Stock my 10 gal (new idea to consider)

[JDogg]

Poll says it all, keep in mind this should be school friendly.

EDIT: what does everyone think of doing a small SW set-up with this tank?

 

[maxwell1295]

1 Male Betta and some Neons, White Clouds, Cories, Kuhli Loaches, or Otos.

3 Female Bettas and a couple of Otos

 

[WaterPond]

still like the puffer idea. lol

 

[Blazeherd2306]

One dwarf puffer is my suggestion (not sure if you can have more than one, with most puffers you can't).

 

[niks93gt]

Dwarf Puffers sounds good... matter of fact I'm gonna be doing one soon in my other 10 gallon.

Nik

 

[JDogg]

i do like the dwarf puffer idea, down side is the only place around here i know of that carries them is Wal-Mart and the ones they have look like crap (think they have fin rot or something, there fins are all tattered....
i do not usually support the Wal-mart fish department... my lfs only have larger puffers that are full salt... but i will keep looking maybe Wal-mart will get some better ones in

 

[Toirtis]

3 panda corys, 5-6 endler's livebearers or wild-type guppies or 3-4 gold white clouds, 1 otocinclus, plants

 

[hc8719]

Re: Stock my 10 gal

keep in mind this should be school friendly.

just a heads up, puffers arent school friendly

(unless you mean school, then i just feel stupid)

 

[JDogg]

Re: Stock my 10 gal

keep in mind this should be school friendly.

just a heads up, puffers arent school friendly

(unless you mean school, then i just feel stupid)

school as in Science class pet...i do worry that my students might stress a puffer, buy trying to make it puff all the time :?

 

[CaptnIgnit]

You can only really fit 3 puffers in a 10 gallon anyway (1 male 2 female). That is actually what I'm doing right now, getting my 10 gallon set up. I am anxiously awaiting the next shipment of puffers that my LFS will be getting in.

You might also get away with putting an Oto in with the puffers, but add him first so he can find hiding spots if necessary.

 

[Tostada]

The puffer(s) would be cool, but that's a very different concept than a community tank.

So the tank is going to be in the classroom? Is it going to have to be near an outside window? I'm just thinking that you might get a decent amount of algae in there after awhile, so 3-4 ottos would probably be a good idea.

Are you interested in plants?

There are a lot of totally different things you could go with, so you kinda have to pick:

1) puffer tank
2) a planted tank with a school of something
3) just a general community tank

If you want a school, I'd do something like:

1 dwarf gourami
7 rasboras or 5 Hyphessobrycon tetras (Lemon/Flame/Phantom/Serpae/Red)
3 ottos
1 mystery snail

Then I'd see what plants you can get ahold of easily and make it pretty heavily planted. The gourami should be aggressive enough to keep the school together pretty well. You could also put a female betta in there or roll the dice with a male betta.

If you just want a general community tank, endlers or dwarf platys are both pretty cool. Around here the LFS have dwarf platys but not endlers.

Seems like any tank can fit some ottos and some bottom feeders no matter what's in there. The problem with a 10 gal. is that you can't really fit 5-6 corys too well, and most ppl say they'll be stressed if you only have 1-3. I'd say there's probably no problem putting 4 panda corys in a 10 gal , and they're really cute. You also might be interested in having shrimp instead of corys for the bottom.

Something else cool to do would be a tank with a crayfish, but that might be distracting/upsetting for students at times

 

[JDogg]

The puffer(s) would be cool, but that's a very different concept than a community tank.

So the tank is going to be in the classroom? Is it going to have to be near an outside window? I'm just thinking that you might get a decent amount of algae in there after awhile, so 3-4 ottos would probably be a good idea.

Are you interested in plants?

yes tank is in classroom, it is not close to window but is opposite end of rectangular room, window faces north. see diagram #1
i also have my 45 gal malawi cichlid tank and 20 long ACF tank in classroom. see diagram #2

i have no problem with plants, but i would probably stick to low light tolerant ones like Elodea and Java fern/moss

Something else cool to do would be a tank with a crayfish, but that might be distracting/upsetting for students at times

no more so then my frog, the students love to try and get her to suck on there finger (she is 6"+) i need to find her a mate though (one large enough she will not eat him). She love feeder goldfish as a treat she mate would have to be atlest 3" i would think to survive...

 

[JDogg]

my wife thinks i should try a nano SW tank with this tank (i have already posted for ideas in the nano area...)what do you all think?

 

[WaterPond]

would this be your first SW tank? I have read that beginners should start with 30gal+. I dunno, i gues i am just more partial to FW.

 

[JDogg]

would this be your first SW tank? I have read that beginners should start with 30gal+. I dunno, i gues i am just more partial to FW.

yes it would be my first SW tank. and that concern about first tank being to small has been voiced buy the SW people... i certainly do not want to rush into it and kill everything... i did see a used 30 gal with stand advertised for 75$ in the local paper...

 

[WaterPond]

lol, that would be a perfect size SW setup. I would stick with FW for the 10gal, but i'm not a saltie so it's not like you should tanke my advice. I like the idea of the feeder guppy breeder, but howabout insead of feeders you breed endlers. They are a little more facinating IMO.

 

[JDogg]

lol, that would be a perfect size SW setup. I would stick with FW for the 10gal, but i'm not a saltie so it's not like you should tanke my advice. I like the idea of the feeder guppy breeder, but howabout insead of feeders you breed endlers. They are a little more facinating IMO.

i have never seen them in the LFS...unless i do have one "feeder" in my malawi tank...it looks kind of like an endler, but it might be a wild guppy :?
it looks allot like this wild guppy http://www.h-nds.de/fische/poecilidae_domrep3.jpg

but also kind of like this endler http://nettakvariet.no/galleri/data/517/medium/2138endlers.jpg

 

[WaterPond]

yeah, i breed my own feeder guppies(even though i have nothing to feed them to) and one in about 20 turn out like that. I always just say that are wild strain, they never grow bigger than an inch. There might be people on the site that could hook you up with some endlers.

 

[collegelife101]

I have a 10gal heavy plant dwarf puffer tank with 3 dwarfs and 1 oto. They are a lot of fun to watch... and they watch you watch them.