Cycled? What should I stock?

[Wills]

The tank won't have a cover and it's filled to about 1 inch from the top.

Big fan of open topped tanks but from experience I'd recommend finding a lid you can live with - get a piece of glass cut and use the clips you can get (ADA do nice ones) or look at the D&D jump guard. I have one with black mesh and in highndsight I'd go for the clear as the black is a bit too intrustive. Even if you take it off when you are around the tank it just stops things going AWOL in the night or when you are not home.

Wills

 

[threecharacters]

Big fan of open topped tanks but from experience I'd recommend finding a lid you can live with - get a piece of glass cut and use the clips you can get (ADA do nice ones) or look at the D&D jump guard. I have one with black mesh and in highndsight I'd go for the clear as the black is a bit too intrustive. Even if you take it off when you are around the tank it just stops things going AWOL in the night or when you are not home.

Wills

Thanks for the suggestion! That cover does look pretty nice. It's pretty important that I can view the top of the tank cleanly because the geometry of the tank makes side viewing pretty awful. My aquascape might end up sticking out of the tank too. I'll definitely think about a mesh cover.

 

[Byron]

pH is 6.8-7.0, GH is 4 deg, KH is 2 deg.

This is very soft water, and soft water fish species are the fish you should be considering. Fish requiring harder water will not be healthy in soft water, that is simply the biological science we should accept.

GH is the primary parameter, then temperature, then pH.

 

[Wills]

Thanks for the suggestion! That cover does look pretty nice. It's pretty important that I can view the top of the tank cleanly because the geometry of the tank makes side viewing pretty awful. My aquascape might end up sticking out of the tank too. I'll definitely think about a mesh cover.

I have a shallow tank too (not set up right now) so I know what you mean. Just important to balance the look out with the needs of the fish.

As a curve ball for inhabitants have you thought of elephant snails? Some really interesting species in the group and would look good amongst emerged growth.

An other fish to consider could be black tiger badis if you have the right water.

 

[Beastije]

I think this tank is too small for elephant snails. I have the smallest ones and they are very agile in roaming 120x60 cm, so I believe they would not appreciate this space. They are also quicker than neritina.

I wanted to suggest planting few snails anyway. Not algae eating snails, just ramshorn's, regular snails to help speed up the cycling.
I recently basically setup a fresh tank w old sponge old soil and was cycled the same day, second one I mixed old soil, new soil, derit and new sponge and had to wait for at least two weeks and remove water more often and had a film on surface, because I simply didn't have enough snails ( and bacteria, duh) to speed up and the cycling took way longer than I assumed.

Funny side note, do not keep open lid tank if you have dogs or cats, the amount of fur that floats in the tank is ridiculous.

It is recommended (but not applied) to wait for like 6 months before adding shrimp to any tank. They have nothing to eat in a fresh one and the stability is not the greatest. I would definitely wait. Same with solely algae eating snails like neritinas.

 

[Beastije]

Btw i read some nice things about Neoheterandria elegans that would fit in size, not sure about parameters. Or you can go different way with dwarf african frog, they are super fun and small ( although look dead 80% of the time, especially if you go for the yellow ones like I did)
I read a lot about the Brachygobius and the care and setup is very very special and they overall suggest 40l to achieve the behavior, one alpha female, smaller females few or one male,... Very specific but others perhaps have better ideas.
Aphyosemion might be also and option, or instead of fish, go with crayfish?
20litres does not provide many options

 

[threecharacters]

Neoheterandria elegans is cool, I had not heard of this species. Another option is the similar species Heterandria formosa.

I'm not that interested in keeping Dwarf African Frogs. I think they're supposed to be pretty messy? It might be hard to keep such a small body of water pristine with a Dwarf African Frog.

I'd love to keep Killifish, but as far as I know, they're mostly surface dwellers and a specifically prone to jumping (I think they migrate between pools this way in the wild)

What about Ricefish? Are these know jumpers?

The tank is 20L but it has the footprint of a 40L. I think a small territorial, bottom-dwelling fish like Brachygobius sp. might do surprisingly well, provided I can keep the water clean enough.

The cycling is going weird. I have extremely high nitrates. I did 2 back to back 80% water changes and I still have 20-40 ppm nitrates. I wonder if the Controsoil is leaking some ammonia? I looked it up some and it sounds like it can leak 1ppm of ammonia a day.