Tips Stocking For 8 Gallon Fresh Water Tank

[milindsaraswala]

Hello guys,

With all your help and patient after 21 days my 10 gallon tank is now fully fish less cycled. My water testing is 0 ppm Ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite and 10 ppm nitrate but my ph is only 6 ppm. Is there any problem for it.

Next thing I was looking for stoking my aquarium. I was looking for colorful fish maximum I want to put but I don't need to put only type of fish I want to put different type of fish.

Please help me on that

 

[iffles]

hi, with the low pH, that will slow down the bacteria alot- they prefer harder water, and with pH 6 and below , you often need to use zeolite or something like that. so i would boost up your ph by a large water change maybe especially before you get fish. its cycled as in if you put in ammonia, its double zeros within 12 hours? just checking


Okay, so you want a community aquarium (different fishes). its really personal taste on that on, look around your lfs to see if you fall in love with any sort of fish- as long as its suitable for the community aquarium! don't buy it the first time you see it, go home and do some research on it and find out (either through the web or us) what can go with it in a community.

i was thinking about live bearers and rasboras/tetras, but again its down to personal choice.

 

[milindsaraswala]

hi, with the low pH, that will slow down the bacteria alot- they prefer harder water, and with pH 6 and below , you often need to use zeolite or something like that. so i would boost up your ph by a large water change maybe especially before you get fish. its cycled as in if you put in ammonia, its double zeros within 12 hours? just checking


Okay, so you want a community aquarium (different fishes). its really personal taste on that on, look around your lfs to see if you fall in love with any sort of fish- as long as its suitable for the community aquarium! don't buy it the first time you see it, go home and do some research on it and find out (either through the web or us) what can go with it in a community.

i was thinking about live bearers and rasboras/tetras, but again its down to personal choice.

Thanx for reply

I will try to use zeolite and yea i put ammonia and it become zeros within 12 hrs. Please let me know the name of the fish which i can put as here lfs is not knowing which is compitible for 10 gallon fresh water tank. I don't want fail

 

[Wills]

Hi there I think in an 8g I would stick to "nano" fish and shrimp. So a few options for you to consider are, Sparkling Gourami, Chilli or Sparrow Rasbora, pygmi corydoras, badis fish (there are a few varieties), DaRio (not daNio) also if you can find true freshwater ones bumble bee gobies and then you have your choice of shrimp like the cherry, ghost, tiger, bumble bee etc.

I'm going to take a guess and say youve got an Arc 35 tank? So if you have around 10g or just under to stock to you could maybe do.

3 Sparkling Gourami - these are kind of a silver blue
6 Sparrow Rasbora - these are bright red and black
10 Cherry shrimp - red depending on age

or

1 Badis Badis - various colours available but most common ones are red or purple
5 Sparrow Rasbora
5 Pygmy Cories - white and grey, but they make up for it in personality and activity

or

1 Badis Badis
5 Sparrow Rasbora
5 Bumble Bee Gobies - yellow and black like a small bumble bee but try to make sure you get the true freshwater one as some need brackish water which means they need a bit of salt in their water to stay healthy but obviously the other fish need pure fresh water to be healthy.

or you have your regular options of like a male betta, male guppies or honey gourami, I just think the other ideas are a bit different to the usual 10g tanks you see.

Wills

PS dont forget to keep adding ammonia to your tank till you get your fish other wise the filter bacteria will starve and die.

 

[milindsaraswala]

Hi there I think in an 8g I would stick to "nano" fish and shrimp. So a few options for you to consider are, Sparkling Gourami, Chilli or Sparrow Rasbora, pygmi corydoras, badis fish (there are a few varieties), DaRio (not daNio) also if you can find true freshwater ones bumble bee gobies and then you have your choice of shrimp like the cherry, ghost, tiger, bumble bee etc.

I'm going to take a guess and say youve got an Arc 35 tank? So if you have around 10g or just under to stock to you could maybe do.

3 Sparkling Gourami - these are kind of a silver blue
6 Sparrow Rasbora - these are bright red and black
10 Cherry shrimp - red depending on age

or

1 Badis Badis - various colours available but most common ones are red or purple
5 Sparrow Rasbora
5 Pygmy Cories - white and grey, but they make up for it in personality and activity

or

1 Badis Badis
5 Sparrow Rasbora
5 Bumble Bee Gobies - yellow and black like a small bumble bee but try to make sure you get the true freshwater one as some need brackish water which means they need a bit of salt in their water to stay healthy but obviously the other fish need pure fresh water to be healthy.

or you have your regular options of like a male betta, male guppies or honey gourami, I just think the other ideas are a bit different to the usual 10g tanks you see.

