Bought an aquarium

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I bought a nice little 10 gallon aquarium today, it's pretty neat since it uses aquaponics as part of the filtration which is something I've always wanted to try, I'm going to plan the tank out for a while and plant it naturally as well before I add fish. I use to have a big 55 gallon tank back when I was a teenager, kind of crazy how big that was in retrospect but it's decent hobby altho still not a particularly social one. Still, I think being able to care for something and have life to look at in any form is therapeutic in a way even if it is fish.

I also got a betta that I liberated from Wal Mart in lil tank on the side that I found in the box at a thrift store the other day, keep my tied over until my tank is planted. It's orange kind of like a goldfish, I pick him since it was the only one that was that color. I was actually thinking one of the possibilities for the tank is to have a betta sorority tank since female bettas can be kept together without killing each other. I always hate seeing this fish in this little containers at the store, it's seems cruel and I imagine not as many people get the females which while not having the extravagant fins or colors is still an attractive fish I think so it would be interesting concept for a tank.

So is there anybody else into this and have a tank of their own or have a concept for you? There is a learning curve to setting up a tank, you can't just throw fish together in a tank without knowing what you're doing or I guess you can but they just might all die, I'll try to answer to the best of my abilities if anybody has a question. I've been out of the hobby for at least 5 years now, I've been really trying to bust out of this rut over the holidays as I'm sure many are and perhaps returning to an old interests of mine will help. I've also been cooking and baking in particular more too, I use to cook for my family but it's hard to cook for yourself and especially so when you're not a huge eater to begin with but it was something that I did enjoy doing and took pride in. Just trying to keep myself occupied until school starts again, the ending of routine and starting something else is always very stressful for me and idle hands & idle mind are a bad recipe for me.

I can't wait to see pictures of your fish.

I bet Waldo would just love your fish tank, Mr. J! Tell me something, I've heard the fish that people have in those large aquariums end up dying when the electricity goes out. Is that true? If so, then why can a goldfish live in a bowl without any electricity?

It's the fish not the tank, goldfish are carp that can basically live in a muddy puddle. Most aquarium fish are tropical so they can only live within a certain temperature range and need water circulation and oxygen in the water to live, a lot of these fish that are sold are really inappropriate for the tank(mixing fast/slow, ones that need different water conditions, or are very aggressive) so people need to research and plan out what fish you want ahead of time.

I want to make this a planted tank with natural substrate, I had plants in my big tank but they weren't planted and just kind of freely grew. Going to take awhile to set up, I'll post a couple pictures soon.

I've certainly enjoyed mine.Right now I have downsized from a thirty gallon to a ten becuse the tank was around 12 years old and I was worried about it springing a leak.Later I hope to get one of the newer acrylic one piece ones that never leak.So all that's in my little tank right now are a bristle nose albino pleco and an albino clawed African frog.
I have duckweed in mine and an oxygenating plant.The only problem I've had with live plants was dead leaves clogging my filtration system.When I get the new tank there will be more plants added.
Since the power can go out here for long period of times I just stick to fish that can take an unheated tank.The water plants take care of the oxygen and suck up the nitrates if the power fails.
So later on I will add a few of the fancy goldfish to the new tank.Maybe a Corey Cat,from what I've read they don't need a heater.
A pat on the back for rescuing the Betta.One time I was in Malwart and the fish in the little containers were low on water.So I just opened Wally worlds bottle of Betta water and filled the containers up.Then I found WM associates to b***h at about it.

Wow, Walmart still sells fish? I thought that would've been enough money down the drain for them to stop. All of the Walmarts here have since stopped that, which is good news for the fish. It's been a long while since I've had any, and these days, my 5-, 10-, and 20-gallon tanks sit empty in my room.

I was never been able to keep pleco, I always thought they were cool looking with their armored they'd always died on me but I was probably never taking care of them right. When I had got my big tank back when I was young teen I had set it up originally iirc with a bunch of tiger barbs, tetra, dojo loaches, and a rainbow shark, so it was a pretty fast moving somewhat aggressive tank.

I had put in java moss and those Japanese moss balls, the java moss really will go out of control if you let it and I believe it was what brought along these little snails with it which you don't mind at first but they multiply like crazy and were kind of the bane of my existence with that tank since they'd clog stuff up. In retrospect I didnt have the right substrate for the loaches but they are pretty hardy and I think they were able to reproduce even. The java moss was pretty nuts since it would take over the tank but I don't think the fish minded that much since the barbs reproduced a bunch in it. I was good taking care of the tank up until my late teens and by that time those fish were pretty old so I must of been doing something right, it got kind of overgrown and boggish with not so great filtration due to snail invasion but I think snails do filtering themselves so maybe I created a little ecosystem.

10 gallons is kind of limiting in the type of fish you can get and I had originally wanted a bigger one but after getting the little gallon betta tank(I was reading that this was too small even but I had already bought the set up for $5 and life in a gallon tank certainly beats life in those plastic containers I think. I don't know how they keep those fish, do they just keep them in those containers until they get sold or die? I had actually put a betta in that big tank of mine which was not a good fit with so many nippers but there was enough foliage and hiding spots that it did fine.

