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my roomie last year had three tetras in a 6 gallon tank last year, and barely ever fed them at all..sad to say they all died..

but i was wondering if they do in fact make good dorm fishes and what size tank, how many would be good in a group, if they can be different types of tetras...and anything else you can give me would be awesome thanks!

"I'm not a Guppy!" - Flounder

You should consider a 15 US gallon setup to be the minimum that wll accommodate fishes with reasonable ease of maintenance - tank dimensions 24" x 12" x 12". In such a setup, your choices are quite reasonable, particularly if you provide the aquarium with a decent filtration setup.

My Panda Fun Palace (as it's known on this Board) contains quite a menagerie, but then my maintenance schedule takes this into account, and the aquarium receives 50% water changes and deep gravel vacs twice per week because it's heavily stocked. Originally (as of December 2006) the stocking was as follows:

12 Cardinals
12 Panda Corys
4 Otocinclus

While that sounds like a lot of fish in that space, my maintenance regime is such that they can live in there happily. Indeed, the Pandas keep spawning in there (they're infamous for this by the way!) and now I have 14 Pandas instead of 12!

So, you could run with a decent sized shoal of small Tetras (say, 10 Cardinals, 10 Lemons, 10 Rummy Nosed Tetras) and have space for 6-8 small Corys (a good choice would be 8 Corydoras habrosus). The reason I suggest that you have decent numbers of bottom feeders in there relates to this thread and Bruce Moomaw's 'light bulb over the head' moment concerning fish survival in an aquarium without bottom feeders compared to survival in an aquarium with bottom feeders. That thread is very instructive - peruse it at leisure!

If you want something different, try Ember Tetras - they stay very small indeed (4 cm maximum) and in a 15, you could have a shoal of 14 of those and still have space for the Corys I've cited.

If you're willing to run with a larger aquarium (and basically, the rule of thumb is, the larger, the better, as the larger water volume takes longer to pollute and is easier to filter) then the numbers can be increased accordingly.

I'll also point you to a couple of threads of mine that will prove useful - first this thread]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/threads/30758.1.htm?7#[/link] in which I advise fishkeepers to cultivate a GOOD LFS with knowledgeable staff and stock whose health can be determined without needing a tame expert on hand. A good LFS with knowledgeable staff who take care to select decent fishes for sale is worth its weight in gold whatever fish species you decide to keep! Second, [link=this thread in which I advise against the 'pick and mix' approach to fishkeeping, because Tetras in particular are shoaling fishes, should always be kept in a group of at least 6 and preferably more (for that matter the same applies to Corys) and large shoals of a given Tetra species always look better than 'pick and mix' setups in which you only find odd pairs or trios because the fishes are happier. And, one fundamental rule to observe ALWAYS in fishkeeping is that happy fishes look better!

Remember that what you are embarking upon is, within the limitations imposed by space and other constraints, a miniature ecosystem - the integration of living things in a space in which they are expected to live out their lives under your care. This exercise requires advance planning, research, care and attention to detail, and the need to keep the thinking cap on at all times. An aquarium should always be approached by asking yourself the question 'what will make the fishes happy?' as your FIRST question - do this, and most of the rest falls into place for you!

My own personal preference is for 'naturalistic' setups - live plants, natural looking substrates, an absence of those garish plastic toys that to my eyes make an aquarium look as though it's been used for illegal garbage dumping, and static features such as naturally occurring water-weathered rocks and bogwood. Which is how my Panda Fun Palace is set up because live plants and bogwood are the kind of features that would be present in the natural home of the fishes I keep. The proof in my view of the succees of this approach is provided by the fact that my Panda Corys spawn like mad around once per week! And, if you're prepared to put in the effort, you too can enjoy similar success with your fishes. Give your fishes a setup that is planned from the outset to look like a miniature piece of real river, and chances are they'll reward you with sparkling colours, vibrant health, and much better longevity - I've had one Otocinclus catfish live for over nine years in my aquarium!

If you have the space to run with a 29 gallon as your setup, as well as the funds, your options become much broader - you can have two shoals each of 10 Tetras in there along with 10 habrosus Corys or 10 Pandas and 6 Otocinclus without overloading the filtration system. A 29 will be a LOT easier to maintain than a smaller system, and once it's up and running, with some judiciously chosen bogwood pieces (you'll soon learn to home in on the pieces that help to create the 'miniature piece of Amazon in the living room' look - it's a skill we all pick up in time!) and a decent selection of live plants, the result, though it will take time to set up 'bed in' fully, will be an aquarium that won't cause you major maintenance headaches, will hopefully be free of the pestilences that affect all too many badly planned and badly thought out systems, and the fishes in there will be little jewels that will make the effort so worthwhile once you're able to sit back and take a good, long, relaxed look at it.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

wow thanks for all the info!

my only big problem that pretty much limits things...is that in the dorm im in the tank has to be 10g or less......although i was gonna get a 12g and say i didnt know hahahaha

i was looking at something like the nano cube if you know what im talking about?

um also another factor is when i go home, for weekends i can get someone to take care of them but on winter break and all ill have to transport them about an hr and a half north

but i really want a fish, and i dont want to try breeding, at least not yet...

but thanks again for all your help!

"I'm not a Guppy!" - Flounder

Only Tetras I'd recommend for a 10g are Ember Tetras. Because they're amongst the smallest Tetras you can find. You could put 8 of them in a 10G without too much trouble, but then you'd be more or less stocked. Even then, you'll probably be looking at twice weekly water changes and gravel vacs to make sure they stay healthy.

As for feeding over the weekend, live foods are perfect for this. Live Daphnia dropped in the aquarium on Friday evening will keep them happy for the ensuing two days you're away. The advantage of something like live Daphnia of course being that, well, it stays alive until the fish get around to being hungry enough to eat it again.

Trouble with some of the regulations imposed by universities on their hall of residence accommodation is that they're knee-jerk reactions to past stupidity on the part of previous students (like the ones in my old accommodation block that, er, um, forgot to mention that they had venomous snakes as pets) combined with a pants-wetting fear of lawyers and litigation. Unfortunately, common sense tends not to get a look in when those factors are combined. The sensible thing to do, of course, is have someone knowledgeable on the staff to check pet inventories, and the competence of the keepers, but that costs money ... whereas blanket bans and arbitrary regulations that don't take into account the realities of animal husbandry are a lot cheaper, and allow the suits in administration to delude themselves that they're doing their job. Oh, I really must stop wearing the cynic hat so much these days


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002