My son has been given a small tank, 30 litre (6.6gallons). He has a pump and thermostat and water treatments. My question is what would be the best fish for such a small tank? Maybe a few norms and a couple of catfish or just a few guppies?
I don’t know much about tropical fish so any help appreciated.

For such a small tank I’d say guppies, start of with 2 or 3 until the tank is fully cycled. Guppies prefer hard water so if you live in a soft water area then speak to a your LFS and maybe choose something else which is better suited.

Tetra’s, Danio’s, Guppies. You could get a Plec, although they can get fairly large. All are easy to keep and wont attack each other. A couple of clown loach maybe, they can chase fish sometimes, but usually fine. Siamese fighting fish would brighten it up, but be careful with Barbs as they can nip the fins.

Obviously not all of above at one time! 1 Plec and 5-6 of above.

Guppies wouldnt be my choice! The males are the colourful ones and so might be prefered.
If you have one male / two female then you’ll soon have 100 guppies.
If you have two male / one female then you’ll soon have 100 guppies and a very stressed female.
If you have three males then they will all fight.

Small Tetras of some description would be better. Single species, at least six.

Please cycle the tank properly before adding fish, which will take around a month. If you don’t know what this means then please don’t do anything else before reading up on this

superfli – Member

Tetra’s, Danio’s, Guppies. You could get a Plec, although they can get fairly large. All are easy to keep and wont attack each other. A couple of clown loach maybe, they can chase fish sometimes, but usually fine. Siamese fighting fish would brighten it up, but be careful with Barbs as they can nip the fins.

Obviously not all of above at one time! 1 Plec and 5-6 of above.

No, you cannot have any (commonly available) plec in a 30 litre tank, sorry. Not only size, but they are also massive poo factories!
Also a clown loach is also a massive no-no! Shit me, they get to about a foot long! Min tank size 300L or so!

Also no danios, they require swimming space and a group of 6 or more.

Get a betta splendens and bamboo shrimp or some snails e.g. horned nerites, or a few male guppies.

Betta:

They are characterful fish, making bubble nests and exploring. They will also flare menacingly at any perceived intruders in their territories. 😀
You can only have one in a tank though, they will fight one another to the death, if put in together. Also other fish such as tetras will nip their long flowing fins.

Shrimp….we have 2 wood shrimp who are ace!

I can also confirm the Guppies breed like mad, thankfully we have a number of friends who like taking these of us once they mature enough

Try a siamese fighting fish betta splendens

Really nice looking little fellas and have a great inquisitive personality and quirky behaviour you will find them “sleeping ” in plants etc. They also build nests from bubbles which is a joy to watch too.

Fighters are generally hardy fish and are happy in small spaces in the wild they are found in rice paddies etc low oxygen content water is no issue either as they breathe atmospheric air rather than using gills. Really easy to look after. Limited to a single male though hence the name but you could have a number of females with him, avoid fish that may nip at his fins (rasboras, tetras etc) and have a crew of bottom dwellers like corydoras catfish.

Edit looks like retro beat me to it.

A Betta splendis would be my choice, very nice looking and easy to keep. Otherwise tetra or danios, also look at endlers livebearers, these are interesting. I kept some for a few years in a 30l nano, about 5 fish.

Just re-read my post, and want to make it clear that you can’t have guppies in with a betta, they are either-or! Or you will have a very moody betta 😀

Endlers are also a nice fish as peter has mentioned, and everything spectabilis has said is bob on too.

Also if for some reason you’re not keen on the betta maybe you could get away with some apistogramma type dwarf cichlids (I’ve kept cichlids of all types for many years, very interesting fish to watch )
apistogramma cacatuoides is a striking looking fish and exhibit the the typical cichlid behaviour.

What’s your water like in your area? Hard, soft? Ph?

Also what is the footprint of the tank? Short and long or tall and narrow?

Go around you your local aquatic shops and ask their advise.

Not all shops have all the fish.

Don’t forget a couple of Corydorus cat fish as well.

Avoid guppies if you have barbs or some tetra’s like Serpea’s.

Look where they swim in the tanks as well, there’s no point having all your fish swimming at the top of the tank if it’s placed low down, so get a mix.

So, I repeat my first point
Go around you your local aquatic shops and ask their advise.

Please don’t cycle the tank with fish in, it’s stressful and cruel to the fish, and as it’s perfectly easy to do chemically, and allows you to fully stock at once, to my mind it makes much more sense.

For fish, for character and fun, see if you can get a couple of pigmy puffers. Heavily plant the tank and use a sandy substrate, and all will be good. Also, you could have a shrimp tank, you’d get a fair few cherry shrimp in there, and they’re fun to watch. Personally, a pair of South American Dwarf Chichlids would be my choice if you have an acidic pH tap water, again heavily planted and with a sandy substrate.

