Help Me Stock A 10gallon

[Amunet]

Well... seems my 10gal betta tank is a bust. I'm tired of my bettas getting sick no matter what I do, so I'm giving up on them for right now. Just can't handle getting more just so they can develop dropsy on me.

Anyway... so yeah... suggestions on what I should put in the tank would be great.
It will be a planted tank, has Eco-Complete for substrate, filtered and is heated.

I looked through that 1 thread w/ the recommendations for 10gals, but none of those fish listed really appeals to me for this tank.
No gouramis, no pygmy cories (b/c I've never seen them sold anywhere here), no rasbora (b/c I have some already). I'd like for it to be a community/peaceful tank.

I think I'd like to get a bunch of ghost shrimp. Maybe some male guppies. And yeah, other than that..... no idea what else I would like, so suggestions are most welcome

 

[LauraFrog]

My personal recommendation for a small tank is micro rainbowfish. They're native to my country Australia so maybe I'm just biased but I love them. There are a lot of small rainbow species from Africa (celebes rainbow), New Guinea and Australia and I love them. They need water quality to be good and they prefer live food but if you're keeping rams and killies and they aren't dying then your water quality must be pretty good.

It's probably not easy to get my personal favourites the blue eyes in America, but I've heard of people getting pseudomugil signifer over there. Some people have iriatherina werneri as well, the threadfin rainbow - not a blue eye but equally small and cute. They are peaceful fish that are compatible with anything small and inoffensive, so shrimp and guppies or endlers would be great tankmates. Male blue eyes are very pretty and similar in size to guppies. Females are more drab but will encourage the males to show off.

Anything under the genus pseudomugil on this site. (click on rainbowfish species for the list.) Most are unavailable overseas, P. signifer, P. furcatus and P. gertrudae are sometimes available so if you're interested good luck!

http/members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Gertrud.htm

 

[Amunet]

My personal recommendation for a small tank is micro rainbowfish. They're native to my country Australia so maybe I'm just biased but I love them. There are a lot of small rainbow species from Africa (celebes rainbow), New Guinea and Australia and I love them. They need water quality to be good and they prefer live food but if you're keeping rams and killies and they aren't dying then your water quality must be pretty good.

It's probably not easy to get my personal favourites the blue eyes in America, but I've heard of people getting pseudomugil signifer over there. Some people have iriatherina werneri as well, the threadfin rainbow - not a blue eye but equally small and cute. They are peaceful fish that are compatible with anything small and inoffensive, so shrimp and guppies or endlers would be great tankmates. Male blue eyes are very pretty and similar in size to guppies. Females are more drab but will encourage the males to show off.

Anything under the genus pseudomugil on this site. (click on rainbowfish species for the list.) Most are unavailable overseas, P. signifer, P. furcatus and P. gertrudae are sometimes available so if you're interested good luck!

[URL="http/members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Gertrud.htm"]http/members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Gertrud.htm[/URL]

Oh my goodness! Those fish are beautiful! Unfortuantly I've never seen them anywhere, but if I ever did, I would definitely get some. Wow, I can see why you love them.
Maybe I could see if the fish shop could ever get some in. Thanks for recommending them

 

[Amunet]

How about a dwarf puffer tank?
I plan on getting a few more plants for the tank from Petsmart, so lord knows I'll be getting more snails (have only seen 3 so far) and I have always wanted some after spotting their tiny butts in the store.

How many can I get for a well planted 10 gallon tank?

Also... could I keep anything else w/ them? I read that otos are usually ignored by them. Anyone have experience with that?

 

[Myuu]

Dwarf puffers are pretty mean fish for their size. They're territorial and are messy fish. For a ten gallon, you could prolly put in 2, maybe 3 DPs. And they don't so well with tankmates other than bottom-dwellers like cories and otos. As for my experience with otos, the puffers didn't bother them, they just died. Otos can sometimes be sensitive to the water contditions of a new tank. And I tried putting some ghost shrimp in with my DPs when I had them. Every once-and-a-while one would go missing, and this continued until I had no more shrimp. I figured that the puffers ate them. But every fish is different. There's more info on DPs in the oddball section, if you need more info.

 

[Amunet]

Dwarf puffers are pretty mean fish for their size. They're territorial and are messy fish. For a ten gallon, you could prolly put in 2, maybe 3 DPs. And they don't so well with tankmates other than bottom-dwellers like cories and otos. As for my experience with otos, the puffers didn't bother them, they just died. Otos can sometimes be sensitive to the water contditions of a new tank. And I tried putting some ghost shrimp in with my DPs when I had them. Every once-and-a-while one would go missing, and this continued until I had no more shrimp. I figured that the puffers ate them. But every fish is different. There's more info on DPs in the oddball section, if you need more info.

*nods*
Oh I know they don't do well in a community tank b/c they're aggressive, but did read that they will usually ignore otos. Was just wondering if there was any other kind of fish that they ignored. I can live with just the puffers though if I decide to go that way

Oh hey look, there's a sticky topic about them lol... thanks for pointing me in the right direction for more info