Hello everyone! Need help with some stuff :3

[Aphexic]

Hello!
I'm new to this site and I'd really appreciate it if some of you can help me pick some fishes and leave some tips as this is my first time getting a fish tank.

So we bought a 10 gal tank last Wednesday (This one to be specific]). We have a castle (with lots of holes in it for fishes to hide into), white gravels, 3 fake plants, one real plant ( I don't know what it is called. Does anybody know? It's at the right end of the tank.), a filter that came with the starter kit, and a marimo moss ball in it so far.
We might also replace the fake plant all together with real plants if this plant does good in our tank without high light.

*** Just go to my profile to look at the image because it won't let me upload it here for some reason.

I'm thinking about getting 5 cardinal/neon tetras, 1 Betta and MAYBE one algea eater fish/snail/shrimp if I have space. Is that too much for this tank? Does this combination work in terms of them getting along?

Also, is it okay if we buy the fish upcoming Wednesday or is it too soon? We've had the filter running since the day we got it. I was thinking about getting the tetras first this Wednesday and then the Betta a week later.

 

[ezy33]

You'll need to cycle the tank before adding your fish. The old school was add something like feeder guppies for a week or two then return the ones that live to the store. Now you can start your cycle with a raw shrimp or ammonia. Search how to cycle a aquarium on the web for complete instructions. Good luck!

 

[Dragonwolf]

I'm assuming the live plant is the green one in the back on the right? Looks like Anacharis to me.

As for your lighting and other live plants, I haven't had luck keeping plants in my 10 gallon with incandescent lights. My 55 gallon with T8 fluorescent bulbs (not typically used for growing plants) is doing very well with live plants. And I've just recently put more plants in my 10 gallon with LEDs. Those seem to be doing fine also. If you want to do live plants I would replace the incandescent hood with a fluorescent or LED hood. And after planting my 55 gallon, I love the live plant look! You can see mine if you go to my profile and check out my albums.

As for the fish, I think that combination should be fine. Just go for like a bristlenose pleco if you are going to go with an algae eating fish. They stay small unlike the common plecos who'll get up to 2 ft long or the Chinese algae eaters (who don't really eat much algae anyway) who get up to a foot long. I have 2 albino bristlenose plecos.

Typically you want to cycle the tank and I see that your tank came with a bacteria starter sample. Was that Tetra Safestart? I've used Safestart and immediately added fish without any issues before. But there are also 2 types of cycles... fish-in cycle and fishless cycle. Check out this link for different articles to help you get started with an aqarium.

 

[Aphexic]

Alright, thank you both for your suggestions. I've read the articles but I don't have pure ammonia so I put some fish food in there so the fishes can eat.

No, they didn't give me anything like "tetra safe start". I think they're talking about a small bag thingy that we were supposed to put into our filter next to the sponge that filters the water. I'll test the water before adding any fish. Instead of adding 5 tetras, I'll start with 1 algea eater only so the bacteria can slowly grow. Does that sound like a good idea?

I also put few drops of Top Fin® Bacteria Supplement to make sure that there are bacteria in the tank. Sorry I now know that there is a whole cycle process that I was supposed to follow but the pet store didn't say anything like that so we just put some food and some bacteria like they said.