Help with new freshwater tanks?

[morningleaf]

In my adventure trying to keep a little fair goldfish alive, I've amassed three tanks and two fishbowls that I now have to figure out what to do with. I've looked around online, but there seems to be a lot of conflicting advice on tank capacities and such, so I thought I'd post my plan before buying any more fish and make sure it looks okay.

-A bettas alone in a 5 gallon tank
-The (now not-so-little) goldfish alone in a 20 gallon
-Two or three of the cory emerald catfish and a mystery snail in the 10 gallon
-And I haven't been able to find much of anything to do with the two little half-gallon fishbowls... I was thinking maybe two more of the mystery snails? Would they be alright?

Thank you in advance for the help!

 

[emilygupps]

I'm in the same boat. My betta lives in a 2g cube (filtrated and heated) but I'm planning to move him in to a 5g. And can't think of any use for my betta cube other than to toss it and try to salvage the filter and heater. Or maybe I can grow out a second baby betta.... Ugh that means tank number 9 when it gets bigger.

In YOUR case you can wash them really well with bleach and use them for snack bowls! Fill with chips and eat! They would look pretty with candy too. I'm not being a jerk. I think mystery snails get really big like the size of your fist and even in the mean time you'll have a hard time keeping them from escaping.

I think you might be under stocked on the 10g.The 20g for the gold fish seems small. But I'm not a gf expert. I thought they needed massive tanks. Any chance of putting a pond in haha jk. Good luck and very nice that you're trying to give it a better life than most other poor pretty gold fish get.

 

[morningleaf]

What else do you think I could put in the 10 gallon? And yeah, eventually the goldfish will have to move, but hopefully the 20 gallon will hold him for a year or so... ^-^

 

[emilygupps]

So I just did a a quick search and it seems that cory cats need 30g.

Are you particularly attached to cat fish? What about a school of tetras, a snail and some shrimp? You could still do a mystery snail but just keep in mind they can get to be the size of your fist and they do multiply like crazy. I love nerite snails because they don't grow too big and can't multiply in fresh water, they do leave little white eggs every where but if you put in some real drift wood if will mostly be contained there. Ghost shrimp are cheap feeders but I LOVE mine. So much hardier than my bamboo shrimp. But the bamboo shrimp work harder so it's up to you.


If you did smaller neon tetras or cardinals you could do a bigger school 5-8. An other idea is a fraternity of four male guppies or one male and 2-3 females keep in mind if adding females your tank will be full of babies, they do eat their young most of the time but, some will probably survive.

These are just ideas in the end it's your tank though so do your own research and do what works best for you!

 

[Fishperson]

Emerald cories aren't actually cories which is really confusing (species is brochis splendens) and they need 30 gallonsish like you said. Try Pygmy, dwarf, or dainty cories instead. Cardinal tetras imo need more than 10 gallons but neons would work.