dangerflower

Pygmy corys are the best fit for a 10 gallon but they aren't a great fit to house with a betta. They can be skittish and shy (mine are, at least) and they prefer cooler temps and stronger flow than bettas. Same for most corys. Sterbai corys are happy at warmer temps and they're super cute! But too big for a 10 gallon, I think. Another issue with bettas in community tanks is that they love to steal food. I recently had a betta get sick and pass away after gorging herself on cory pellets 😞 Maybe you could also set up a dedicated 5 gallon for a betta and do your small community set up in the 10 gallon? 😁

Welcome! I'd love to see pictures of your goldfish 😁 I think micro rasboras, like chili rasboras, can make good tank mates as long as your betta isn't too aggressive, because they're very peaceful and tiny enough that you can fit a decent group comfortably in a 10 gallon. But a betta's compatibility with tank mates is always going to come down to the individual's personality, so it's a good idea to have a backup plan.

Thank you @Colu. Unfortunately when I woke up this morning, Teeth had already passed 😞 I will make sure I have those meds on hand for future incidents. Is it possible that overeating could have lead to organ damage that caused the dropsy? It just seems like it had to be related since there was such a direct correlation. I suppose she may have also been stressed by living in the community tank and had a weakened immune system, although I didn't observe any signs of stress. The other tank inhabitants all seem fine but I will definitely double check my parameters.

I don't have a lot of hope for this poor fishy making it through the night unfortunately, but I'm trying to gain some insight into what happened in case I encounter something like this again. I have a betta, named Teeth, who I was trying out housing in my 20 long community tank with sterbai corries and emerald eye rasboras. She's been living in there for maybe two months. She had definitely been snacking on the other fishes' food, which I was concerned about, but I hadn't noticed any weight gain or issues. I typically fast the tank once a week and also feed frozen foods at least once a week. About a week ago, I fed the tank in the evening, including dropping some bottom feeder wafers for the corries, which Teeth does love to steal. The next morning, Teeth was very bloated from apparently gorging herself on cory food. This has happened before, but I've never seen her that bad. Her belly was very round and I noticed a slight pineconing of the scales on her underbelly. Proceeded to begin several days of fasting the tank except for small amounts of frozen daphnia to try to help her system clear out. She did not improve, but was swimming and behaving normally, not showing any signs of lethargy. The pineconing increased, and by yesterday she was fully pineconed all over. I did an Epsom salt dip yesterday and saw no improvement. Today I came home from work and found her lethargic at the bottom of the tank, barely able to move. Still bloated, still pineconed. Tried another Epsom dip. I've got her isolated in a breeder box in the tank for comfort. I have a hospital tank ready but I fear she's too far gone for meds 😞 What happened here? Obviously it looks like a case of dropsy but there was such an obvious connection with her overeating the cory pellets. Can gastrointestinal distress lead to dropsy? Is there anything I should try to do for this fish at this point? Thanks, I appreciate y'all ❤️

The rimless tanks are so nice! Are they only going to be available locally?

I recently got a group of one of my wish list fish - sterbai corys - and I love them so much! I would love to try keeping rams someday, especially electric blue rams. I also want to keep some sort of wild betta eventually. Betta hendra seem really cool, and they're endangered in the wild so breeding them in captivity is beneficial to keeping the species going. I also really want a nice big school of green neon tetras at some point. I was going to get them for my 20 long but my lfs was out of stock and I went with a different schooling fish. My biggest fish dream, if I ever have a yard, is to build a goldfish pond.

That looks so good! I love this style of stand, so simple and sturdy. The way you finished it looks really nice.

I usually rinse them to remove any debris, then boil for 20 minutes, discard that water, and rinse again. Then depending on how much control I want over the tint, I'll either steep them in some warm dechlorinated water for a bit (to release some tannins, and then I can decide how much of that tinted water to add), or just toss them right into the tank.

So sorry you're going through this 😞 how long has the tank been running and how long have you had the fish? my first thought was that there could have been anaerobic bacteria in your substrate that released toxins when you moved that driftwood. Have you noticed any bad smells coming from the tank?

Oh wow, I did not realize that cory barbels could get that big 😍 they're so cute! Good to hear about your experience with BDBS. I have a bag that I got a while back that I've been afraid to use.

The danio / pygmy cory tank is looking so good and lush! I'm working on setting up a 10 gallon pygmy tank as well and I'm pretty excited for it.

I love sparkling gouramis so much! I have a small group in my 20 gallon long and I really wish they were doing better. In the year that I've had them, two have died from what seemed to be digestive issues / bloat, I think from stress 😕 I wound up with mostly males and they do get territorial with each other. I'm actually thinking of shuffling some fish around and moving mine into an established 10 gallon tank and keeping them in a species only situation. The smaller tank size is maybe not ideal but that tank is more densely planted so might be more comfortable for them. I have a school of emerald eye rasboras living with them in the 20 long and those guys are too boisterous for the gouramis. Before the one female of the group died, mine were almost constantly spawning! But I didn't have any luck keeping the fry alive. They're very tiny and don't go for powdered fry food. I did have two randomly survive on their own in the tank though, and now I have two adolescent sparklers who are very adorable.

