Stocking a 10g Community

[SomethingsFishy]

Stocking a 10g tank right now! I'm open to suggestions.

The ONLY fish in this completely cycled tank is one 3.5" Opaline Gourami.

What other fish should I add? How would a school of neons do with the gourami? German Blue Rams? Boesemani Rainbows? Rummynose tetras? Odessa Barb? Maybe Some Killifish?

I don't know, if you were in my shoes what would you add to this tank?

I was thinking Opaline Gourami, 2 Sparkling Gouramis, 2 German Blue Rams, and a school of 6 or 8 neons.

 

[Dwarfs]

I think an opaline gourami (AKA blue gourami color morph) would get too big for the tank, and would bully the other fish as well, especially the sparklers. If the rams happened to be a pair, they would take over the tank and kill the other fish.
How about 4 sparkling gouramis, 6 neons, and a ram?

 

[kev_kb]

The Opaline Gourami would get far too large, plus I don't think its a good idea to mix breeds of Grourami, could be wrong though. Look into Honey Gouramis, they are fairly peaceful and stay small at around 2".

The Boesemani Rainbows are very active and would need a large tank also, I think the only Rainbow you could have in such a size tank is the Threadfin, these are about 1.5".

I would heavily plant the tank, then choose one species of a small fish such as a Tetra, then maybe have some small Cories for the bottom.

 

[sylvia]

The gourami you have now means the tank is already fully stocked. Don't add any more fish until you take it out or upgrade.

 

[Aquascaper]

How is having a single opaline gourami which will grow to around 5" overstocking a 10g

SomethingsFishy: try and stick to the gudielines of 1" of mature fish per 1g. This will give you around 5" of fully grown fish to add to your tank, take into account that some species require a minimum number for shoaling and you should be fine.

That said, if it was my tank I would consider trading the opaline gourami in for a red dwarf gourami to allow a little more room for other fish

HTH

 

[sylvia]

The reason the opaline gourami means a fully stocked 10 gallon is that
a) they need territory space of 10 gallons as they preffer the upper layers and so have limited territory space
B) one should be kept in a 20 gallon and no less
c) they are often aggressive towards most other fish if kept in cramped conditions
d) I tried to keep many opaline and other three-spot varieties in a 10 gallon with other fish - it never worked out. The only fish that will realy get along with them in a smaller tank is bottom-dwelling cories which reach about 3 inches, sometimes more, and they need to be in groups of at least 3 and more is better.

I agree with returning the this gourami and getting a dwarf - then you could add some cories or a nice shoal of tetras or rasboras.

BTW, the 1 inch per gallon 'rule' is only a very loose guideline - different fish have different requirements - as ilustrated by this. Its like saying you can keep a zebra danio in a 1.5 gallon container or a bala shark in a 12 gallon... or an osphronemus goramy in 24 gallons (oh I wish)... It also goes the other way (bettas and goldfish which are unfortunately kept in much smaller containers - ok maybe for bettas, REDICULOUS for goldfish!).

 

[knvb7741]

Hi somethingsfishy,

I agree with aquascaper to get rid of the opaline and get some kind of a dwarf. If you do that then you could probably get a school of cories and maybe some kind of small tetras. HTH