# 10 gallons, bad fish



## manda (Feb 9, 2006)

my mom has an empty 10 gallon tank. she has no idea of the proper fish to put in there... and honestly i dont too much either.
she wants tiger barbs, black skirt tetras, bala sharks (HA no way) 
and a rope fish...
thats not going to work out at all! any recommendation for a newbie with these tastes?


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## aaa (Jan 19, 2005)

i think a few blk skirt tetra would be fine in there.


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## manda (Feb 9, 2006)

well, she is wanting some variety.
she loves any shark that she sees but arent they all too big for a 10 gallon. 
What happens if she does get some Bala sharks for her 10 gallon. Mom is hard headed and i want a reason to tell her its not a good idea other than "they are too big"
because she says that they will grow to the size of the tank. i know thats not true but like i said... she it hard headed


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## aaa (Jan 19, 2005)

but the problem is, not much else can fit in there. please i can't think of any weird looking fish that don't grow big. maybe one or two glass catfish will do the work. i don't know about upside down cat, one of them may fit in there... but i am not sure if they school or not. 

as for the bala shark, it is up to your imagination. it is ok to lie a little to save a life.


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## Buggy (Oct 17, 2006)

Try showing her this article. When she sees the size of the tank needed she might change her mind.
http://www.aquatic-hobbyist.com/profiles/freshwater/cyprinids/bala.html


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## Gourami Swami (Jul 4, 2006)

Hell no, dont let her get balas or ropefish! 

Tell her the fish WILL die soon if kept in a tank that size, and she wouldnt want to be a killer now would she? If she likes the look of the ropefish tell her to do sand and get some kuhlies.


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## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

What about an african butterfly fish?


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## manda (Feb 9, 2006)

in a 10 gallon? i thought they needed more room. would that be the only thing she could put in it?


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## T4987 (Nov 25, 2006)

If she wants bala sharks tell her she will have to sell them back to the lfs when they get to big or get them a bigger tank. I had mine from a very young age in a 10g and they grew at a slow pace I had them for a few years before they got 4-5 inches. Maybe you can stunt their growth with colder water 70-74 or something and just feed them tetra flakes. They do need bigger tanks but can live in a 10g if you keep them healthy they are a bit lethargic in a tank that small but if she is determined to get them tell her to buy them small and return them when they get larger.


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## Puffer Pita (Jun 16, 2006)

You cannot keep a bala shark healthy in a 10g tank. Period.


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## T4987 (Nov 25, 2006)

Mine were healthy the entire time I had them. They were just not as energetic as they would have been in a larger tank.

I'm not saying anyone should try to get bala sharks for a 10g tank they do better in larger tanks. I bought mine from a pet store that told me 10g was fine for the fish. they lived healthily for a little over 2 years before they died from a fish I put in the tank that had some disease.


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## Sable (Nov 6, 2006)

The balas weren't healthy if they were "lethargic."

The point of keeping fish, for me at least, is to give them a good life. Giving bala sharks a 10-gallon home is not "giving them a good life" by any stretch of the imagination. They like to be in groups of 5 or more. Keeping 5 bala sharks in a 10-gallon tank, apart from being somewhat unethical, is very difficult to do, especially for a beginner.

Look on www.fishprofiles.com (in the profiles section) for some other fish. Try searching by size (max size: 8cm) and activity (I suggest diurnal, so your mom won't be bored by them and decide she wants some more).

Black tetras are a great idea. Get a school of 6, and you _might_ have room for another small fish.

Rasboras are also nice; do some research on them.

2 German blue rams (aka blue rams, aka blue ram cichlids) could be kept in a 10 gallon tank. Get a male and a female, though, and provide lots of hiding places as well as lots of free-swim area in the middle of the tank. They look sort of like sharks, but they're much more colorful (if kept in clean water). They're very sensitive to poor water conditions.

Your mom could keep two or three male bettas in there, _using tank dividers_, or one male betta separated from either one OR three female bettas (they develop a pecking order; with two, the weakest is killed) other than when/if she wants to mate them. Male bettas, especially deltas and crowntails, look somewhat like sharks - they certainly look fierce.


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## T4987 (Nov 25, 2006)

Lethargic wasn't a good word just the first one that came to mind. He wasn't sitting on the bottom of the tank or anything like that he just swam at a slower pace instead of zipping around the tank like I've seen them do in bigger tanks. I didn't have a large group of them in the tank (I knew that wouldn't work) just two.


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## manda (Feb 9, 2006)

mom has 12 bettas and wants something else Sable.

i dont want to tell her its okay to get a certin fish if its not guys 
but honestly she will probably do as she pleases... thats how she is.
i will tell her what you guys said, and print her off some info on those fish


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## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

A butterfly fish would be fine in a 10 gallon tank by itself or maybe with a few small bottom dwelling fish.


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## Gourami Swami (Jul 4, 2006)

I think if you wanted you could keep a butterfly in a 10, but keep in mind the special needs. They need a few inches of air between the water line and the lid of the tank. They also need live food most of the time. It may grudgingly take a few pellets, but mine was an almost exclusively live feeder. After I while I weened him onto frozen foods but he lost color, became "lethargic", just generally seemed sad.


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## Sable (Nov 6, 2006)

Worst-case scenario, you can always get her a bigger tank for her birthday, Christmas (or Hannuka, or Kwanza), Valentine's Day, New Years, etc.


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## HybridS130 (Aug 27, 2006)

IMHO 10Gs should only be quarantine, breeding, and grow out tanks when it comes to fish because of how much they limit fish in so many ways but, if it must be done than I would suggest overdoing the filter so you at least know you have enough. If you're using an incandescent fixture than upgrade to two screw in CF 6500k bulbs (from just about any store, wal-mart). Get some low light plants (java fern, java moss, egeria najas, anacharis something like that) to help keep the tank healthy and try to stick to live bearers, rasboras, small tetras, maybe some cories and a couple otos, a betta could be the center piece or some dwarf gouramis. Of course I don't mean keep all these fish hehe.


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