I've been away from the forum for a but, trying to get back into the habit of checking and posting again. Unfortunately I have some sad news to share, belatedly. I haven't really had the heart to post about it until now. Sweet Doctor Sparkles passed away on April 21st. His health declined suddenly and unexpectedly -- he was fine in the morning, and when I came home from work that afternoon, he was on the bottom of the tank, barely alive, unable to swim at all. I'm really not sure what happened, and it was definitely a shock. I had just recently finished re-scaping his tank and was excited to share it with you all. He only got about a month in the new set up before he passed. I hope the stress of the change didn't cause his health to fail, but he seemed comfortable in the new tank. I learned a lot because of this little fish. I wish I had posted about him more here, but I'm grateful to you all on this forum for sharing these snippets of his life. This is the last photo I ever took of him, hanging out in his new betta tube that he absolutely loved. And here's him checking out the new tank set up. Swim in peace, little buddy. 💔

Got it, thanks everyone! Is it recommended to reduce feeding while treating with this medication, to help starve the parasites? I know that's usually recommended with paracleanse. A few of these fish are looking so skinny that the idea of not feeding makes me nervous. Haha, good to know! I had already added the first dose by the time I saw this and I probably did not shake it enough, whoops. I think I did like a 30 second shake.

I'm trying to use PraziPro to treat some suspected internal parasites in my ricefish that I keep in an outdoor 20 gallon mini pond. Since they live outside, they're generally more susceptible to parasites, and I've seen some white poop and also a few of them are looking thin or stunted. The directions on the bottle of PraziPro are somewhat vague, and I've been searching around the internet and the forum for clarification and coming up with some conflicting info, so I thought I'd ask how folks here prefer to use this medication. I've only used Paracleanse in the past. The directions I'm seeing seem to suggest both that a single dose/treatment should go for 5-7 days, and that the water should be dosed again every 72 hours. 🤔 I just don't want to under- or over-medicate. How often do you wait between doses? How many treatments are necessary to fully eradicate internal parasites? I know with paracleanse you do at least two treatments two weeks apart to account for any new parasite eggs that have hatched, and since they are similar medications, I would have expected something similar with prazipro. Thanks in advance!

My thoughts exactly 😱😱 Thanks for the replies, everyone! No more chillies have gotten stuck so far so hopefully this was just a freak incident. The nylon stocking idea is really smart!

I just moved a group of chilli rasboras out of quarentine and into my 20 gallon today. A few hours later I was checking on them and noticed that one of them was stuck in one of the sponge filters. I use ACO course sponge filters. The poor little guy had wedged his head in there and gotten stuck in a little loop of plastic around his head. I tried to cut him free but I wasn't able to, and he didn't make it. 😞 Now I'm really worried that more of them are going to meet the same fate, and I'm wondering if I'm going to need to switch to fine sponges. I was running a coarse sponge in the quarantine tank without issue. Was this just a freak accident? Has anyone ever had this happen with a course sponge filter and tiny fish?

Ooh, being better at keeping up with ferts is definitely a priority for me. I want to try growing more crypts and maybe buce, as well as get some more anubias since I lost most of mine a while back to anubias rot. I'm going to be converting one of my existing 10 gallons to a botanical style tank, so more low light plants will be my focus. I'd also really like to keep some moss alive. And get my dwarf hardy water lilly in my mini pond to bloom this summer.

My phone really can't do macro photos well but if you look closely there's a baby! I can only see a few around the tank today, so I guess the adults have been snacking. They're already free swimming. I'm going to have to let the floating plants grow out of control so I don't accidentally scoop up any fry.

I didn't have time to try to take a picture but I was checking on the tank before leaving the house for the evening and saw something unfamiliar wriggling amongst the floating plants - there's fry in there!! My sparklers have spawned, apparently 😍 I was not expecting this and have zero idea how to care for them! Might just leave them be and see how they do, and start doing some research so I'm better prepared for future batches. Does anyone here have experience with sparkling gourami fry?

Invictus! He looks so good!! 😍🥺 I love his name. You've done such an amazing job nursing these sweet buddies back to health.

Thank you so much ☺️ Almost forgot to update, last weekend I went to the Wet Spot and picked up 10 chili rasboras who will eventually be added to the tank! I had to wait a while to get any more fish because I basically had to re-cycle my quarantine tank. I'm just letting the chilis hang out and relax in quarentine for the first week but I'm going to start their med trio treatment soon. They are so cute and they're even starting to color up a little already! I'm very surprised that they aren't shy at all. I think they're going to look great in this tank 😁 Not a great photo but here they are while they were drip acclimating:

How does he interact with the white clouds? Is he aggressive toward them, or seem scared of them, or does he mostly ignore them? That could clue you in to whether or not they are a source of stress. Do you have any floating plants? Those often make bettas feel more secure, and they would block out some of the light and maybe allow you to keep using your plant light. I really like using frozen foods to give my betta some enrichment. Frozen daphnia is great and good for their digestive systems too. It floats in the water column for a while so he can kind of 'hunt' for it which might provide some entertainment for him.

I feel you. I found one of my medaka dead a few weeks ago and I'm so paranoid about leaving them outside now 😞 last year I heated the pond but I really wanted to try not doing that this year since they are supposed to do just fine in the cold. I think letting them acclimate to room temp in a bucket over the course of the day or maybe overnight sounds like a good plan for bringing them in. You could also try to insulate the pond - covering the top with clear plastic (like a piece of acrylic or something) or even bubble wrap can help hold some heat in there.

I have two 10 gallons, a 20 gallon long, and two 20 gallon outdoor mini ponds. And a 5 gallon qt that will be running for a while while I stock the 20 gallon. It's too many and not enough at the same time 😅😅