Few questions...
- Thread starter zoalover34
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With a betta, depending on his temperment, you could probably get away with a small school of something. Depending on your preference, look into harlequin rasboras, white clouds, cherry barbs, neons or cardinals (even though I'm anti neons, everyone seems to want these). You could also get away with a mystery snail and some ghost shrimp.
I agree w/ missfishy. A 10 would be good for a Betta and a few other small fish. You might consider getting the betta, an apple snail and maybe a school of like 3 or 4 little corydoras? I really do like harlequin rasboras too, very fun little fish. Definitely NOT a gourami or any brightly colored fish like guppies as it is just too small of a space to risk the betta seeing their tankmates as 'challengers'.
Yes, you need to cycle a FW tank although it is a different process than SW because of the different filtration needs of the FW tank. I'd definitely read through the stickies about cycling at the top of this forum (fw beginner) and then let us know if you have any questions. Your basic choices are a very slow fish-in cycle, a little faster fishless cycle, or an instant cycle by buying biospira and using that to cycle the tank and add the bacteria you'll need.
so we added some cycle stuff to the tank let it sit for about a week with pumps running and carbon, added a beta he lasted 3 days and then died, didn't know if our temp was reading right so we got a digital one.. did a 50% WC and added a tablet that was supposed to help get the tank ready for new fish waited a week and we just got 4 guppies, found 1 dead this a.m. when we were acclimating them the bag fell over and he fell out but i got him up pretty quickly and back in the water.. I thought SW was supposed to be harder to keep fish! im using RO water so i know its not the water, what could i be doing thats killing the fish?!
Some cycle stuff? Which cycle stuff are you talking about? If you want some good beginner information, I always send the freshwater noobs to my site linked in my profile. It has some basic set up information and what exactly you need for a freshwater tank. Might help to read it over if you're not familiar with freshwater set ups. From what you say, it sounds like you made a few noob errors. 
Pure RO water isn't generally the best thing for freshwater. As it has no buffering capacity, it often has pH swings.
A mix of 50 percent dechlorinated tapwater and 50 percent RO water would work. I generally use dechlorinated tapwater for my freshwater fish.
Did you test for ammonia or nitrites? Both are poisonous to freshwater fish. It sounds like your tank hasn't cycled.
A mix of 50 percent dechlorinated tapwater and 50 percent RO water would work. I generally use dechlorinated tapwater for my freshwater fish.
Did you test for ammonia or nitrites? Both are poisonous to freshwater fish. It sounds like your tank hasn't cycled.
yep, your tank obviously hasnt cycled. Those guppies are probably gonna die unless you keep up with the waterchanges to make sure the ammonia doesnt get too high. You cant do this now because you have fish in the tank, but what you could have done to cycle the tank was use pure ammonia. Use about 4-5 drops of the pure ammonia to get the levels in your tank to about 4-5ppm of ammonia. Keep testing every day and when the ammonia level drops over the next few days, put some more pure ammonia to get the level up to 4-5ppm. Keep doing this for as long as it takes until the tank can absorb that 4-5ppm of ammonia in 24hrs or less.
Thats how i have done it and it has always worked but its too late now unless you take back the fish
Thats how i have done it and it has always worked
but its too late now unless you take back the fish