Desktop 10 Gallon Stock Ideas

[hart24601]

Dwarf puffers ftw! I have 6 (my gf's but guess who takes care of it) in a pretty thickly planted 10g for over a year now with no issues. Just low light plants and marimo balls. Also have it stocked with cherry shrimp. Puffers leave them alone. Lots of personality, cute, fun to watch shrimp and with stocking mts and tossing blackworms in every so often they tank self feeds quite a while.

 

[swomley93]

I would defiantly do a cool loach, they can be found at a lot of general fish stores, also I would do 1 crawfish and a zebra danio

 

[convict360]

that's definitely true. I have a 5 G heavily planted RCS tank and basically I never have to do PWCs for the sake of nitrates as the plants use up what little bioload the RCS produce. I still do every few weeks or so to freshen up the water and electrolytes. One thing with small tanks and infrequent water changes apart from nitrates, is to use some kind of buffer eg., crushed coral, so that over time it doesn't suddenly ph crash. especially my soft water.

Can you please expand on the PH crash? I'm curious about this for future projects...

 

[Allan01230]

I would do 2 m and 3 f of black ruby barbs and a female bristlenose pleco

 

[Username.]

I would defiantly do a cool loach, they can be found at a lot of general fish stores, also I would do 1 crawfish and a zebra danio

Not sure if loaches and crayfish go together well...

 

[THQ]

Can you please expand on the PH crash? I'm curious about this for future projects...

In a tank, over time, without water changes, you get "old tank syndrome".

Have a read of this:
http://www.algone.com/as-the-aquarium-ages-old-tank-syndrome-often-sets-in

Essentially, "The first sign of “old tank syndrome” is rising nitrate levels. The nitrification process, which oxidizes ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate, is continuous. The same process also produces hydrogen ions. Hydrogen ions directly influence the pH level. PH, in simple words, is the bonding of carbonate ions (buffer) with hydrogen ions. The more bonding, the higher the pH. Accumulating hydrogen ions will use up all available buffers. If none are left hydrogen ions will acidify the water, resulting in a steady but continuous decline of pH."

The less water, the more instable the parameters, so pH crash happens more rapidly.
This is magnified by my tap water already being extremely soft and slightly acidic, plus the driftwood in the tank. The hydrogen ions continually produced in a tank with bioload have very little to bond with due to minimal buffers in my water. Thus pH crash happens very quickly. I have a large bag of crushed marble in the filter to try to buffer a crash between water changes.

 

[joshua752]

I agree with the shrimp and tetras do not get a pleco they are big waste producers and I feel like the minimum tank size for any pleco is 20 gallons. I would go with 6 zebra Danios and 4 cory cats.

 

[Gill Blue]

6-10 pygmy or nano cories, 5-6 neon or cardinal tetras and 2 different orders of neocaridina shrimp.
pygmy cories use the whole tank so add another dimension to the already great cory experience.
when you go with, say, a red type and a blue type you end up with offspring that are red, blue, and purple with varying shades of colors.

lots of live plants.