I think pleco can be very sensitive to what's in the water.I had two huge ones years ago in my thirty gallon.I was using an aqua clear filtration system and wanted to go to a bigger unit and bought a penguin instead.Big mistake,both my pleco died soon after.The aqua clear had several pouches and a sponge in its system,a chemical pack and charcoal.All the penguin had was a slide in charcoal filter and a stupid bio wheel.Then I lost one of the frogs.All of them were around six years old,no change except the filter system.So I went back to an aqua clear.I have my own water,which I think is good for the pleco.There used to be snails in my tank but they have all disappeared.Im pretty sure the frog is eating them.The frog will eat anything it can fit into its mouth,another reason I'll just go with a few chunky goldfish that he can't gulp down.Its an old frog,he's around twelve now.
I always feel bad about the Bettas,they seem to be sold as disposable pretty toys instead of living beings.It makes me depressed to see them in those little tiny cups.
A project I will be doing next is replanting one of my vivariums the fire belly toad inhabits.It needs a water area and a planted area.Ive got some new plants to add that should do better a tank than the previous ones.Ive seen some amazing photos of vivariums that blow mine away.Waterfalls,exotic plants,the works.

My Walmart had aquarium stuff when I was young but that was a long time ago. The stock was always sickly and the area was filthy. But it was fun watching the tank of salamanders.

Looks like its still a common problem:
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/walmart.html

Here's only the 1 right now. I still haven't my new tank set up, just sitting empty. Been a hectic month, hoping to get started soon.

We used to own neon tetras. Unfortunately there was a problem with the filter and they all died

Check your filter regularly!

That Betta is a beautiful color,never seen one like it.Makes me want to get another one.

I would love to keep a tank full of fish.
BUT
-I would not want them all to die if the electricity were to go out.
-I have no idea which fish are hardy/easy to keep and fun to look at.
-I would have no clue at all what size tank or what sort of filter they would need.
-I would not know how to clean an aquarium.
-I would not know what to put in the aquarium besides water.
-I would not know how to pick out compatible fish.
-I am sure I would miss or not even consider some detail related to fish out of sheer ignorance

I wonder if I could pay someone to set that up for me. Hmmm...

oh you definitely could pay somebody to set it up

decide how big you want your tank to be or what specific fish you want to keep, I'll tell you what I know if you want

Any idea where I could find someone? This definitely seems like a weirder/more specialized request than the usual TaskRabbit or Craig's List post. I'd hesitate to ask at a pet store since I'd probably end up buying stuff I don't need.


That's why I'd need a sort of aquarium landscaper person for this. The only fish I've ever kept is a goldfish. I always did enjoy office aquariums and home aquariums of the parents of friends though. I know just enough to know that I'd have no idea what I was doing if I tried to do it myself. That's what would motivate me to pay someone else to figure it out for me and educate me enough to keep the fish alive. I appreciate the offer though.

Happy to hear you saved a Betta OP. It is a myth that they are happy in those small cups. In the wild they would have huge amounts of water. They can survive in puddles in droughts but it's not meant to be a long term thing. They can also live together if you give each one enough territory. Of course in the store when they are so close to each other they are always mad. It's just animal cruelty and I hate it.

I have kept tropical fish before and the power would have to be out for so long that water temperature dropped a lot. I had a few power outages and they were fine. The thing to worry about is when there is no power there is no filtration in the tank. But even then it would several hours or several days to kill fish depending on what type you had and how many you had.

The fish I was into are cichlids. They are a family of predatory fish from The Americas and Africa. Depending on which one you want they can be a 18 inch thing that rams the glass when you walk by and could give you stitches if it catches your hand or more of a community fish. I liked keeping the ones who were only a little mean and smaller. With some cichlids you pretty much need several hundred gallons of water to keep just one or a few because they are so big and mean.

But my fish would still eat feeder goldfish. I only did that one time when I was new to the hobby though. Gold fish are not healthy for them and I felt bad doing it. I know it's nature but I am an animal lover.

I LOVE Plecos and never had any issue keeping them in clean heated water with the cichlids. The main issue was making sure my pleco has a place to hide when he was small. But usually they end up running the tank. Not much is going to bite through that shell and they know it. Also since a pleco is a bottom feeder a lot of fish ignore it since they do not fight for the same territory.

It makes me sad that the Pleco you find at the average Petsmart is the kind that get 2 feet long. There are many of them that are around 4-8 inches and are much better for the small aquariums many people have. You can also pick a much more interestingly colored fish that way. Blue, zebra pattern, all of that stuff but you will pay for them. Anywhere from $50 to thousands of dollars. They do not just eat algae they are bottom feeding catfish and need meat in their diet. I wonder if some people kill theirs because they don't know that. Some eat more algae than others though.