What are the best types of tropical fish to have in a 4 gallon tank?

Question

I've had tropical fish before but they all ended up dying about a week after I bought them. I over crowded my tank. I need help on what types of fish I should have and how many. Suggestions?

Answer 1

In a 20g, a school of tetras, a school of Cory's or maybe a school of barbs or your choice they all barbs live together.

Answer 2

you could put several dozen neon tetras, school of tiger barbs, I have a school of large Danios, you could do several mollies, several fancy guppies, school of gourmis, I once had sevarl cichlids like 2 kenyi, 2 west african, a snow white; list is endless!

Answer 3

1 Inch of fish for every gallon. Look at the full grown length of each breed of fish. If they get to be 2 inches, you can have 10.  

Answer 4

In a 20g, a school of tetras, a school of corys, maybe some danios, a small pleco such as a clown or bristlenose. And that should be all to stay on the safeside. Or you could try a pair of dwarf cichlids with some dither fish. It all depends on your filtration, get a 40g rated filter to always be safe and not have to worry about overloading your boi capacity.

Answer 5

you can put tetras in it. a nice school of 20 neon tetra (paracheirodon innesi) will be wonderful.

Answer 6

Even in a 20gal tank, think small fish.

Some of the common options are Guppies or platies, neons or other small tetra, smaller peacefull barbs (Golden etc), danios. Bottom dwellers like Cory cats, a Bristlenose Pleco or smaller loaches are good too.

When you restock your tank, take it slow. The tank can support 10 or 20 small fish easily (depends on the fish types and filtration), but it needs to cycle and build up a stable filtration system before that can happen.

Either do a full fishless cycle to establish the filter bacteria, or just add a couple of small hardy fish to get the tank started. Either way way, allow about 6 weeks before the tank is fully stocked, and even then, leave room for the fish to grow.

Ian