonton, the water hardness is currently 170 millilitres of Calcium Carbonate per litre, or 9.9 grains per gallon according to our water provider, which is Epcor. I'm currently cycling using a bacterial starter, Nutrafin cycle to be specific. I'm not sure about the specific dimensions of the tank, as I don't have a tape measurer on hand, but it is very average for a 10 gallon, so probably close to around 20" x 10" x 12". I also don't have any real plants in the tank, only fake ones, if that affects some particular fish. Sad that the Platies and Swordtails wont work, but I am open to any other suggestions.

 

[Essjay]

170 mg/l calcium carbonate is the same as 170 ppm. That converts to 9.5 dH. Besides the tank being to small for platies and swordtails, your water is also too soft for them.

However, a lot of soft water shoaling fish suitable for this size tank need softer water than you have. A betta, male or female, would work, but no tank mates except maybe a snail or two. Other members will probably be able to suggest fish suitable for this size tank and your hardness.

 

[Elasmo]

Well it was definitely a good idea that I came here. Hardness isn't really something I considered, and I kind of feel dumb for overlooking it, so thanks for making me aware of that. From what I gather though, it is possible to increase or decrease water hardness, so its not like my water hardness right now is set in stone, there is still room for some adaptation. It might also be a safe idea for me to check my water specifically, which I can do next time I'm out at the fish store, just to make sure there aren't any inconsistencies.

 

[JuiceBox52]

Well it was definitely a good idea that I came here. Hardness isn't really something I considered, and I kind of feel dumb for overlooking it, so thanks for making me aware of that. From what I gather though, it is possible to increase or decrease water hardness, so its not like my water hardness right now is set in stone, there is still room for some adaptation. It might also be a safe idea for me to check my water specifically, which I can do next time I'm out at the fish store, just to make sure there aren't any inconsistencies.

You are not dumb for overlooking it. For some reason it seems to not be very well known in this hobby, not nearly as much as it should be.

Yes you can harden the water with rift lake salts or a hardening substrate. You can soften it with RO water. Although it is much less of a hassle to pick fish most suited to your water, it can be done and frequently is done

 

[Elasmo]

You are not dumb for overlooking it. For some reason it seems to not be very well known in this hobby, not nearly as much as it should be.

Yes you can harden the water with rift lake salts or a hardening substrate. You can soften it with RO water. Although it is much less of a hassle to pick fish most suited to your water, it can be done and frequently is done

Yeah, I've seen entire fish caring guides that will go the whole thing without even mentioning water hardness, even though with a bit of research, it seems very important to the fishes well being. Also, I can see how if I'm always going to be adding my normal water, and then having to constantly invest in methods to increases or decrease hardness, I can imagine how that could be quite a hassle. What fish do work for 9-10 dH though? I know that Dwarf Gourami's work, but I'm not sold that they're ok in a 10 gallon, and after visiting the Gourami thread, I'm not sure that I'll be able to take care of it as a beginner. Betta's are an option, but I kind of wanted a little bit more then just one fish, though I wont rule it out as Bettas are still pretty cool. So what does that leave? I don't really plan on adding more than one kind of fish anymore. So what's a fish species that fits my water hardness, is hardy/easy to take care of, and allows for more than 1 to fit in a 10 gallon tank? I can research myself, but getting an opinion here from experienced fish keepers will allow me to feel much more confident in my final decision.

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

I'm going to have to find the thread on Gourami and figure out why they said they were hard to raise species - to me they are just as easy as tetras or other simple fish - they were the first fish I bought too. I DO think my large semi-aggressive Gourami's are harder to raise than other fish but a Dwarf Gourami is small (some as small as 2 1/2") too and most dwarf varieties are very peaceful.

I've never thought of Hardness as something really important. Before I started getting fish about 18 months ago, all the newbie books either didn't mention it or briefly mentioned it as something to worry about if you had a rare or expensive fish yet there are a lot of popular fish that live at opposites of each other and would frequently bought at the same time. To my knowledge I've never directly killed a fish due to GH but I lost half a tank for forgetting to adjust the PH and allowing fish to live in water mixed wit prime at my tap water ( PH 9.4) - they died and died and died, luckily I've found that many fish react fine to great spans of GH and Ph. I was shocked at how many fish that typically live in low PH water survived my error while others did not. But it was a shocking scene to watch and I never want to see that again.

How would he do if a dwarf Gorami were the "centerpiece" of the water. Their KH value is 10-40 while guppies are supposed tp be 20-40 but my daughter had some that were fine. But it would be very tight to mix the two species because of the size of the guppies. Gourami can be very colorful, I found them to be a slow moving passive fish that don't swim in groups but enjoy a companion fish to hang out with. The dwarfs only get to about 3 inches mine tend to be 3 as well. The Flame Dwarf Gourami is beautiful and one or two of those would look great as the centerpiece. Then there are some tiny honey gourami and my personal favorite the "chocolate" gourami. Very small and slow growing. Our nickname for ours is "Mr Coffee" but he is striped like a latte. Rather expensive and hard to find - he will come to you hard when you call him. When we had the PH disaster he "died" for 30 minutes and as I was getting ready to remove him he came back to life! We were so excited. There is also Neon Blue, Powder Blue

If you go the Gourami route get a red flame or some other super colorful dwarf Gourami. Make sure they are non aggressive (most are but some are semi-aggressive), then buy a few small single color gourami - lie a rosy one, yellow, chocolate and a number of other colors and shapes you would never guess were gourami.