Wills

PS dont forget to keep adding ammonia to your tank till you get your fish other wise the filter bacteria will starve and die.

Thanx for such a nice reply. If I go for community tank what should I go for ??

 

[iffles]

they are all community setups with fish that are compatible- pick whichever you like best

 

[Wills]

Yeah all three of the lists are community based. I just put a few different combination's together for like mixes of colour but in each one you have action at all levels of the tank. I think if it were me I would go for number 3 as I think BBG's are awesome. Glad you liked them The only problem with some of the fish is that some of them are quite rare in shops not sure where you are based but the easiest mix of fish to find of the 3 sets would be the top one. Where abouts do you live and people might be able to point you in the right direction to good shops

Wills

 

[milindsaraswala]

Yeah all three of the lists are community based. I just put a few different combination's together for like mixes of colour but in each one you have action at all levels of the tank. I think if it were me I would go for number 3 as I think BBG's are awesome. Glad you liked them The only problem with some of the fish is that some of them are quite rare in shops not sure where you are based but the easiest mix of fish to find of the 3 sets would be the top one. Where abouts do you live and people might be able to point you in the right direction to good shops

Wills

If i add 6 guppies in my tank then i can add more fish in my tank, if yes than which one i can add ??

 

[Wills]

If you get 6 try to get 6 males as otherwise they will breed and you will be over run with fish unless you have a store that will take them off you. If you went with 6 Guppies you would still be able to add in a group of any of the other fish I said about each fish gets to about an inch so try and keep your stocking to something like 8-10 inches of fish in total. Though if you got shrimp they produce so little waste there is not much worry about adding a few in but dont go crazy! ha ha

Youve made me want to get some more nano tanks now for the pretty little fish hmmm im thinking a 4x1x1 split into 3 and stocking each tank with nano fish would look awesome! One day!

Wills

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there milindsaraswala. It may be me that is not understanding but in looking back at the first two posts I'm concerned that Iffles may have misunderstood your situation possibly. To me, it sounded like you were giving us the stats of the tank water "0 ppm Ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite and 10 ppm nitrate but my ph is only 6 ppm" at the end of the fishless cycle. Assuming you mean a pH of 6.0 (since pH is not measured in ppm) its my feeling that this could easily happen at the end of cycling because the cycling process will drive the pH down. This does not mean that once you do the large water change and begin running the tank with fish that the pH will be too low at all! The pH situation under normal tank operation should be much more dependent on your tap water pH and the "KH" or Carbonate Hardness of your tap water.

So first of all the members would probably be interested in your *tap* water pH as measured by the pH test in your liquid testing kit. Do you have that measurement?

If the pH of the tap water is fairly high then it may not be necessary to get a KH kit. Instead you could just watch the pH over the first few weeks of tank operation with fish and see whether or not your pH drops. If there seems to be a problem with it dropping toward 6 then it would be worth it to get a KH kit and report that result to the members.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

I am a bit concerned about the idea that you might use zeolites in your filter. They are a very poor practice unless you have water completely outside of the pH range where a cycle can be achieved. Since you say that you have actually finished a fishless cycle, that cannot be the case for your tank. I must agree with the many other posters that an 8 gallon tank calls for small fish that will not grow very big. Please have a look around your local fish shop and get a feel for the little fish that really appeal to you. When you are done, I suggest that you come back with the 3 or 4 species that you like and we can help ensure that you get fish that are also compatible with each other. Unfortunately, many very small fish are the only ones that size in their native range and they do not do well with other equally small fish.

 

[yhbae]

What is the dimension of your 8g tank?

Here are the species you can hold in a 10g tank:

List of species

You can further modify this page by updating the tank dimensions to your liking. Make sure you are displaying only suitable species and it will choose it for you. 8g is not a common size, so it may exclude a lot of species compare to 10g which may need further updating.

 

[milindsaraswala]

What is the dimension of your 8g tank?

Here are the species you can hold in a 10g tank:

List of species

You can further modify this page by updating the tank dimensions to your liking. Make sure you are displaying only suitable species and it will choose it for you. 8g is not a common size, so it may exclude a lot of species compare to 10g which may need further updating.

My Tank size is 8 gallon rectangular not deep one

 

[waterdrop]

Hi milindsaraswala, Did you see our other questions up there? Do you know your tap water pH?

~~waterdrop~~