1. cycling the tank: Set up your tank with declorinated water like "Aqua Safe", a filter, a heater, gravel on the bottom, live plants and decorations as you wish and a couple of zebra danios ( they are very hardy fish), get yourself an ammonia, nitrite and nitrate test kit, as soon as your readings of ammonia and nitrite’s are at ’0′, and your nitrates start to raise, you can start adding other fish,
Here is a site that explains it in detail
http://www.firsttankguide.net/cycle.php
http://www.firsttankguide.net/cloudywater.php

2. Do regular waterchanges after you have finished the cycle and you have more fish, the recommendation is a partial waterchange of 25% weekly with a gravelsiphon

3. Don’t overfeed your fish, only twice a day what they will eat in a period of 3-5 min at each feeding

4. Don’t put your tank near a window where sun gets to eat, that causes algae growth

5. Leave your light ONLY 10-12 hours on during the day and turn it off at night for 12-14 hours (a timer would certainly help)

6. when you buy fish, always check what you get, they are categorized into tropicals, semi-aggressive, aggressive, coldwater fish, always get fish from only one category

7. Good starter fish are for a 10 gallon tank:
6 neon tetras (they are schooling fish)
2 cory doras, like a pepper cory (bottom feeder)
1 male betta OR 3 female bettas (never put 2 males together or male&female)

8. these fish are all tropical and require a temperature of 76-82 degrees, so you will need a thermometer as well to check your temperature

9. A good thing to do is buying an complete aqarium kit, which comes with the tank itself, filter, heater, hood and light bulbs

10. Also after you added fish you have to replace your carbon cartridge every 4-6 weeks

Hope all that info helps
Good luck

w