Fish for river environment

J

jludlam

Registered Member
Dec 1, 2003
2
0
0
55
Abington, MA
Visit site
I've just started a biosphere/paludium style tank. No fish yet and I've just started the aquatic plants. My problem is the tank has a waterfall (which makes me concerned after reading about the CO2 issue) that empties into a 6" deep pool, which cascades into a 5 3/4" deep pool which finally empties into a 5 1/2" pool. This is in a 29 gallon tank which probably ends up giving me about 10 gallons of water and a decent land area in the rear of the tank.

What types of fish would do well in this highly oxegenated water that would be inclined to move "up and down stream" between the pools? I was thinking of Danios (I particularly like the spotted type). What types of non-fish (newts, salamanders, etc.) would live in this environment without eating my fish?

I haven't done any testing of the water quality except for the ph (around 7.0).

Any suggestions would be appreciated!
 
Danio's would work good...as would some White Cloud Minnows. Or if you didn't want those you could make it a frog species tank with African Dwarf Frogs. I'm afraid I can't really tell you what eats what although I'm not sure putting a newt in with small fish is a good idea. I do have 5 newts but they are in their own tank and I have fed them feeder guppies in the past so...:confused:
 
Newts will eat any fish they can a) catch and b) fit in their mouth. I've kept larger tetras with my newts before without problems, as well as amano shrimp. The tetras were too big, and the amanos too fast.

Other fish to consider--killi fish would be cool in there! Splash tetras would be very neat, because they could successfully breed if provided overhanging broad leafed plants. Not sure if they will go from pond to pond, though.

Hatchets might do that--they are big jumpers. The concern I would have is if they miss, and hit the ground area. Make sure that plants and the land slope will encourage them to end up back in the water.
 
Hmm...

I can remember fishing for Rainbow Trout in Colorado (mmm... barbeque trout)... anyonw know how big they get? That'd be a sweet river fish...
 
Rainbow trout get a bit too big for a 29, and do not do well in warm waters. 12-26 inches in size, depending on other factors.
 
Thanks for the input everyone. Tiny rainbow trout would be cool if they existed...

Good call on sloping the land back towards the water! I was going to do this for aesthetics but it would be a bummer to find my new fish dried out on land...

What are "splash tetras?" As of right now its a toss up between leopard danios and white clouds. I know my lfs has the danios but I hadn't heard of the white clouds until I started reading on these message boards so I'll have to check that out.

I wanted to get a couple of kuhli loaches too but I don't think they'll go from section to section? I hadn't realized how much this was going to affect my fish selection when I designed it...hmm.

I really want to try and find something that would use the land and water... frog maybe? Do African dwarf frogs go on land?
 
Splash Tetra
fish_Copella_arnoldi.jpg



As seen on "The Most Extreme: Jumpers" I think. Anyways, these guys are nuts. In the wild, they lay eggs on leaves that aren't in the water. At the same time, while touching each other, both fish leap out of the water and slap into a hanging leaf. She deposits eggs in a sticky little package, and he fertilizes... I dunno, 1.5 seconds of sex doesn't seem fulfilling.... anyways, they get about 2.5 inches long, and you need a good cover, cause they can jump a good foot or more.
 
I don't know how far you've gotten into construction, but I've had an idea like this floating around in the back of my head for awhile now. So just a couple of thoughts…

I don't know whether or not your fish are going to be able to leap from pool to pool. I'd assume they're going to wind up in the bottom pool. Personally I'd try to maximize the bottom pool and go with smaller pools for the water falls, more as an ornamental thing. You could do some land masses as shelves, overhangs, instead of as islands and preserve some of that precious swimming space, especially if you want to go danio. It would also help alleviate the problem of fish on the beach. I'm guessing your a little further into this already…

For the terrestrial inhabitants you could look at something thats going to spend some time in the air, up in some tree branches. It would reduce the land requirement and I think also reduce the chance that your selecting a predatory companion. One thing I came up against when looking at frogs and nets and the like was the problem of waste. That guano maybe hard on your tanks chemistry… I'd be sure to filter to the heavy side and watch how things go levels wise.

One of the good things about a paludarium is that you can let your plants enjoy "the aerial advantage". Yes the waterfalls will beat the potato salad out of your CO2, but our plants need their CO2 supplemented largely because we're keeping them submersed. If you get plants that will go aerial CO2 supplementation will become alot less important. Excel, btw, doesn't outgas the way CO2 does.

Danios like space. I'd go with something a little slower like white clouds, rasbora, or tetra. Killies are a great idea. In a similar vein, I'd been thinking of going with some small labyrinth fish like a croaking gourami or a wild betta. All of these guys tend to be a little delicate though, so I'd look at what effect the other tankmates are going to have on water chemistry before going in that direction.

Sounds like a great tank in the making.
 
hey

man i'm from MA too actually randolph so it's kinda funny you live a town over or so - the whiteclouds are illegal in our state but you can get em' in RI
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom