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This time I'd like to have it planned out far in advance ^^

I was thinking around a 20 gal but I'll say what kind of fish I like and look into recommended sizes, this one I plan to buy with a stand so it can be larger, I just dont want anything that is like 50 gals, thats far too big for me to even fit in ^^

I'd want a total of:
2 Bristlenose catfish
Minimum for a school of bronze/albino cories (if that doesnt work then just the two BNs will be fine)
1 crowntail betta

It's going to be heated. and filtered. with live plants most likely =)


I also plan on stealing some of my smaller tanks substrate to line the bottom of a newer tank thus hopefully help give cycling a good start.

so, any tank size suggestions or possible community ideas for the stock of this future tank? ^^

Also since I really love bottom feeders, whats a good substrate to look into?

If you want to have live plants than you should look into a substance that will support plants. I don't know what size filter you have in the 10 gal tank but if you can use the dirty filter floss from the old tank in the new tank it would be beter, if it doesn't fit cut it so that you can place the dirty filter floss in the new filter. you will get more bacteria transfer that way. If you go to all-glass aquarium site they have a complete listing of tanks and there messurements. A 20 gal tank is nice but it still a little on the small size, myself I would go with 30 to 40 gal. If you have an area where you think you want the new tank measure it and see what size you can fit in there and compare that to the all-glass sizes, than ask you LFS to order that tank for you. A larger tank is not that much more work than a 10 or 20gal as far as maintence, actually I had less problems with larger tanks than the smaller one.. It a been my experience that with larger tank, that in the long run they are less work. Remember in a 20gal tank you will remove 4 gal of water on weekly water changes and on a 30gal it is 6 gallons of water and on a 40gal tank is it 8 gallons. It is a little more carrying of buckets of water but you will have more flexibility in what you stock it with.

Djrichie
"So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" Douglas Adams

I believe a 20g would be sufficient for the fish you are planning, but if you have more space available a biggier tank is always easier to take care of. More stable water conditions. I measured the space available where I planned to put them and put in the biggest size that I could fit there. Let us know how it works out.

29g - 5 Head and Tail Light Tetras, 1 Black Phantom Tetra, 1 melanistius cory, 1 Featherfin Synodontis, 1 otto
29g - 14 harlequin rasboras, 5 albino corys, 3 ottos
10g - 1 glowlight tetra, 2 Black phantom tetras, 1 red betta on entertainment center

Your problem is the bristlenose. Some species can get up to 8" and alot of plecos don't like to share. That means you need something like a 30g long or 40g to have enough substrate area for these fish to coexist on the bottom of the tank. If you only did 1 bn without the bronze cories you could probably keep it in a 20g. 29-30g tanks have the same footprint as a 20g only more height so those wouldn't help you any. A 40long would have the same footprint as a 55 but only shorter in height and would definitely work. You could also include your cories in a tank that size. If you did no other fish besides the bn and betta you could have a nice school of bronze cories, at least 6-8 fish, and probably end up with fry.

According to the profiles here the largest they should get is 15cm isnt it 0_0
Mine maybe 12cms since I've been doing some reading and I'm somewhat sure it's a female ^^

I don't mind having the one BN if that works out for the better.

The largest I can go in length is about 80cms so I'm not sure what the max gallons of that would be, doubt it'd be anything over the 30gals though...

If the corys cannot work in a 20-30gal at all then any other fish mixes would be nice =)

There are multiple ancistrus species that develop the bristlenose appearance. When planetcatfish is back up you can do a search for bristlenose under common names and you'll see several listed. There are a few species on this site: http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/catfish/bristlenose.php

In that space you can do a 20 long or 29g. Unless you find a tank with odd dimensions. You might be able to do 1 bn and 4 bronze cories in a 29g with the betta. Bronze cories get fairly large but they don't require as much company as some of the smaller cories. You could also do 4 of the midsized-smaller loaches that don't get much over 4" instead of cories if you want. I think you're going to find you're trying to stock your bottom level too heavily for the tanks your thinking of. If you had one of the larger breeder tanks you could really stock the bottom and mostly ignore the top but in tanks that are smaller with limited substrate area your going to have trouble. The fish on the bottom are going to be running into each other or arguing while the top looks empty.

well the corys arent a concrete thing I'd want.

More so just the BN and the crowntail are the for sures...

So say I go for the 20 long, the BN and the Betta, what other kind of fishies would you recommened?

Anything other then tetra's are really fine =)