Hello, Newbie & Question

[nushikitty]

Hi there. About six months ago a friend of my husband's was moving and was going to flush his 5 fish because he couldn't be bothered moving them. I was horrified and although I know NOTHING about caring for fish I took the fish and the 10 gallon tank. I did some research, enough to get my tank cycled and bought a test kit. Unfortunately I emptied the tank out completely, scrubbed it down and bought a new filter and new gravel. I found out later that was a bad move . I have lost two of the fish to ich after treating them with something recommended by Petco (can't remember the name right now). A friend recommended this site to me and through doing a search I did find some alternate methods of treating ich which I will bookmark for any future outbreaks. I want to get more fish but I'm not sure how many more would be "humane" to put in a 10 gallon tank. Right now I have two tetras, one is about 2", one is probably a little over 1" and I have an algae eater, not a plecto, the smaller one, don't know it's name? But that guy is about 3". What do you think?

 

[Toam]

could you describe what kind of tetra you have? there are many varieties, and it definitely affects your answer, since a neon tetra, and a white skirt tetra are very different. Is your algae eater golden in color? sometimes known as a chinese or siamese algae eater. The general rule of thumb tends to be 1" of fish per gallon of water, so you could effectively have 10" of fish. If you have a the algae eater I was mentioning he grows to around 4-7" with your tetra's that's fairly close to capacity, but again, depends on your tetra's. Just give a lil more info if possible. or even better, a picture if you have a digital camera.

 

[nushikitty]

I will take a pic tonight. I have NO idea what kind they are. The algae eater is not golden, it is brown. I know I saw others in the pet store last time I was in there so I can stop in and find out the correct name.

 

[FroggyFox]

You could compare your fish to pictures in our profile section to more closely identify what you have? There's a link to it in the upper left hand column of the forum (tab at the top that says profiles)