ice tank

meow91

meow91

AC Members
Feb 1, 2007
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North Central Florida
I would like to start an ice tank. Clear substrate, white plastic plants, bubble wand. The tank is 30 gal. ,penguin bio wheel 200, heater from wal-mart 100 watt, under gravel filter, white cave. I was thinking about putting in the tank
2 glass cats
4 glassfish
1 oto
ghost shrimp
6 pristella tetra
2 threadfin rainbow fish or 2 moonlight gourami

any suggestions?
 
you should add more to your schooling groups, like the 2 glass cats
4 glassfish
1 oto
ghost shrimp
6 pristella tetra

glass cats and otos especially.

btw, however nice the glass in tank looks should you happen to come upon it, dont get it, it is very sharp and will cut both you and the fish.

not sure about the gourami's, but if they arent a dwarf variety, i would be catious.

hth, B.W.
 
meow91 said:
I would like to start an ice tank. Clear substrate, white plastic plants, bubble wand. The tank is 30 gal. ,penguin bio wheel 200, heater from wal-mart 100 watt, under gravel filter, white cave. I was thinking about putting in the tank
2 glass cats
4 glassfish
1 oto
ghost shrimp
6 pristella tetra
2 threadfin rainbow fish or 2 moonlight gourami

any suggestions?
Click to expand...

I'd go with:
6 glass cats
6 glass fish (not dyed!)
4 ottos
6 pristella tetra
ghost shrimp

OR you could cut out one of those groups and put in the gourami. The thing to remember with the glass fish is that they can get up to 3" in the aquarium, and they like a lot of swimming room. The glass cats on the other hand, tend to clump up and stay in one spot. I think if you wanted the gourami, the glass fish would be the ones to exclude.

FYI i don't know anything about the rainbow fish, but quick reading has told me they also like to be in larger groups. If you wanted to add those, I'd suggest not having the Gourami as it might view them as competition with those colors and long fins.
 
glass catfish need to be kept in groups of at least 6 for them to survive.

IMO you should pick either the glass fish or the glass catfish. it will be better for them both. in fact, why not pick one and do a species tank? a big group of glass catfish or a big school of glass fish would look pretty cool with little ghost shrimp moseying around the bottom.
 
i think i substrate of pale colored ocean glass (worn down with all smooth edges) would look really neat. a mix of white, pale green, and pale blue. . . would still give that "cold" feeling but give contrast as well.

i would either do a reverse undergravel filter or get rid of it altogether.The RUGF sucks water in and pushes it up through the substrate, which would get all poop and food bits out of the gravel, to be sucked up by the penguin filter. if you run a regular UGF I think the substrate you use could get grimy-looking pretty quickly.

very neat idea.

1 larger group of one kind of fish often has more of a 'wow' factor than just a couple of several kinds.
 
I think this is a very neat idea. However, to depreciate the comfort of the fish for aesthetic to me seems pretty shallow or just not totally thought through. I'm speaking frankly as you asked for public opinion.
The maintenance to keep the clean look of the clear tank you envision would be greater than that of a more natural looking environment. It seems to me that over a pretty short period of time, the glass would develop the typical slime and grime and just not look as good as the concept would first dictate. It would be like dirty ice. Think of snow a week after the storm.
That said, there should be a middle ground.
Perhaps rather than clear substrate, you could go with a white sand. Poops would be highly visible on the clear substrate. Not to mention, the smoothness of the clear substrate doesn't strike me as terribly bacteria friendly.
the white sand has natural, slight variations of color that would be more aesthetically forgiving to poo.
The sand is also a more "fish friendly" substrate.
I very much agree with the people who expressed the larger school over several smaller schools of fish too.
I also do think that some real plants are highly beneficial to the proper care of fish. Perhaps some floating plants would be favorable to your idea so as not to interfere with the monochromatic scheme of the tank.

Good luck!
 
nothing in the OP's idea of the tank depreciates the "comfort" of the fish. fish don't care what color something is, or if it is clear stones or opaque gravel. the OP is putting plants and a cave into the tank as hiding places for the fish.

substrate really doesn't need to be bacteria-friendly. plenty of people have bare-bottom tanks with no problems maintaining a cycled tank. most of the bacteria live inside the filters where there is the most gas exchange and therefore the most oxygen. if they can't live on the substrate, they will simply colonize elsewhere. since none of the fish mentioned are bottom-dwellers, the substrate is of even less importance to the fish's comfort. they aren't going to be in contact with it. poop is pretty visible on sand, so i don't see where that would make it better.

plenty of people do not have real plants in their tanks with no ill consequences. many people do not want to invest in the lighting, chemicals, CO2, etc. that are usually needed to maintain plants properly.

as long as the fish have clean water at a proper temperature, quialty filtration, nutritious food, and hiding places in order to reduce stress, they are being kept well. the color scheme of the tank is not something the fish care about.
 
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