You won’t be able to put enough of a shoaling fish in that size of tank for the group to be happy, so you’ll be better off with 1 or 2 larger fish (large = up to 2-3″!)

Thanks for the replies, all very useful.
The Betta look great, especially as we were hoping to get some live plants. The tank is square. We have used aquasafe and safestart. One concern I have is the pump,which came with the tank. It appears quite strong. We are using an air tube, which is adjustable but there is a swirling around the tank. Would this be a problem for a betta? We do have the option of a spray bar but again this is quite strong and creating a lot of water movement.
Last question, would a betta be ok with one or two small catfish?

One concern I have is the pump,which came with the tank. It appears quite strong. We are using an air tube, which is adjustable but there is a swirling around the tank. Would this be a problem for a betta? We do have the option of a spray bar but again this is quite strong and creating a lot of water movement.
Last question, would a betta be ok with one or two small catfish?

It will probably slow down quite a bit as it gets filled with crud anyway (assuming it’s a filter, not just a pump). Without seeing the tank it’s hard to know for sure though. Good that you’re having live plants though, as they will often chill on a leaf out of the current. 8)

What catfish are you considering? As I say IMHO, plec = no. Whiptail = no. Corydoras = maybe if you have sand substrate. No if you have even remotely sharp gravel as it may erode their barbels when they snuffle about 🙁 It’s a maybe with sand as ideally they want to be in large groups as they are quite sociable, but then you’d need a larger tank. Might be alright in a smaller group though. 🙂 They are really cool to watch.

Another vote for a betta and some shrimp. Good looking fish, and the shrimp are cool.

Don’t get guppies, I made that mistake (albeit in a bigger tank) and now I’ve got 100s of the little buggers.

Betta like still waters so you’ll need slow down the flow rate, this will happen with time as the filter media becomes clogged up but experiment with the positioning of the pump outlet to make it less aggressive and look at decorating the tank with bogwood etc so that it stems the flow creates still spots.

Small catfish ( corydoras, corys) will be fine they’ll keep themselves to themselves at the bottom where as the betta will be in the upper portion.

Yeah plec’s do shite a long trail! My clown loaches only got to about 2 inches? That was in a 4-5ft long tank. Same with a mates tank. Mind you, reading online it does suggest they get pretty large!

Just don’t get any fish from pets at home…
I have a pair of bristlenoses in my tank, that will not stop breeding.
I took one of the broods to the fish shop, 33 babies and they gave me £6.. not worth the hassle.
so they either survive or get eaten by my Bolivian rams.. it’s a fish fat fish world.

If I had a small tank, I’d probably put 4 or 5 Tetras in it, along with some Decent plants..

Oh yes and as mentioned above please be careful of where you buy from or ask advice at, there are some terrible pet shops around Pets at Home being among the worst (for fish at least)

Whereabouts are you?

Absolutely no point keeping female guppies unless you plan to breed guppies as the females look dull. A 30 litre tank would happily accommodate 5 or 6 male guppies and there are a lot of different guppy colours available which will give good variety for your tank. Speak to your LFS

My son is keen to try the betta option, with a couple of corydoras. We have seen some shrimp and a good selection of plants at a local shop so will ask there. We have moved the pump/filter and the water movement is more settled.
Thanks for the help everyone. lets hope we won’t be having to flush the loo too often.

corydoras shouldnt be kept in just twos! At least six. They aren’t ‘typical’ catfish but are a shoaling species

edit: do more research before anything else

roper – Member

My son is keen to try the betta option, with a couple of corydoras. We have seen some shrimp and a good selection of plants at a local shop so will ask there. We have moved the pump/filter and the water movement is more settled.
Thanks for the help everyone. lets hope we won’t be having to flush the loo too often.

Cool, enjoy! 8) Corys prefer to be in groups as I mentioned, but they might be fine as a small group of 2 or 3.

Just make sure to cycle the tank first as somebody mentioned.

If you’re using a product rather than doing a proper fishless cycle, my suggestion would be to use the Seachem one (Stability I think?) or Tetra SafeStart as these are known and proven to work. Follow the instructions to the letter!

Also you cannot use those products within 24 hours or so of using water conditioners which detoxify ammonia, e.g. Prime, StressCoat+ etc as it stops them working.

Finally I suggest you should also buy an API Master Test Kit. Use it to test ammonia and nitrite (not nitrate – which is not critical for those species). If you ever read anything other than 0 on either ammonia or nitrite, you must do a large water change immediately. Even if the fish don’t die, it can burn their gills. 🙁 Check once a day until you get consistent 0,0 readings.

Not very trendy but I really like white cloud mountain minnows, they are very active in the top of the water and love swimming around in the stream from the filter. Also very hardy. As above avoid plecs unless you have a massive tank, I inherited one and it went back to the fish shop at 10″ and still growing…