Any ideas for a tiny tank? (2-5 gallons)
- Thread starter divemaster99
- Start date
Oddly enough, the guest speaker at my local fish club (I'm just going to say LFC from now on) gave a presentation in nano tanks (in which he is pretty well known for) and I learned there are a TON more options than people on the forums suggest. He helped me narrow it down to three setups that could work but it is just personal preference at this point. I'm down to:
1) cherry shrimp with java moss, anubias, mossballs. Unheated and unfiltered (I'll talk about unfiltered in a bit)
2) apisto pair w/ self feeding setup (again I'll talk about). heated but unfiltered
3) Elassoma sp. colony. Heated but unfiltered.
ok now let's talk about this so people don't hate on me. He said the tank doesn't need to be heated for cherry shrimp even if room temp is a bit cold, as long as it's consistent.
unfiltered is where people would disagree. I can't remember his exact words but it was something along the lines of "why would you waste 20 dollars on a tiny hob with a pad about the size of your thumb when there is a way better way of removing waste". That better way is not overstocking and changing 90% of the water weekly, since nano tanks really have so little water it would take no time at all to empty and fill. Again I quote him "drain the tank until the fishes backs are sticking out".
And finally by "self feeding" what his suggestion was (if I did dwarves) is to put in substrate and plants then put in a few tablespoons (or teaspoons, I can't remember) of live black worms in to let them establish a stable colony. Then when the black worms continue to poke out the surface during the day time after time the fish will slowly graze on any stragglers while fry eat micro organisms.
this man was pretty much a genius on nanos! He even talked for about 20 minutes about what lights are better for your plants in terms if wavelengths, what vitamins to add, water conditioners, etc. for those wondering the guy's name was Anthony Calfo.
so back to my options, if you were me which one would you do?
1) cherry shrimp with java moss, anubias, mossballs. Unheated and unfiltered (I'll talk about unfiltered in a bit)
2) apisto pair w/ self feeding setup (again I'll talk about). heated but unfiltered
3) Elassoma sp. colony. Heated but unfiltered.
ok now let's talk about this so people don't hate on me. He said the tank doesn't need to be heated for cherry shrimp even if room temp is a bit cold, as long as it's consistent.
unfiltered is where people would disagree. I can't remember his exact words but it was something along the lines of "why would you waste 20 dollars on a tiny hob with a pad about the size of your thumb when there is a way better way of removing waste". That better way is not overstocking and changing 90% of the water weekly, since nano tanks really have so little water it would take no time at all to empty and fill. Again I quote him "drain the tank until the fishes backs are sticking out".
And finally by "self feeding" what his suggestion was (if I did dwarves) is to put in substrate and plants then put in a few tablespoons (or teaspoons, I can't remember) of live black worms in to let them establish a stable colony. Then when the black worms continue to poke out the surface during the day time after time the fish will slowly graze on any stragglers while fry eat micro organisms.
this man was pretty much a genius on nanos! He even talked for about 20 minutes about what lights are better for your plants in terms if wavelengths, what vitamins to add, water conditioners, etc. for those wondering the guy's name was Anthony Calfo.
so back to my options, if you were me which one would you do?
Shrimp tank.I have a 4 gal.(evolve4)with shrimp,a few snails, plants, pothos sticking out the back of the built-in filter.
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I know you have a top 3 but have you considered Australe Killifish? You can put a pair in 2-3 gallons. Unfiltered and unheated. They are prolific breeders too, if you wanna get into that. I think they are a great betta alternative...and far less common.
Theyre pretty beautiful after looking at them. I definitely want to get into breeding, well actually I just got a breeding pair if C cutteri Friday but they havnrt laid eggs yet. If I breed something though I'd like to be able to leave he fry with the parents for a while since I don't have a ton of tanks for fry now, just one and it's going to be for cutteri fry.
