[Jbyrd]

Hello all,

I'm relatively new to fish, although my dad had a huge tank inside, as well as our outdoor koi pond when I was a teenager. I had very little to do with either, other than feeding the koi (cuz it's awesome having the equivalent of an aquatic dog). I have had Betta over the years, and currently have two flashy boys (separate tanks).

Last night a friend helped me set up a 10 gallon tank, and I'm putting it through it's cycle before adding any fish. I'm one to do lots of research before obtaining any live "things' (plants or fish) and this forum seems to be a fantastic resource, so I'm glad to be here.

Fish are new to me, but pets in general are not.. I've had horses, dogs, and right now have cats and rats, and now the fish.

Glad to meet you all!

 

[benealing]

Welcome! This is a great place to help you get the tank set up and kept the way you want!

Ben

 

[Nordic]

Welcome. Any ideas on what type of fish you would like, gourami's, barbs, danio's, tetras etc?

 

[Jbyrd]

Well, my friend has suggested Live bearers to start with, nice and easy, and if I want babies they're easy to produce (quite frankly, right now I don't really care if I have babies.. babies will just mean a bigger tank or swaps, so I'm a-okay with adults eating babies).

Based on my friend's recommendation: I like flashy bright colors - so probably some neon, Sarpae or bleeding heart tetras. i like some of the fancy guppies as well, males are especially gorgeous with some of those fin colors and speckles. I like dalmatians too. Although in reading thru some of the boards here Ghost fishes are really neat (i've already forgotten the name of them). And the body type on a Danio is appealing, although admittedly I haven't done any research on them, so I don't really know what's out there.

I would LOVE a weather louche as a bottom dweller - they're such neat little guys, but I'd need to buy very young, and move it into a bigger tank as it grows (will actually have one waiting in the wings, as I seem to like loaches and they can't stay in my 10 gallon). Clown loaches are gorgeous too, but maybe later after I've gotten the basics down and feel confident setting up another tank I'll add them to my tank.

This little ten gallon is going to be my "learning" tank, experimenting with what plants work, and keeping everything alive, and growing (with the plants anyway).

From what I've overheard at petsmart, 1" fish need about 1 gallon, so I figure I can have maybe 10 small fish in this tank. I'd like to have a variety, bottom, mid and top swimmers, and I'm clueless enough that I'd LOVE suggestions as to what fish mingle well, and can coexist in those different ranges.

 

[Nordic]

You will grow out of a 10g quite fast, but it is going to give you some experience and a source for cuttings.
The reason I say this is that it is too small for most popular schooling fish, to fit a school large enough to keep them happy.
Also you probably have about 2 square feet bottom surface area, so not much space for plants.

 

[Jbyrd]

Well, the plus side is that a friend has a (thought to be) 75 gallon corner tank for me in her garage if I want it. I'm really not looking for a TON of fish to start with, and like you said, this will give me a good place to start. It's going to be six months at least before I set up the bigger tank, and I can start looking at bigger growing fish.