10 gallon tank...

Does anyone know anything about tropical fish?

I had a 10 gallon tank that used to have orchids in, but my masdie died (my husbands fault grrrrr) so I filled the tank with water and got some spongebob decorations lol, put a filter in it and it has been sitting for about a month with nothing (kind of forgot about it). I have a covered hood with really nice bulbs for growing med to high level light plants (assuming this would work for aquatic plants as well)

Anyways the goal is to use the fish water from water changes to water my orchids with (so I can stop collecting rain water which is a pain in the winter time)

I don't have a heater, but I want live plants in the tank and some fish or something to make the water good and dirty for my orchids.

I was just reading about letting the tank "cycle" by getting 2 starter fish and letting the natural bacteria build up for 6 weeks before adding others. But whats a good combination for a 10 gallon tank with no heater?

Something fun for the kids and easy for me.

I was thinking guppies or frogs but IDK... any ideas?

mcpug wrote:

Does anyone know anything about tropical fish?

I had a 10 gallon tank that used to have orchids in, but my masdie died (my husbands fault grrrrr) so I filled the tank with water and got some spongebob decorations lol, put a filter in it and it has been sitting for about a month with nothing (kind of forgot about it). I have a covered hood with really nice bulbs for growing med to high level light plants (assuming this would work for aquatic plants as well)

Anyways the goal is to use the fish water from water changes to water my orchids with (so I can stop collecting rain water which is a pain in the winter time)

I don't have a heater, but I want live plants in the tank and some fish or something to make the water good and dirty for my orchids.

I was just reading about letting the tank "cycle" by getting 2 starter fish and letting the natural bacteria build up for 6 weeks before adding others. But whats a good combination for a 10 gallon tank with no heater?

Something fun for the kids and easy for me.

I was thinking guppies or frogs but IDK... any ideas?

I'd go with goldfish as they are pretty hardy... fantails are beautiful and come in many colors. From my experience which is limited, but I did manage to keep a tank of fish tropical healthy for 5 years, so that's not bad, tropicals need heated water, guppies and goldfish don't if you don't want to heat. A Plecostomus, algae control, is always really handy to put in the tank also.

before you put anything in the tank that you really want to keep put in some small feeder fish(they most likely will die) but they get the levels right and some bacteria
in the tank before you put in your keepers

I ended up going all out and buying a master test kit, cycled the water with some tetras and then yesterday got some balloon mollies (thought they were cute and the kids would like them which they do)

Anyways one just gave birth to about 30 babies.... oye vey

what do I do with the babies?