New to fishkeeping - current stocking of 10 gallon tank!

[elvenharps]

Hello all!

I'd firstly like to start off by saying I'm extraordinarily glad I ran across this community. I'm fairly brand-new to the world of fishkeeping, having received a 10 gallon Marineland tank for my birthday (nothing sets the 32nd year off right better than a fish tank!)
I'm looking for guidance as I feel I may have been somewhat let up the garden path by the lovely PetSmart employees, but I also may be wrong. Presently within the tank I have:

- 4 glowlight tetras
- 2 red gold tuxedo guppies
- 2 pepper cory catfish
- 1 black racer nerite snail

The tank filters 75 gallons of water per hour, I have been cycling the tank with the assistance of Tetra SafeStart Plus and I have 5 live aquarium plants alongside 4 marimo moss balls.

I'm hoping this is an AOK setup for the fish community but that's why I am here! I'd sooner donate the fish than have them suffer, so checking to ensure all is good.

Thanks!

 

[Retired Viking]

Hello and welcome to the forum. Some of the things we need to know are: How long has the aquarium been cycling, Have you tested the water and what are the results such as ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, etc. Are you doing water changes? if so % and how often. Do you know about the nitrogen cycle?

 

[elvenharps]

Thanks for the reply!

Cycling for just over a week, fish-in cycle with Tetra SafeStart Plus (which specifically says no water changes for the first 14 days)
Just did a water test, though it was a strip test and does not test for Ammonia... ugh

GH 0
KH 40
PH 6.5
Nitrite 0 to 0.5 (color seems to be in-between these values)
Nitrate 20

I have now absorbed so much information on the Nitrogen Cycle that I feel like a walking encyclopedia!

 

[Retired Viking]

I have never used tetra safestart plus, what do the directions say about adding fish and if so how many? Usually when people who do a fish in cycle have 1 of 2 hardy fish in the tank. You have 8 in a 10 gallon tank. The plants will help absorb ammonia but I am worried about your ammonia level.

 

[elvenharps]

It says to add fish immediately after the TSS is added to the tank so that ammonia will be produced and the bacteria have something to actually live on. So, for the first week we only had three glowlight tetras in the tank after adding TSS. Today I added the two pepper corys, two guppies and the snail. Everything seems fine insofar as the fish are behaving normally - one of the guppies was staying at the very top of the tank for an hour which I found concerning, yet has now rejoined the rest of the fish towards the middle and bottom of the tank and seems just fine.

 

[Retired Viking]

Like I said earlier I have never used tetra safestart plus or other simular products. I do silent cycling now and in the past fish in tank cycling. I am sure there will be someone with far more experience in this area than I to respond to your inquiry. I wish you and your fish the best of luck.

 

[Essjay]

Never take advice from a pet store worker!


We also need to know the hardness of your water because the tetras are soft water fish while guppies are hard water fish. Look on your water provider's website; you need a number and the unit of measurement rather than some vague words. Once we know how hard your water is, it would be better to return the fish which are not suited to your hardness.

You also have shoaling fish - tetras and cories - which both need to be in a group of at least 6. To be honest, a 10 gallon tank would be full with a shoal of tetras or a group of guppies (depending on the hardness).
Are the pepper cories the large species (Corydoras paleatus) or the small salt and pepper cories (C. habrosus)? C. paleatus need a tank at least 24 inches long. If these are the cories you have, I suggest retuning them.

 

[elvenharps]

That is unfortunately precisely what I ended up doing, which didn't seem like a bad idea until I went deep into the world of fishkeeping forums. I have absolutely no clue what my water hardness is, the GH and KH values I provided above and my city provides this little handout: https://everettwa.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/850

So I was advised yesterday, not by the pet store but instead by my neighbors who have been keeping fish for 40 odd years, that with the guppies and tetras together making 6 that there should be no issues. They told me that the corys would not entirely thrive with only 2 of them but that their adult length and the total inches-per-fish for my aquarium meant it was 96% stocked, or something like that anyway. They gave me the attached readout from some website out there.

As an FYI, I apparently cannot return the fish to the place from which they were purchased - they will refund or replace if they died, but they won't take them back once they have been in alternate water conditions.

 

[Essjay]

Unfortunately your neighbour is not well informed either despite keeping fish for many years.

