# 10 gallon stocking plan



## Lonely Dragon (Mar 28, 2013)

So I plan on setting up one of my old 10 gallon tanks again. I know there's not a whole lot I can do with it, but I think this might work...

* 7-9 ember tetras
* 3 ADFs
* 1 mystery snail
* 1 female betta
OR
* 1 female dwarf gourami (if I found one)
OR
* 3 platies

I'm leaning towards one centerpiece fish instead of the platies but not sure. I would have live plants, heater, filter, etc.

So what do you guys think? Would these fish work together in a 10 gallon?


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## Amberjp (Apr 28, 2016)

" 7-9 ember tetras
* 3 ADFs
* 1 mystery snail
* 1 female betta" You would be *way* overstocked(%169), even doing 7-9 tetras your stocking levels would be %53-%59

Use this AqAdvisor - Intelligent Freshwater Tropical Fish Aquarium Stocking Calculator and Aquarium Tank/Filter Advisor to determine on the stocking levels, I would only do either the tetras by themselves or the female by herself, it's not guaranteed that they will all get along and although not all tetras are fin nippers there are exceptions.


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## Lonely Dragon (Mar 28, 2013)

How did you get the stocking % you did? I got 82% adding them all in...


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## fernielou (May 19, 2015)

I'm going to go ahead and advise you NO on the platies. If you get a female (or even all females) you will end up with a fry nightmare. Even if you get 3 males, they are piggies and poop accordingly. They are a dirty little critter.

Mystery snails take up like 2 gallons easy (they poop a lot and some advisor sites treat them like a lower bioload item than they really are).

I don't know about ADF but thought about it. I decided no because you have to work to hard to get them to eat and since kids sometimes feed for me it's not gonna happen.


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## fernielou (May 19, 2015)

mystery snails are pomacea diffusa - that could make a difference. Not sure.


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## Amberjp (Apr 28, 2016)

I did 7 ember tetras, 1 female betta, 1 mystery snail & 3 Threadfin acana. I now realized what my mistake was, I didn't know that ADF stood for african dwarf frog and when I put it into the search, only two options came up, my bad lol


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## fernielou (May 19, 2015)

put in mystery snail and if it lets you have more than 5 it's not a good stocking calculator


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## Lonely Dragon (Mar 28, 2013)

6 mystery snails came up as 64% stocked. Are there any other online stocking calculators? This is the one I always see referenced.


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## fernielou (May 19, 2015)

Mystery snail sites will say 4 to a gallon. I think that's a but strict, but 10 would be too much for sure, keeping in mind that's adults, 10 golf all sized machines of poop


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

Sorry. but this is going to be a bit long:

Your stocking is fine. You could even add another couple of ADF if you wished as they have the bioload of a Tetra. As far as being hard to feed, I'm beginning to think that's pretty much a myth. I've had them for several years with Betta and other fish and have never experienced the problems people claim. Most seem to think frozen Bloodworms are their only food; it's not. There are soft Frog and Tadpole Bites which most fish won't touch; just use a feeding dish so they can find them. And when feeding Bloodworms all you need is a pair of *straight* planting tongs to target feed. This is an example: 

Fish Tank Tongs 10" Aquarium Stainless Steel Live Plant Tank Tweezers Key Ring | eBay

Target feeding makes them more personable and less shy. Don't feed freeze dried anything; give them a hide and they're fine. Mine are on sand substrate. My only suggestion if you decide on a Betta would be to get either a Plakat or female as ADF are terribly near-sighted and *can* mistake long, flowing fins for food. If you are in the US I have an excellent source of healthy ADF that don't need quarantining. I have two that are three and three that are two years old.

Ember Tetra are tiny so a shoal of the size you want will be fine in a 10. Mystery Snails can get the size of a golf ball. Thanks to KitKat67 I have a healthy one in each of my tanks from 5.5-20.

Aqadvisor is extremely conservative and is only meant as a guide and not as the be all, end all of stocking advice. As long as you have plenty of filtration the footprint of a 10 is fine for what you want. FWIW I ran two filters rated for 20 gallons in my 10 for three reasons: It allowed me to overstock bioload-wise, if one filter conked out I still had a cycled one as back up and if I decided to set up another aquarium I had a cycled filter ready to go. If you decide on only one filter get one that is recommended for 20 gallons or more; do not go with one that says it for up to 10 gallons.

I do suggest if you do a fish-in cycle do it with either the Betta or Gourami before adding the other residents. I only do fish-in cycling and use Seachem Stability. It is a great product because when you add new residents you dose Stability to help maintain the cycle.

And, lastly, if you do regular maintenance water changes and have proper filtration bioload is not a problem. Snails of any size will poop a lot; it's up to us to make sure it is regularly removed.

Good luck and keep us posted. It's going to be a lovely and interesting tank.


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