I recently purchased a 10 gallon tank an added a telescoped eyed Goldfish. Have had him in there for about two wks now and everything is good. He is really small by the way! I just added 2 black skirt tetras, 2 starfire Danios and 3 Julii corys. Have an african dwarf frog that has been with the goldfish since day 1. Been doing research and everything I find says goldfish by themselves. All seems to be good, but I think I might have too much. I would like very much to have a nice, active community tank. Will this setup work? Any answers would be appreciated.
10 gallon community tank
- Thread starter SirTriple
- Start date
Welcome to the forum! First of all Goldfish are not tropical fish, like the rest of your fish so they prefer cooler water. Secondly, I believe the recommendation is 30 gallons for one goldfish and 10 for each additional - they are very messy fish and get quite large over time. Even without the goldfish most would consider your tank overstocked which will make it much harder to care for and keep the water within parameters. Do you understand cycling and do you own a test kit? Please continue to ask questions and read all you can - there are a lot of interesting things to learn.
Coming from a person that has just a little more experience than you, I just had a little fish massacre in my little 5 gallon tank. Everything will seem fine then it will happen. BAM! fish die and tears are shed. I'm not saying this will happen, but it is very likely because overstocking in little aquariums is probably more dangerous than overstocking large aquariums. This is, because USUALLY smaller tank means not as experienced. Which also usually means overfeeding. Which also means higher chances of an Ammonia and Nitrite spike.(BAD STUFF) Which is what most likely happened to me. I also recommend not having a goldfish in a tropical tank.(as Thyra has said).BTW your tank is not necessarily 'overstocked' but it is pretty darn close. Which is what also can increase the chances of a spike if your filter can't handle the bioload and your not doing water changes.
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Thanks to all for the feedback. This is starting to be a hobby that I really like and want to continue with. Still trying to understand the cycling process and determining the numbers and what they mean. Before I added the fish into the tank with the Goldfish, I used a 5 in 1 test strip and all the numbers read where they needed to be with the Goldfish...I am constantly watching the tank and am going to do a 50% water change this week due to the stock amount...thanks again for the advice..
No problem. From what I know you could get another 10 gallon tank for your gold fish while its small for around 15 dollars. excluding filter and hood. Which I think is acceptable until it starts to get bigger and as long as you change the water every week 100%(as in 50% midway 50% end of week or 100% at end of week) IME
A fair few years ago I had Angel Fish in with goldfish and kept the temperature at 22 - 24 degrees Celsius - some friends who owned a pet shop had done it and told me about it, so I thought I'd try it.
It was a 20 UK gallons / 90 Litre tank and we had the two Angel Fish at full size, along with two large fancy goldfish, while we only seemed to keep a few goldfish alive, with dropsy and the tank reaching 30 degrees in summer, everything went perfect. The PH only once went out when we first had the tank setup - as at the time we didn't know about cycling. We had the two Angel Fish in the tank for two years and same with two of the goldfish.
Though I probably wouldn't do it now as it was hard work keeping up with such a large tank for the four fish, and I've found goldfish are pretty dirty, it's just an example to show, you can at times mix tropical fish with cold if you keep a close watch on everything. I had the heater in with the goldfish before I got the Angel Fish as in the winter it gets so cold here it stresses even goldfish out. 22 was the lowest setting I could get the tank to.
It was a 20 UK gallons / 90 Litre tank and we had the two Angel Fish at full size, along with two large fancy goldfish, while we only seemed to keep a few goldfish alive, with dropsy and the tank reaching 30 degrees in summer, everything went perfect. The PH only once went out when we first had the tank setup - as at the time we didn't know about cycling. We had the two Angel Fish in the tank for two years and same with two of the goldfish.
Though I probably wouldn't do it now as it was hard work keeping up with such a large tank for the four fish, and I've found goldfish are pretty dirty, it's just an example to show, you can at times mix tropical fish with cold if you keep a close watch on everything. I had the heater in with the goldfish before I got the Angel Fish as in the winter it gets so cold here it stresses even goldfish out. 22 was the lowest setting I could get the tank to.
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Large tanks are much easier to maintain as the parameters won't change as quickly as they will in a small tank. 30 g and over are a lot easier than a 5 or 10 g. I have never had fancy gold fish, but I know that the common ones can handle freezing. I have an outside stock tank and it will get a layer of solid ice and the gold fish survive. pH with most of your common tropicals is not very important - its sudden swings when people try to control it. Most fish can adapt to whatever your normal tap pH is.
