Predator, fry eating fish for a 10 - 20 gallon

Jighead

Jighead

Dwarf Cichlid Fanatic
Mar 5, 2006
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I am trying to come up with an ideal fish for a 10 gallon tank that readily eats and prefers live food, and will eat fry, and other feeder fish that i put into the tank.

Please post ideas and names of fish. Preferably the limit size will be 5 inches. Remember it has to be able to live in a 10 gallon tank.






Thanks - Jighead
 
just about any fish would eat fry really if it fits in their mouth. A pea puffer aka dwarf puffer would probrably eat fry. But why do you insist on keeping a fish that will eat other fish or "feeders". I think if you are keeping fish just for the sole reason of seeing it tear up another one then you are keeping fish for the wrong reasons.
 
This question has come up before here. There is no aggressive predator fish that is piscivorus (eats mostly other fish) that is comfortably compatible with a ten gallon tank.
 
A. Calvus or A. Compresiceps should fare well in a 10g as long as it is a smaller fish 1.5"-2" they are one of the slowest growing fish there is. As long as you keep up w/ your weekly 30-40% water changes to maintain pristine water conditions I say why not.... even though they are a tanganyika cichlid, I have heard in a book by somebody.... Ad Konings to be exact that they will do well in most any aquarium. Another reason they would be okay in a 10g is they hardly ever move
 
The reason that i am interested in this is that i tend to have alot of fry after my fish breed. I dont want to just waste the extra fry by flushing them down the toilet, so I figured another fish would help out by eating the fry. Then the fry would not go to waste it would actually benefit something.


Thanks - Jighead
 
graphicdesign_r said:
Dunno about the fish wildcat is posting about...

...but the above post suggests keeping a 4" fish in a 10 gallon tank if I'm reading correctly? I wouldn't, that's pretty poor for the fish's movement & health.
Click to expand...

A ten gallon tank is 10" wide and 20" long so why would a 4" fish that stays stills like a floating leaf to ambush its prey needs to have a larger tank?
 
Predatory fish tend to be big waste producers. A 10g tank doesn't provide much in the way of water volume (especially after all the substrate and decor is in) to keep the tank stable for a 4 inch piscivore. I'm sure it would also appreciate the extra surface area from a larger tank. A 20 long would be ideal.
 
is300zx said:
A ten gallon tank is 10" wide and 20" long so why would a 4" fish that stays stills like a floating leaf to ambush its prey needs to have a larger tank?
Click to expand...

Well see there's this thing called research. You typically do it before handing out advice like Halloween candy. Otherwise you give poorly considered bad advice and people think you're FOS. Then sometimes when you need good advice the knowledgeable people ignore you and you go from FOS to SOL PDQ.

The link you posted doesn't even have tank size recommendations. Oh and max size for females listed in several other sites is 6+ inches.

I would say the reason appropriate tank size for these animals is listed at 20 gallons is because the fish needs extremely high water quality and frequent water changes. That and they supposedly eat their own weight in feeder fish daily (oh and they're very susceptible to fish TB carried by most feeder fish so you need to breed your own or spend lots of $ on clean feeders). That appetite would make for ALOT of waste. Then again, as I stated before a 4" (ahem 6" if you end up with a healthy female) fish really is too big for 10 gallons anyway unless you are the type of person who enjoys keeping bettas in drinking glasses.

Oh yeah sources:

http://members.tripod.com/mark26/leafish.html
http://www.mongabay.com/fish/nandidae.htm
http://aquaworld.netfirms.com/Other/Monocirrhus_polyacanthus.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/leaffishes.htm
http://filaman.ifm-geomar.de/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=11015
http://www.cichlidtank.com/Resources/Profiles/profile.asp?id=76

Ran across a few AC members with them. flyfly has 2 leaf fish with a few otos in 29 gallon, and IceH2O has one in a 55 gallon with some other fish.

is300zx, please don't give advice unless you know what you're talking about. Especially don't challenge someone rebutting bad advice unless you have the facts to back it up. It's embarrassing, and unhelpful.

That's all I got, so unless there's any more controversy, I'll consider the Leaf Fish 10 gallon tank suggestion a dead stick. :pc:
 
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