I have an old ten gallon aquarium I want to set up in my classroom. Right now I'm thinking:

A betta as the centerpiece

6-8 chili raspboras

5 panda or dwarf corys

A couple snails

I'm worried this is too close to maxing the bioload. I also wasn't sure about some of the choices. I've never had raspboras. I usually have tetras, but I wanted something new. And tetras sometimes nip my bettas fins.

I considered getting a honey gourami instead of the betta, but I love bettas. Same thing with corys, I love them, but maybe loaches would be more interesting for the kids?

I want to make it as interesting and diverse as I can for the kids with only ten gallons. Unfortunately, I don't have a window available, so live plants aren't really on the table.

Thanks in advance!

I am matching watts to gallons and going by guidelines that i am seeing online. I keep my house around 70-72. But I have noticed when using heaters where I twist or use a dial to the appropriate temperature that the temperature is not holding there. Generally speaking it seems like it goes higher.

I have been looking at some of the heaters from fluval (e200) and wondering if anyone has had good experience with that line or any others? Im liking the idea of a digital readout of the setting.

How do I clear up cloudy water? I’ve had my fish tank for 2 weeks. It has 2 goldfish, 4 snails & 2 algae eaters. It’s 20 gallons with live plants & fake plants. I tested the water, and everything came back in within normal parameters. It’s not super cloudy, but definitely a little foggy. Filter is working properly. I know goldfish are considered dirtier fish, but does this mean crystal clear water is near impossible? I have another 20 gallon tank I’ve had for 3 years that has 2 tetras, 4 platys and 4 snails. It’s crystal clear, and always has been. Anyone have any recs? I haven’t had goldfish since I was a kid but I saw these 2 chubby lionhead in a tank alone at petsmart, and simply couldn’t resist! Thanks in advance :)

That's about it. I used to have it in a 150 gal tank with a crazy amount of cichlids. It was paired w/ a sump setup and assisted by an Eheim filter.

I have cement tank that is on the ground of my courtyard. Approx 20 gallons. I'm in no way of fixing a light for the tank but it does get about 2 hours of indirect sunlight and 1 hour of direct sunlight.

I'm thinking of starting a planted tank with a few guppies. A Vallisneria only tank.Any thoughts about this? (Excluding the algea issues which I'm aware of)

This ammonia had bin high for awhile i dont know if it's really the ammonia because the fish hasn't die but i need help on what to do to regulate both so I don't get worried when reading such high ammonia.

Will this be problematic or is this okay for a small tank?

8 Week Difference :)

This is an auto-post for the weekly question thread.

Here you can ask questions for which you don't want to make a separate thread and it also aggregates the questions, so others can learn.

Please check/read the wiki before posting.

If you want to chat with people to ask questions, there is also the IRC chat for you to ask questions and get answers in real time! If you need help with it, you can always check the IRC wiki page.

For past threads, Click Here

I ordered 2 Zebra Nerite snails from Aqua Huna that arrived on Friday evening. It is currently Sunday evening. One was DOA (I didn't immediately notice this and acclimated them together). The other seemed super healthy and was immediately active in my 10 gallon tank after acclimating. It was completely fine this morning, but this afternoon I noticed that it was upside down with it's foot still out quite a ways. I immediately righted it and put it on a flat surface in the tank.

I checked a few hours later and it hadn't moved, so I inspected it for signs of life and it is dead.

My water parameters are:

pH- 7.5

Ammonia- 0.25 (I have treated this and is no doubt caused by having 2 dead snails recently and a baby cory catfish that also passed from the same shipment)

Nitrite- 0 ppm

Nitrate- Between 0 & 5 ppm (This is a brand new tank that just got done with a two week cycle of just plants that had it's first fish added 3 days ago)

I don't know what the Gh is because I had to order the kit since my LFS didn't have it. That shouldn't be a problem though because I have another tank with a nerite that came from the exact same water source that has been alive for over a year without issue.

Am I doing something wrong or was it just terrible luck?

Hi guys, my gf just set up her tank today and she wants any thoughts/advice ya’ll might have. She wants to get a betta and she's completely new to the aquarium game, so we both did as much research as we could. She got a 5.5 gal tank (she couldn’t get bigger due to lack of space), a hood/led light, a tetra 50w heater, and a sponge filter. She just started the cycling process by rinsing everything off, putting dechlorinator in the water, letting the filter run for half an hour, then adding the plant fertilizer and bacteria starter/a couple of fish flakes. She’s now gonna let the tank sit for a week with the heater/filter on before testing the water to see if the levels are good for a fish. For stock, she got an anubias plant, a java fern moss ball, and a smooth decoration/hideout. She’s thinking about getting one more small plant and/or hideout so the little guy will have more space to hide in the tank as well, but isn’t sure because she doesn’t want to overstock an already small tank. She's also curious about adding more food to speed up cycling? She really wants to treat this fish right so she asked me to post here for her. Do you guys have any recommendations/advice/thoughts whatsoever??? Thanks!!

I'm working on setting up a 10 gallon tank for me and my son to enjoy. I left some water out to dechlorinate and got a tank and filter and headed to a local fish (aquatic?) store. I said we wanted some beginner friendly fish and they they suggested 5 guppies, two catfish to feed on the bottom, and eventually a snail in my 10 gallon.

Then they grabbed me a heater, a thermometer, some rocks, and a small bottle of MicroBacter QuikCycl.

This is when I learned about cycling. They instructed me to get the water up to temp with everything running and then add the QuikCycl. Next step is to come back to get the fish and add them within 24 hours of adding the QuikCycl.

I decided to do some further research and learned about fish-in and fishless cycling. It seems this QuikCycl is designed for fishless cycling and explicitly states to not ever put it into an aquarium with live fish, I am assuassuming because it's mostly ammonia?

So now I'm left wondering what the correct next steps are.

This I've done:

Dechlorinate water

Added aquarium gravel (this and the tank were used, does that matter?)

Added water

Setup filter, heater, thermometer

Added decorative rocks and a little shark my son wanted in there

I have NOT added the QuikCycl

My questions now are 1) was the QuicCycl advice bad? Even if I wanted to use it, it seems this is step 2 and I'd need to add MicroBacter first and do a fishless cycle. 2) was the fish suggestion/quantity appropriate for a 10 gal?

She has developed white rings around her eyes and nose. She hasn’t been acting different in any obvious ways. Just wondering if it’s a “slime coat” problem or a tank problem. Any ideas?!