The Planted Tank Forum banner

Sandy 10g for Little Fish

3K views 17 replies 8 participants last post by  thefishnoob 
#1 ·
Picked up a 10g tank during the Petco sale, yay! I want tiny schooling fish to bring me joy.

Stole play sand from BF (tyty :icon_redf):



Lots of washing (sandy apartment bathtub :icon_sad:), but it cleared up in a few days!

Added Vallisneria something, Java ferns, one tiny elodea, and very sad looking dwarf sag. Oh, and floating...somethings.

Also driftwood and rocks I found on the beach. Don't worry, I soaked them first! :thumbsup:

Then a clamp on Home Depot light with 13 watts.

Ordered an Aqueon Quiet Ninja Whisper something filter from Amazon:



It lives up to its name! Stuffed it with some old sponges I appropriated from betta tank and, for extra non-cycling action, hung the old filter in the new tank too. Betta was up/downgraded to a new sponge filter. Doesn't seem to make him a better swimmer but oh well. :icon_sad:

5 pygmy cories, 2 bloodfin tetras, and 2 stowaway nerites later:



Tada!

It is sitting on my kitchen counter, which I feel is the safest place for an aquarium to be: ~fifty percent chance of pouring water straight into the sink if it (omgno) decides to leak. Genius! :fish:

Here is a cory:



which I think is just the cutest thing ever because they move through the tank pretty much like this: :bounce:

Next Plans:

Add a couple more cories these guys are TINY. Replace tetras. Derpy impulse buy from Petco = super active and kinda big fish that are not very happy. :iamwithst

Thinking about a school of colorful CPDs/Danio Erythromicron/something??. I would like to have a go at breeding and these seem like small peaceful guys, if kind of expensive (~$5 each owies :icon_eek:).
 
See less See more
4
#3 ·
No least killifish at LFS, but lots of little rasbora types! Your shrimp setups are gorgeous.:icon_bigg

Speaking of little fish, the two tetras are managing to steal pretty much all the food from the cories. 2 inch fish vs. 0.5-0.75 inch fish, so rude. :angryfire

It's not even that they're pushy, just much faster at spotting tiny flakes and pellets. Those pigs are even rooting around in the substrate with the cories. :icon_eek: Go home tetras you are drunk. :icon_roll

Am going to try feeding at night until I can rehome the tetras.
 
#5 ·
Picked up some tankmates:

3x Clown Killifish
1 pair of guppies

The Clown Killifish are crazy tiny (two at 0.25", the third at 0.5"). The two small ones have gone into hiding (?) or have been eaten (?), but the largest is chilling and taking flake food at the top of the tank.



Not how I feel about these guppies. They are apparently a dwarf panda strain and do not get much bigger than an inch! But are still guppies and kind of boring. IDK At least the male has a normal-ish tail and is not dragged down by a curtain a la my betta!



And here is a snail.

 
#6 ·
Idk, that male guppy looks killer. This tank is shaping up to be something nice. Also, I firmly believe that everyone needs like 5 more pygmy cories in their lives at all times, they are great fish :p
 
#9 ·
The male guppy is very fond of the corydoras. Disturbingly fond, actually. :eek: If the female guppy is not in sight, he does his wiggle flare sexytimes dance to the largest two of the cories. What a player. :cool:

Stock (have returned spazzy tetra pair to petstore):

5x Pygmy cories
2 or 3x Clown Killies (I found one hiding by the filter! :angel:)
M/F Guppy pair and also now at least two fry!

Not sure if I should put them in a little floated tupperware or leave them to fend for themselves. The killifish are barely bigger than the fry themselves and the cories don't seem to notice the fry huddled at the top at all, so that just leaves Mr. and Ms. Guppy as potential murderers.
 
#11 ·
Yep, added a glass cover a few days prior to getting the killies:



The blinds in the kitchen are all opened so the lighting is much brighter than it looks in this pic.

Tried to catch fry (counted 4) with a rubber sucker, I am terribad and gave up. They will have to hide from parents and eat whatever is available in tank until I think of something better.

Cories bumble around and right over the fry. So cute!

Will try to find more cories/killies sometime this week, do not want to accidentally overload tank, but current fish seem fine so far with 1-2x weekly changes.
 
#13 ·
Even when the guppies are this small?

I don't plan on keeping the fry after they get big enough to foist on other people/LFS. Then either get rid of the parents as well or keep if guppies grow on me in the next couple months.

Thinking about getting a divided 5.5g to stash baby guppies + mom to minimize more fry produced and serve as a grow-out, but still have a while as she just dropped and won't be ready again for a few weeks (?).

It's just really cool to me that fish have made more of themselves in a tank that I setup, even if it is considered a very easy non-interesting fish. :bounce:
 
#14 ·
Guppy fry big enough to photograph now! Two bites instead of one.

See:


Some of them have started getting dark colored heads and backs (like the fry in the top left). I don't know if this is linked to sex/color/amount of food/phase of the moon/?? Will wait and see! :smile:

Not a whole lot going on tankwise, plants growing slowly except for the elodea which sprouted like 6 inches good job :thumbsup::



One of the killifish:


I still want to get more of them as the smaller one seems very shy, will probably be happier with more buddies. OTOH, the bigger of the two comes right up to the front to say hi.:icon_eek:

And preparing 5.5g for extra fishies:


I found some amazing driftwood that I want to stick in the 10g. I feel like this would be great for dwarf cichlid tank at some point down the line. :fish1:

 
#17 ·
Thanks guys! Guppy fry getting bigger every day. It's been getting pretty hot here, have lights on in the early morning and evening to keep temps below 80.

Grabbed a bunch of plants that had drifted to shore at a local lake, stuck them into both the 10g and 5.5g to see if they will grow. Both tanks looking kinda messy, but don't want to mess with them too much until the plants settle in.





I found some alder cones and added to the 5.5g (you can see in the bottom right), leading to very murky water. Not sure if like.

The lake plants have various degrees of hair algae, but guppies and snails got very excited and have been working overtime.



Snails also trying very hard to multiply (sorry, not happening :().



Cories getting slowly bigger, here is a rare shot of a group. They normally snuffle around solo and randomly bump into each other, but occasionally group up by the filter to go surfing (with the guppies!) So cute. :redface:



Some of the val blades are starting to curl up weirdly (corkscrew vals?):

 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top