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Hey all,

I'm thinking about asking for a small tank for xmas, I dunno what size (anything from a 5 to a 12 gallon). If I were to get a tank of about this size for my empty side table-top, and I were interested in guppies (or platys, even, if I could get a better idea of what they were like), what would I need to know? I don't want to buy fish that won't be happy in that size tank, but that is all I have room for.

I love this hobby, and I want to learn all I can before before diving in again. How many fish can comfortably enjoy a smaller tank, what fish are hardy enough for a smaller tank, and what else do I need to know?

Something else I wanted to mention:

As much joy as it would bring, I don't want to be breeding any fish, so I would probably want to go with an all-male tank, right? If I were to get an all male tank, would there be any major fighting involved?

Hi there,
depending on tank size, guppies could be an option.
In my experience, male guppies kept with no females
around will fight. When I did this, several times,
I ended up with 1 nice male with perfect fins, and
all the rest with none.
For that reason, I chose instead to do all female
guppies, who get along great, dont nip each other,
and who these days look pretty darn good too!

In a 5g tank, you could keep 2 guppies maximum.
In a 10g tank - 4-5.
In a 12 - 6 maybe if there is live plants.

Platys are just like guppies, but hardier, easier to keep,
and quite a big larger.
They dont give birth to as many fry or as often,
and males tend to not fight amongst themselves.
If you wanted to keep Platys, you would need a minimum
of 10g, and could not keep females. Females grow up to 3x
larger than male platys.
Males dont fight like guppies do.

Another option is the Endlers livebearer. These guys are
small (about 1 inch), and you could probably keep 3-5 males in a 5g tank.
They dont fight like male guppies do either.

One final option is the Mosquito fish, or least killifish,
a tiny little livebearing fish. You could stock 5 per gallon of these, so a 5g tank would not be overstocked
with 20-25 of these miniscule fish.


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males usually only fight if the ratio of male-female is 2:1 or 4:2...etc, you get it, if theres ALL males there shuoldnt be a problem