A Broader Investigation Into Stocking A 17L Nano

[nurglespuss]

Hi all, well after hitting the books for a bit (particularly Baensch) I've come up with the following list of possible inhabitants of my tank.

heres a link to my blog so far (taking it very very slowly!

The temptation is to go with galaxy rasboras, which look great, but I would like something seen less often if possible.

Lepidarchus adonis

Nannostomus marginatus

Rasbora maculata

(Rasbora urophthalmus brigittae) Boraras brigittae

Corydoras pygmaeus

Heterandria formosa

Colisa sota

Trichopsis pumila

Now then, the species I'm least in favour of are the honey's, as it seems hard to come by decent healthy stock.

What are your thoughts, and which 2 species would/could you combine in my tank? Ideally I would like a 'mini shoal' of 4-6 fish, with maybe a pair of something else, or 2 mini shoals.

Officially, the tanks stocking capacity is 20cm of fish, obviously this is a little optimistic on the part of the calculators, but it gives us a ball park figure.

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated!

 

[VaegaVic]

Pygmy corys and sparkling gouramis,
Corydoras pygmaeus + Trichopsis pumila.
6 corys and 3 gouramis.

 

[Curiosity101]

If it were me I'd probably go with a single shoal of something like the Boraras brigittae. Plant it up with a black background, black substrate and lots of bright green plants. They'll stand out really nicely against the surrounding and as a larger shoal of a single species will hopefully be quite confident.

Also you could add in a couple of other things such as small shrimp and snails...

The only thing on your list I'd say no to is the honey gourami as they're too big tbh and I'd be hesitant to put pgymy cories in there but if it's got a SA around the 30x30cm mark then they should be fine.

 

[nurglespuss]

Pygmy corys and sparkling gouramis,
Corydoras pygmaeus + Trichopsis pumila.
6 corys and 3 gouramis.

Hi thanks thats not a combo I had considered! I think Pygmy cories would look great in the tank, especially as they are much more 'mid level' swimmers than most cories... Cheers!

@Curiosity101 - yep, its a 10x10x10.5" tank, plants are growing nicely, with a shaded but open area at the front. I agree about the honeys, I've seen them in cube tanks like mine, and they look great, but your right, its not a whole lot of room for them.

 

[Curiosity101]

Well the general rule of thumb that I go by is 6 x length of the fish for a relatively inactive fish, 10x for average level activity and 15x for active fish. Obviously that's not cast iron but does help as a start point.

 

[nurglespuss]

Well the general rule of thumb that I go by is 6 x length of the fish for a relatively inactive fish, 10x for average level activity and 15x for active fish. Obviously that's not cast iron but does help as a start point.

Ah great! that works out nicely then

 

[BethK]

Scarlet badis are nice little fish, grow to 2cm, keep 1 male to a few females;

male

 

[nurglespuss]

Interesting.... are they likely to breed?

 

[BethK]

Interesting.... are they likely to breed?

Most prob but they need to have perfect conditions, 1 male to 2 females I think it is. The females are duller coloring but if they did breed and you didn't want the fry, chances are they would eat them anyway.

 

[nurglespuss]

Ahhh now thats good news be good watch them breed, so long as the bit of canabilistic infanticide to go with it!

 

[BethK]

Ha lol

They are substrate spawners, the male will wrap himself around the female (like bettas) and squeeze, she'll drop her eggs in plants/substrate (I think java moss is advised).

You could make a fair penny on selling the fry, they aren't a common fish to find in LFS.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Badis or Chilli Rasboras both sound interesting ideas mentioned above.

 

[nurglespuss]

Could do only problem is, where I based away from home, I can only run 1 nano so no fry rearing tank! (and dont fancy catching them in a fully palnted nano!) maybe grab a moth catfish to gobble the babies?