[Mustang Boy]

Ok i am setting up a 10gal planted tank that will be housing tetra and i would like to house 2 small schools of tetra 1 school being glowlight and the other will probably be neon and it will also house shrimp but im not dead set on neons yet i will have to see what takes my fancy at the LFS when i go to buy the fish

now my questions what would be the smallest i could make each school and what would be the most tetra i can put in this tank with this setup

 

[aconrad]

The rule is usually one inch of fish for every gallon of water. I would say the schools could be as little as three.

 

[djrichie]

Yes, the rule of thumb, used in the fish sales industry is 1 inch for every gallon of water. However that rule does not take in to consideration the amount of waste fish make. ie. Bio-Load Some fish have a very low bio load. so your able to house more than 1" of fish per gal.

 

[aconrad]

There is that fact and what size filter you have. I normally put too many fish in but I have a more powerful filter. My 46 gal is overstocked but it has a 70 gal filter on it (i think 70)

 

[Mustang Boy]

well my tank has a filter that flows 100gph which from my research is good for tanks up to 10gal but the box says 20 and tetras have very small bioload and i am planning on putting some shrimp in the tank too which clean up more mess than they make so that will help with the cleaning

 

[aconrad]

shrimps might get eaten for small tanks i would use corydoras

 

[Mustang Boy]

could little glowlights and neons eat shrimp i thought shrimp would be too large for them to eat unless they were little baby shrimp

 

[aconrad]

what kind of shrimp?

 

[Mustang Boy]

i havnt figured out yet but i am tryin to do a little SA biotope so i am looking for something from SA so it will fit in with the rest of the tank but so far i have only been able to find rock shrimp that get to like 3in and that is too bid

 

[actinicblue]

i find that the rummy nose tetras are the tightest schooling tetras. currently i have 30 of them in my discus tank. Rasboras have the similar traits, although they quite frequent the mid to top level of the tank.

 

[jerrybforl]

try cardinal tetras look like neon but in my experience are more durable.

 

[Mustang Boy]

well a few days ago i went to my LFS to get some ghost shrimp for a different tank and my mom convinced me to get some tetra for my small tank cause it is ready and cycled i was just waiting on plants which my LFS is supposed to be picking up for me today so i got the last 4 neons that he had in stock so they are alone in the tank as of right now and he is supposed to get more fish this thurs. or fri. so ill pick up 2 more then

i wouldve gone with cardinals but i think they would get too big for the 10gal with the numbers of fish that i wanted to get

 

[djrichie]

I don't think neon would be a good choice for a 10 gal tank be cause they are so sensetive to WQ, and they are are generally a weak fish when commerically bred. The cards would look nice with a school a panda tetra, but thats all your choice. However most tetras need to be in schools of at least 7. You mention plants but no mention of oto cats, you might want to include 2 of these in a 10 will keep everything nice and clean..... the rock shrimp you might only be able to get one of them in there, and anything smaller you have a chance of the tetra nippping if not eating them. Not sure where you are located but this guy boxlotfish.com has alot of SA fish. I've order from him and have had no problems, the fish arrived alive and healthy, my might want to give him a call and see if he can get you SA shrimp.... I know of only the rock shrimp as SA shrimp, but sense his importer is the guy who collects down there maybe he knows of more...

 

[jerrybforl]

cardinals arent too big for a 10 gal. they get about inch and a quarter if that and as said as well as richie they are more sensetive and i have had bad experience with neons. nothing but good experience with cards. are you doing low light tank or bright. low light is a lil less work as far as keeping it clean. and with such a small tank you could use DIY CO2 or a small Red Sea CO2 kit which you can get at a petsmart or petco.

 

[Mustang Boy]

i will definitely go with cardinals if my neons dont make it

and i was hoping to use shrimp to clean the plants as well as any other extra food that happens to fall to the ground

and thanks to you dj im probably gonna spend the next hour looking at stuff on that site cause it looks like a great site and i am gonna be looking over everything on it for awhile