What kind of fish can I keep in a pair in a ten gallon, freshwater tank?

Question

I'd like to get more fish before the new school year starts. I have a 10 gallon tank with four fish;2 cherry barbs and 2 bronze cory. What else can I buy that I need only to be in a pair and are easy to breed?

Answer 1

As Copperhead already said, both the corys and the barbs should be in larger groups. You would probably get the most enjoyment from just enlarging these two schools. If you really feel the need to add something different, perhaps try the albino cherry barb or a different color of cory. I'm not sure if the barbs will school between cherry and albino cherry, just that they have the same temperament. The cories should school though.

If you feel the need to get something completely different, perhaps go with swordtails. These peaceful fish are proliferative breeders but still very attractive and come in many varieties. I'm rather fond of the neon swordtails myself.

Answer 2

I would have to agree with the previous poster about the Platies.

Also, buy some aquatic plants; hornwort is great and it grows really fast. So you can clip a couple inches off the top every few weeks and replant it around your tank's perimeter. Frill and Java Fern are great plants as well. Although Hornwort is the best plant for breeding.

You also should keep your tank at 78-79 degrees and feed your fish frozen bloodworm and brine shrimp (1 cube per feeding is plenty for more than 4 fish). Those all help females breed. I don't know how that works but it works.

Mickey Mouse platies or sunburst platies are fun. So are Zebra Danios (very energetic fish!! i.e "dither fish" that will coax more shy fish out to swim with everyone else).

Tiger Barb fish are okay too since you already have some barb fish they should be fine.

The platies will definitely breed if you get a male and female. I have a group of mickey mouse platies and three weeks ago, two of the females birthed a TON of fry (babies), which they ate some of. But I have 16 platie fry in my tank that hide in the hornwort plant and are doing well so far.

If you do get platies...you should buy some hornwort for your 10 gallon tank. Plus, all fish LOVE hornwort b/c they sleep in it, breed in it (the females will hang out at the top by the heater first, then sit on the bottom of your tank for a few days right before they give birth - they are livebearers meaning the males fertilize the eggs inside them and they actually give birth to swimming baby fry). But platies are not parenting fish. They will eat the fry who can't dash to the hornwort quick enough. But they can give birth to up to 20 fry. Believe me. I have a tank full of fry now.

Answer 3

I like the little live bearers and I keep those in a smaller tank. The fancy guppies are fine in there, mollies, and platy's all do well. Right now I am running an 8 gallon with 3 pregnant guppies and two swordtails. They are also a live bearer. They eat the babies when they have them but they are fun to watch and I have another small aquarium that I fish baby into to live until they get bigger if I want to dink around with them. Just wanted to add the ten gallon is just fresh water. If your doing salt water I find the smaller size kind of hard to moderate to keep anything alive and I don't mess with salt tanks.

Answer 4

Guppies, platies, and swordtails are easy to breed, and even corys are known to spawn in aquaria.

Both your barbs and corys should be in larger groups - both are schooling fish and the barbs should be in groups of 6+, the corys 3+.

Answer 5

stick to the barb family there are many different colorful types

Answer 6

Dwarf Gouramis, they will require similar water parameters and they make cool bubble nests!

Nosoop4u

Answer 7

fancy fish, gold fish and minows