Gold fishes-What did I do wrong?

[Chickerdoodle13]

Ducks4you,

I started out with a betta, three dwarf cory cats, and I currently have two platies. I had three platies and that worked out, but while I was away at school, one disappeared. Two seems to be working out though, so I will probably leave it at that. In our ten gallon that my room mate had at school, we had fancy guppies and they were terrible to keep. Their tails are so difficult to keep pretty, as they seemed very susceptible to fin rot. I think my platies have a ton of personality, as does my betta. The cories help to keep the bottom clean and they like to sleep together. They've grown a little bit, but I don't think they will get too much bigger. The platies grew to about an ince and a half.

Unfortunately with a ten gallon, there aren't a whole lot of options. There are some other types of fish you could stick in there, but in my opinion, they just don't have the personality my platies have.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

I've raised fish for most of my life so I thought I would chime in. Gold fish are the dirtiest fish you can get. Go with something different. Also most filters are a wast of money. High end skimmer filters are the only filters that actually remove wast from the water. If you can afford one then great if not thats ok too. But dont wast your money on any of these hang on back filters. The all just trap the wast in them out of sight but still in the water where it pollutes the water just as bad as if you had no filter at all. A under gravel filter ran by a power head is all anyone ever needs an works better than almost everything else on the market. It pulls the wast to the bottom of the tank an traps it there where you can vacuum it up when you do water changes. It also makes a great bio filter because all the bacteria that grows on the gravel. It helps if the gravel is 2 inches deep or more. Never do more than a 10% water change in one day ether. I also encourage people to change over to saltwater. People think it is more expensive but its really not. The only thing is where you may get away with putting 20 fish in a 20 gallon fresh water tank if you make it saltwater it will only holed 3 to 5. But those 3 to 5 fish make a much better display. An saltwater has a better choice of invertebrates to clean the bottom of the tank. If you do stick with freshwater you can pack it full of live plants to help water quality.

 

[patandchickens]

You can keep various (smallish, non-finicky, nonagressive) things in a 10 gal tank.

My best suggestion if you want something unheated is White Cloud Minnows (= White Cloud Mountain Minnows), which are fine down to 60F or even a bit lower (although they do poorly above 75-80F if your house gets hot in summertime). They are easy to find, really quite pretty and colorful in a minnowy kind of way, put 6-10 of them in a 10 gal tank and they look good

Guppies, especially the randomly-colored not-super-long-finned 'feeder guppy' types, are also pretty good for an unheated tank, although they prefer a bit warmer than White Clouds do.

If you want to heat the tank, you have more options, the most obvious and hardiest would be things like corydoras catfish (my personal favorite fishes in the whole world, especially panda corys), neon or cardinal tetras, black tetras, serpae tetras, platys, dwarf gouramis, possibly a *single* male betta if you don't have much else in the tank and it isn't real long-finned nor real nippy, or half a dozen zebra danios (alone, except possibly for a cory or two). Many other options exist of course.

Quite honestly though a 10 gallon tank is a pain in the butt compared to a 20 or 30 gal (as long as you restrain yourself from stocking the latter too much too soon, or just overstocking it *period*). Larger tanks are much more stable in terms of water chemistry, easier to manage IMHO, and offer fish a better chance to hide from each other when required (fish are somewhat like chickens in the sense of not always being particularly nice to each other).

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[chinbunny]

i have fancy guppies in an unheated 30 gallon. Don't have too many problems with them. I got to agree that goldfish are nasty, and need a lot of space. I have a filter on the back of my tank, and it seems to clean it just fine. You need to get something thats the correct size for the tank. You also have to make sure the filter is kept clean, or it won't work properly. If you want something that will keep the tank pretty I suggest trying a couple of ramshorn snails. They may breed like crazy. They are very good at keeping the tank clean. The down side is that they will eat plants when given the chance. You can also buy a plastic tank cleaning hose, and siphon(?) out the bottom the tank once a week. That will help you with the water change.

I think cloud minnows and guppies are a good idea. You can keep both species together. Both will breed and replenish themselves with babies. Just make sure you have a place for the babies to hide in so they won't get eaten. Like some live java moss, fake plants, or even a breeding trap.

 

[ducks4you]

I feel as if I've hijacked this thread! sorry
Thanks, McSpin, Chickerdoodle13, rebelcowboysnb, patandchickens, and chinbunny for the GREAT fish advice!

I'll admit that I am NO fish expert.

The ONLY thing that I know about fish is that they'll understand the seasons, and you're not supposed to "kill them with kindness" by overfeeding....and, OH YEAH, they live in the water, too.

 

[Rising_Phoenix]

Not to advertise but if you need fish help there is a form called Badmans just Google it I use it all the time we have some people on there that have 40 yrs experience with fish keeping, and fish breeding, and a marine biologist. Then thing with Gold fish is they make a lot of ammonia which is one reason why you should not keep them and tropical fish together, the ammonia will kill them quick in an unfiltered small tank, the bigger the tank you can provide the better.

 

[McCord6]

Quote:
Dont worry about hijacking. This is still useful information that is coming in with "FISH" topic.