Can I get a platy??

[Daylin Mitchell]

I currently have a honey gourami and a tiger nerite snail in a 10 gallon tank. I would love a platy, but I’m worried about overstocking. I have made that mistake in the past, when I got a little “fish happy” and I ended up losing fish. I don’t want to make the same mistake.

 

[Essjay]

Do you know how hard your water is? Honey gouramis are soft water fish but platies are hard water fish so one or other would not be happy..

You should be able to find your water hardness somewhere on your water supplier's website - you need a number and the unit rather that some vague words.

 

[Byron]

No, a platy needs more space. The Honey Gourami is fine (make sure you have floating plants), and suitable companions would be some of the "nano" fish like the dwarf rasboras in the genus Boraras (Boraras maculatus, Boraras brigittae, etc), or Ember Tetras. Any one of these, in a group of 8-10, would be OK.

That leads us to your water parameters. Do you know the GH (general hardness) and pH of your tap water? These other fish will be a little fussier over parameters than the HG.

 

[Daylin Mitchell]

I can’t seems to find the water parameters of my tap water but I can test them for my tank?

 

[Byron]

I can’t seems to find the water parameters of my tap water but I can test them for my tank?

If you have a test kit for GH and pH, you can test the tap water on its own for these.

GH can be done as usual, no waiting, etc. But pH is different; you can let a glass of tap water sit 24 hours and then test pH, or you could vigorously agitate a container of tap water to out-gas the CO2 ands test. This latter method would probably give us an idea, but the sitting out 24 hours is better. this is only needed for pH of tap water, not tank water.

 

[Daylin Mitchell]

So luckily I had a glass of water at my bedside from last night, so I simply used that for the pH. It’s at 7.6. I unfortunately cannot find my GH test

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

Unless others know of some reason why not - you could look at cherry barbs (it's a peaceful barb). Small fish but not as small as the Rasboras - both beautiful fish, especially if you feed them a diet with red enhancing colors - both groups of mine are not only striking looking in the tank with their colors they look extremely healthy. (I have 5 or 6 of each) Unfortunately they are kind of boring - UNLESS- you get a set of 3 Corydora's (any of the 2" or smaller size). Just make sure you have lots of places to hide all three Cory's together - they seem to like to stay together in every species I've had - but these are the most hysterical, playful fish to watch that I've ever seen. Especially when they eat - watching the whiskers and tails jiggle as they eat is so cute and, while I've only had 3 species so far - all three were very calm, peaceful. Some of my gourami's try to push them around a bit but it's rarely effective and they know the gourami's will pig out and they will have the rest all to themselves so they don't seem to get too bothered. The other big advantage is that they clean up after everybody and the Rasdora's and Barbs don't seem to ground feed at all. I swear no matter how much extra food the other fish leave behind my Cory's seem to take care of it - but you need to give them a couple of hours (actually overnight) to eat their food, unlike other fish. If there is ANYTHING left in the morning you somehow managed to overfeed them. They do need sinking pellets to ensure that they do get enough food. Just a couple each. My gourami's also like sinking pellets and will also eat at the bottom.

Another easy option is to get another Gourami - look in the Dwarf series to stay closer to fitting a 10 gal tank. I have two tanks basically devoted to Gourami's (plus Cory's) and I think Gourami's are the most beautiful NON-AGRESSIVE freshwater fish. They do get very bossy (and a few are labeled "moderately aggressive" so avoid those) but I've never seen any damage done to another fish - just make sure the bigger Gourami doesn't hog all the food and that everybody gets fed. It's funny to watch the bossy one try to be 3 places at once to keep EVERYBODY in the tank from eating anything except them - they eventually either fill-up or give-up. Since I've been dealing with mostly Gourami's their pH and water hardness requirements are pretty broad and similar - I don't believe the cory cats are very particular either. I have yet to find a fish that didn't meet my cities water hardness and where I couldn't lower the pH to match everybody's needs.

I'll get beat up about changing the pH of a tank with fish in in (it is to be done in very small increments over a period of time if possible) but every time I do a water change of any significance my pH jumps up to over 8.9 (the highest the kit measures) so I HAVE to do something. I read the instructions on the back of the bottle to measure carefully - and they are also pretty conservative with how much of their product to use so I recommend the API brand. I mix in their recommended first dosage with a gallon jug of tank water and gently pour it in trying not to hit anybody in the face or gills and swirling with a net the whole time. Usually I have to do that twice the first day of a water change then I check it again the next day and usually have to do it one more time and it will stay the same until my next water change. I've also mixed the small amount of API's ph(down) in when I''m adding the water back in but decided my gallon procedure was lower risk and delutes things better. Our cities water PH is very high - but not as hard as it used to be so that does make it easier. You can usually find statistics about your cities water on their website (it's usually hard to find) and also see what KIND of things they add - for example, some only add chlorine others (like mine) also add chloramines. (both of which are broken down by water preparation products). Geez I always write long posts - sorry.

 

[Daylin Mitchell]

If I did the barbs or raspboras, and got 5 or 6, that still wouldn’t be overwhelming the bioload of the tank?

 

[Byron]

If I did the barbs or raspboras, and got 5 or 6, that still wouldn’t be overwhelming the bioload of the tank?

A 10g tank is not sufficient space for barbs whatever the species. They are shoaling fish that therefore need a group and they are generally relatively active swimmers (the cherry are probably the less active but still not suitable) so they need considerably more space. Most of them would not work in a 20g.

The "dwarf" rasboras in Boraras I mentioned would work, in a group of 9-10. But let's get the GH pinned down beforehand because being wild caught and very small the fish have much less adaptability to water that is not very soft.

 

[Daylin Mitchell]

I found something for my area saying the GH is 7.3 gpg

 

[Daylin Mitchell]

But I can always go get a GH test and test it myself

 

[Byron]

I found something for my area saying the GH is 7.3 gpg

GPG stands for grains per gallon, which I believe is the same as degrees Clark. The hobby uses two primary units to measure GH (and KH), ppm (parts per million) and dGH or dH (degrees German hardness). To convert gpg to ppm, you multiply by 17.12 so 7.3 gpg is the equivalent of 125 ppm. For those who prefer the smaller numbers, this equates to 7 dGH. This is soft to give it a subjective term.

But I can always go get a GH test and test it myself

You could, but you may only use it the once so I wouldn't bother. If you have a reliable fish store, they may test the water for you; if they do, make sure you get the number and their unit of measurement (the ppm, dH, etc so we know). The GH of the tap water rarely changes in an aquarium unless it is being targeted somehow, a topic we can leave for the present as it gets complex.

Where all this leads is back to the species suggested in my post #3.

 

[Daylin Mitchell]

What about neon tetras?

 

[FishFinatic77]

Neon tetras are generally not healthy fish due to overbreeding. I would avoid them if I were you.

 

[Daylin Mitchell]

Okay. I went to my LFS today to look at available fish and the only smaller schooling fish I could find were galaxy rasboras. There were no ember tetras or dwarf rasboras. I will visit my other go to LFS, but would the galaxy rasboras be an option for me? They seem to only be about half an inch now, and it said they grow to an inch