I think you are going to need to do some research on the various fish you are considering.
While I don't personally know details about all the various species, I did try to use
Freshwater Fish: Freshwater Tropical Fish Species for Tropical Fish Tanks to get some very basic info.
For various ciclids (african and new world) minimum tank sizes were listed at 30 to 70 gallons (depending upon the exact species).
For the cory, minimum sizes were listed as 20 or 30 gallons.sizes.
Loaches ranged from 30 to 50 gallons.
While 10 gallons might sound big to you, when it comes to fish care, especially making the fish care reasonable to keep up with, you are going to have to think very small. We're talking things like tetras.
Even things like mollies and guppies list minimum tank sizes at 20 to 30 (namely because while these fish are small, they need a small "school" of them).
So far, the only things I've found listed for 10 gallon tanks is tetras, platies, danios, and glofish.
I've also heard of tanks that were nothing but invertibrates. For example, a tank full of nothing but shrimp.
The only other thing that comes to mind is a single betta... but again, I'm not up on all the various fish species.