Shoaling fish must have a group of their own species. Mixing tetras and guppies to make 6 will not work long term. The tetras expect to be in a group of tetras and they will be stressed as there are not enough of them. Stressed fish get sick more easily as stress reduces their immune system.
Cories are also shoaling fish; they live in groups of many hundreds in the wild. They too are programmed by their DNA to expect to be in a group.

Stocking by the number of inches per gallon is very outdated. We now know there is a lot more to stocking a tank, for example taking into account the needs of each species; I've already explained about shoaling fish needing to be in a group of their own species, but we also need to take into account the water requirements (hard or soft water), the temperature needed by each species, the swimming behavious of the fish (fast swimmers and sedate fish should not be kept together) and so on.

 

[elvenharps]

Gotcha, this is primarily the reason I said I was so happy to have stumbled across this extremely knowledgeable community! So in this scenario, taking into account the fact that my tank is almost certainly still cycling, what would you generally recommend? I unfortunately cannot return the fish, and my neighbors were not keen on the idea of donating any to them, so I feel a little stuck and obviously since all are exceptionally healthy I cannot in any good conscience simply euthanize them -- I'd want someone to actually take care of them in a suitable tank. It seems like a good place to start would be to donate the guppies and add an additional one or two tetras to make an actual shoal, but then it still leaves the two corydoras.

 

[Byron]

Your location is "Washington, USA" ---does this refer to Washington State, or Washington, DC? If the former, we share water parameters. I live up in the Vancouver area of BC. Your 0 GH tends to suggest it is the state, but maybe DC has soft water too.

On the cycling, follow the Tetra SafeStart, it is a good product. Nothing more need be said about cycling.

As for the fish, a 10g is very small space...as the store will not accept returns, can you manage a larger tank? A 20g long, or with the same footprint a 29g basic, would be advisable.

Guppies will not do well in our soft water. Avoid all livebearers in future, they all need moderately hard or harder water. With very soft water, the pH will naturally lower as the tank becomes established. Soft water fish will do very well, but the tank size is your only real issue now.

 

[Essjay]

A larger tank is my thought too. If this is a possibility, you could keep the guppies in the 10 gallon and add something like Rift Lake salts to make the water harder for them. In a larger tank you would have room for proper shoals of the tetras and cories.

 

[elvenharps]

I am in Washington state, sorry I should probably have included that from the outset! I can absolutely manage a larger tank, so I could easily purchase a 20g from the same location as I purchased the 10g, cycle it again with the Tetra SafeStart Plus (personally I always go with the one rated up to 100g as I feel there can be no long term harm with additional bacteria) and add the glowlight tetras with an additional two plus the two corys (with an additional 3?) and then see how the two guppies fare long term in the 10g?

Or alternatively, I could donate the two guppies somehow to someone who was an established fish keeper and leave it alone at that point with 4 glowlights and 2 corys. Or, I could do the same but an additional one or two glowlights and donate the corys, or keep the corys with the glowlights. It's all very confusing, but I just want to do what is right by my fish!

 

[Byron]

I am in Washington state, sorry I should probably have included that from the outset! I can absolutely manage a larger tank, so I could easily purchase a 20g from the same location as I purchased the 10g, cycle it again with the Tetra SafeStart Plus (personally I always go with the one rated up to 100g as I feel there can be no long term harm with additional bacteria) and add the glowlight tetras with an additional two plus the two corys (with an additional 3?) and then see how the two guppies fare long term in the 10g?

Good. I recently had to move and downsize my fish room, so I now have smaller tanks. My absolute favourite is the 40g breeder, which is 36 inches by 18 inches (length and width). This is a very serviceable tank. My second favourite is the 29g, which is 30 inches length by 12 inches width. This is the same footprint as a 20g long, but you have the added height which really makes a difference. Either of these would be ideal for soft water fish.

The 10g cold be used for the guppies, by hardening the water as essjay suggested. A simple way I have done this previously is to use an aragonite sand for the substrate; it continually dissolves calcium and magnesium and lasts years. I had rift lake cichlids and mollies in such tanks back in the 1980's. Now I stay with very soft water fish, it makes life easier as I can do 60-75% water changes weekly. The 10g would also make a good Quarantine Tank for new fish acquisitions, but obviously not if the water is harder. Maybe if you buy the new tank at the store, they will take the guppies? Coerce them!

 

[Retired Viking]

So this Tetra SafeStart plus works! My bother-in-law wants to start a 20 gallon tank. If @Byron and @essjay think it is good stuff then I guess I will pick up some for my bother-in-law to use.