Have I made a mistake?

Hi everyone,

new here so first of all hi. I am relatively new to the world of fishkeeping. I currently have a 50L tropical tank which I had a betta in on his own, he sadly passed away so now I just have 6 neon tetras. I came across this lovely looking tank at the weekend and brought it. I am now worried aa on my other forums more experienced people have advised me this type of tank will be hard to filter properly. What does everyone think? Thanks in advance..

It's not so much hard to filter as hard to stock because of the lack of swimming room. Neon tetras, for example, need at least 60 cm horizontal space to swim. This is the problem with column tanks.

I can't think of any fish off hand which are suitable for a tank this shape

Yes i just had a quick measure its 55 inches tall and 15 inches wide....i really didnt think this through at all did i

All is not lost. It would be suitable for shrimps. I know it will be difficult to grow live plants in there, but if you could find some way a planted tank with a colony of shrimps would work.

I would love a tank like that just to create a vertical aquascape for shrimp
But as essjay said, it really isn't suitable for any type of fish, and would be quite cruel to put any in there. If you've any interest in aquascaping and shrimp, it could make a really fun project tank, but if you're wanting one for fish, the filtering is the least of the problems. I'd sell it and find a nice 20-30 gallon rectangular shaped tank instead. Much better for the fish, and for you to maintain as a beginner. Even an experienced hobbyist would have a tough time keeping that thing clean and well filtered just for shrimp.

Do you have a gravel vac for your current tank? Try using it to reach to the bottom as if you were going to clean the substrate at the bottom. Or clean the glass on the inside at the bottom of those panes. It would not be easy to maintain even with just shrimp, who are sensitive to water problems and need a clean tank. Sorry, I hate to bear bad news, but I think you'd regret keeping this.

It looks cool and my first thought was planted with shrimps. But I'm assuming you don't have 55" arms so maintenance could be a challenge

Thanks for the replys really appriciate all your time!! I have no one to blame but myself here. Saw it and just brought it without even thinking of anything else. Very annoyed at myself now lol. And yes i am struggling to even find a gravel vac anywhere that is going to be long enough. What a disaster aye!!

Rachaelu said:

Thanks for the replys really appriciate all your time!! I have no one to blame but myself here. Saw it and just brought it without even thinking of anything else. Very annoyed at myself now lol. And yes i am struggling to even find a gravel vac anywhere that is going to be long enough. What a disaster aye!!

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Hey, most of us have impulse bought something related to the hobby! You're in good company it could be worse, at least you're finding out now, before you filled it and put fish in there and felt stuck with it.

Another consideration, given how hard it is to even get a gravel vac that would work, is lighting. Shrimp need live plants, live plants need light, and a normal tank light that sits at the top won't penetrate deeply enough to keep plants at the bottom alive. I have seen an aquascaper use a long light that submerged and ran down the back of the tall tank he used, but I don't know how safe those are long term, and when we're getting into the realms of specialised lighting, filtration and maintenance tools, you could be looking at one very expensive, impractical tank...

Cool looking or not, you'd do better selling or returning it now rather than sinking more money into it I think.

Perhaps you could make some type of water feature out if it. I can’t think f anything else.

Yes i dont have the experience yet to be able to make something like this work, the water feature was my other idea but again it would be hard to use real plants because of the lighting - ill see if i can sell it first and start again lol

Too high. My tanks 550mm high, I’m over 6’ and can just reach the gravel and need to roll shirt sleeves up or take shirt off to avoid getting wet.

I saw one of my local fish store having this kind of tall tank.
What they did was to put tall driftwoods and plants in it.
You can only keep low light plants like Anubias Nana, Java Ferns and Java moss.
You can tie the Anubias Nana, Java ferns and Java moss to the driftwoods as all these plants don't need any substrate.(gravel or sand or soil).
The focus of this tank will be the tall/long driftwoods and plants.
Put the driftwoods in standing position to make them like trees and tie the Anubias Nana and Java moss to make them like the leaves of the trees.

Shrimps and fish will help to make your tank more lively.

I think you can keep a small number of active fish that can swim up and down like the loaches and shrimps as what others have suggested. Don't overcrowd your tank but keep only a small number of live stocks for easier maintenance.

If you can get some Panda loaches will be good as they will climb all over the tank and all over the places and they are fun to watch.
But you may need to wait for your tank to have enough algae (probably after two months) before adding the Panda loaches.
Also, you can try to put it near the window temporarily.
Or you can put lamp (standing lamp or table lamp on your floor to be of the same level as your plants.)

Probably you may need two filters.
Put a sponge filter at the bottom and a top filter at the top. Sponge filter can be easily pull out from the bottom for cleaning.
Extend the top filter intake hose to the middle or lower part of the tank but make sure you cover the intake to prevent shrimps from being sucked into the filter.
Get a low power top filter so that the suction power won't be too strong.

Loaches are tropical fish though arnt they or am i wrong? Its a great idea but i think in the long run maitenance of all of this would be really hard...plus i live in a flat too so space isnt on my side

Rachaelu said:

Loaches are tropical fish though arnt they or am i wrong? Its a great idea but i think in the long run maitenance of all of this would be really hard...plus i live in a flat too so space isnt on my side

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Yes, most fish that we are keeping are tropical fish.
There are very few cold water fish probably Goldfish and a few other fish only.
Loaches are mostly from Asian countries like India. Panda Loaches are from China and they prefer cooler water.
Actually, staying in flat or landed house makes no different in term of maintenance. I am also staying in flat and I used to have 4-5 tanks.
But now I reduce to only 2 to reduce the workload.

Your tank is 4 feet 7 inches (55 inches) tall. The difficulty in using this tank is when you need to siphon the debris from the bottom of the tank.
However, for shrimps keepers, you can't really siphon the bottom as you don't want to accidentally siphon out the shrimps.

I have started to keep shrimps recently after a long break from shrimps.
Each time I change the water, I will only siphon the water from the top surface and not from the bottom and the shrimplets are extremely small and you dont want to accidentally suck them out.
Or sometimes I will scoop the water out with a water scoop that has a long handle. See the attached photo.

Another issue is, I have no idea whether the can the normal siphon be used to siphon out the water from your tank due to its tall height.
In the worst case, you may have to use a power head(similar to the one that is used in top filter) to siphon out the water. But you have to cover the intake to prevent any shrimp or fish from being suck out.
Refer to attached photo for the power head and top/overhead filter.