meegosh.com

10 Gallon Freshwater

My first tank I got is a 10 gallon "Deluxe" kit from Wal-Mart. It came with everything I needed except for gravel, decorations, and fish. The kit was $99.99, the gravel was about $3.50 per 5lb bag, I used 25lbs of gravel in mine. The decor was fairly cheap; I got a cave for $6.99 and some fake plants for around $15. I think I also picked up a glass thermometer with a suction cup. The kit included a sticker-like thermometer that is taped onto the outside of the glass. I didn't think that would be reliable, so I got a glass one with suction cup. As it turns out I probably could've ditched the glass thermometer and just went with the tape on one.

Once I got the 10 gallon setup, which you can see how under the "Getting Started" section in the wiki, I started to decide what type of fish I would want. This is were things can get a little tricky. You'll need to do lots of research to decide what fish will tolerate each other and have the same water requirements.  For example, you wouldn't want to get a bunch of guppies and set your tank up for a tropical setup, and then decide you want a cold water Goldfish. I opted for a tropical community tank with fake plants. I didn't want to spend the extra money on better lights, a CO2 kit, and fertilizers for live plants.

I started with two Zebra Danios then I added two albino corydoras catfish. The next purchases were a common pleco (big mistake), two male guppies, two Diamond Tetras, and a Dwarf Neon Gourami. The tank was pretty much stocked at the point and I decided to call it quits as far as fish goes. Over time (a year or so) the Zebra Danios died and so did the two male guppies. I then decided to give my Diamond Tetras some new friend and got three Red Eyed Tetras. Unfortunately I didn't quarantine them and they had ich. All three of the Red Eyed Tetras, my Dwarf Gourami, and my common pleco died. After that took place I cleaned everything, treated the tank for ich and then decided what to get to replace the fish I lost. I decided with a few Neon Tetras and two more male guppies.

The tank ran for quite some time and then I decided to get the male guppies a female friend to keep them “company” – another big mistake. It didn’t take long, approximately a month, before I saw my first fry. The parents ate every last one of the fry on their first batch. The next batch they ate all but one. Eventually both males died over the course of a year or so. With only one fry, and one female in the tank, I wanted to get more guppies. I waited a week or so and took care of the single, lone fry. Eventually I started seeing the coloration of the guppy fry, it looked exactly like my favorite guppy (that died earlier), Meegosh. I aptly named the fry Meegosh Jr., or MJ for short.

After MJ grew up he seemed rather lonely after the female guppy died while dropping another batch of fry. I decided to get two males and two females, again. This is pretty much where I stand now. One of the males and one of the females died. The Tequila Sunrise Guppy (male) is still alive and doing well, along with his partner in crime, the other female. Now they’ve given birth to tons of fry that have amazing colors to them. This last batch of fry is turning out to be the Tequila Sunrise variety. This is where I stand as of now with my 10 gallon tank. It is basically a guppy grow out tank. I have since separated all the females and males to stop the continuous breeding. I’ve removed all the males, and added them to my 30 gallon long tank. There are still some young fry which I cannot sex in the 10 gallon with all the female guppies. In all, 2 pairs of guppies produced well over 20 (still-alive) guppies in total. I cannot get an exact number of fry in my tank because they are just too small yet. I will hopefully see a stop in the amount of fry being dropped since the males have been removed for a little over a month. Now I need to find someone to take all these guppies off my hands.

Update 1/28/2009 - I got a Koi Angelfish and a Clown Loach off of a guy at work. I am hoping that the Angelfish will eat some of the guppy fry and maybe even some of the smaller guppies. I acclimated them by floating a bag in the water to get it up to temperature and then after 15 minutes I added two cups of my tank water to the water in the bag. I let it float for another 30 minutes, checked the temperatures of each (they were the same) and netted them and added them to the tank. The Angelfish was a little nervous when I added him to the tank. He was hiding in the corners, running into the glass for about 15 minutes. He seemed to calm down as the night went on. Hopefully today he'll act more normal and maybe even eat some guppies! I have included some pictures of my new fish below.

Update 4/2/2009 - I have moved the Angelfish and Clown Loach to the 30 gallon. I gave away all the females that were in this tank. I haven't seen any fry so I think I am in the clear, finally! I am going to be changing the substrate from the funky gravel to a more natural sand substrate. I plan on making it a shrimp, corydoras, and guppy tank. I'm going to look for ghost shrimp and some corydoras catfish. I want to pick up some more slate and rocks for the 10 gallon. If I can find any low light plants that look decent I will probably end up buying those as well. I want the10 gallon to be a real natural looking tank.