Extreme Lighting For Preds?

[fish_newbie]

After a long break from freshwater I've decided to sell my SW reef tank and come back to my roots. Now I have an empty 20g long and I'm having trouble deciding what I should do with it. I've been thinking a single predator would be awesome, but I've got a 150w HQI metal halide on it and I'm not trying to spend any more money than I have to on this(snowboarding season! ). I've kept FW puffers in the past and most of them definitely do not like bright light seeing that most of them are lurkers and ambush predators. So any suggestions for an oddball that doesn't mind getting a nice tan? I've been thinking dwarf snakeheads, but I'd imagine that they don't like the bright lights either.

 

[nmonks]

I think the thing to do is fill the tank up with, say, water lily type plants so that it quickly becomes thick with leaves at the top of the tank. That will create the shade (and in the meantime get the biological filter working nicely if you add some flake every day or so to produce the ammonia the bacteria need). After a few weeks, the tank will be just right for any sort of small, swamp-dwelling predator you wanted.

Synodontis nigriventris look fantastic in this sort of aquarium, so you'll want to add a trio of those, regardless. Having them scoot about the top of the tank because that's where the shade is will give your tank a very novel look.

Cheers, Neale

 

[fish_newbie]

You think the lilies can take the heat of the metal halide? I mean even at 6" away-thats how far up it is from the surface of the water-from the light, if I leave my hand there it'll start to burn. Also, with the intensity of the MH wouldn't CO2 be necessary?

 

[nmonks]

Try it and see. Lily bulbs don't cost much. If they work, they work; if not, back to Plan B.

Most of the fishes you'd keep in a tank as small as 20 gallons will be fish that live in streams or ponds, and they're mostly fish that prefer shade. Open river and big lake fish are more used to full sunlight, but there aren't many choices here for a 20 gallon. Some Tanganyikan shell dwellers might work, but I would assume even those would expect some shade. In the wild, most of these lake fish come from much deeper water than you're going to be providing, so even if they live in the open under natural conditions, the ambient sunlight would be attenuated by the water depth.

Why not just remove the light fixture? There's any number of fish that couldn't care less about light. In fact most do fine in tanks without lights. Have a cheap angle-poise lamp to hand for viewing purposes if you want; there's some nice clip-on fluorescent lights for fish tanks available at low cost, and these will light up one corner of the tank quite effectively.

Cheers, Neale

 

[fish_newbie]

Yeah, I think I'm just going to take down the light. I have clip on light that I used for my refugium, I'll just use that if necessary.

So right now I'm looking to get a single predator that would do fine in a 20 long. I'm still considering a dwarf snakehead but those are pretty hard to come across where I'm from. I know there are various puffers that I can keep in this tank, but are there any other suitable preds that I might not have come across yet?

 

[Maximus]

Dim (if any) light, lots of leaf litter, bogwood, and a chaca chaca B)

Awesome setup.

 

[jourdy288]

Maybe Pike Livebearers.

 

[fish_newbie]

Wow, that is one interesting catfish. I'll definitely keep an eye out for one of those.

 

[nmonks]

Not in a 20 gallon, except maybe a single male. The females are huge. Regardless, they don't like open water. They're classic "pikes", in the sense of staying among weeds except when lunging out at passing prey.

On the other hand, there are plenty of other "rare" livebearers that would work well in a 20 gallon tank. Halfbeaks are always good value, and provide plenty of entertainment value because they're either eating, mating, or fighting!

Cheers, Neale

Maybe Pike Livebearers.

 

[fish_newbie]

Pikes are fairly easy to get here, I see them everywhere. I'd consider them but I think I want something really odd and unique. Chaca Chacas and dwarf snakeheads are at the top of my list right now but I've have never seen either of them at any of the local shops that I go to. Is there anyone here from SoCal that can recommend a good shop to check out some oddballs?

 

[jourdy288]

Not in a 20 gallon, except maybe a single male. The females are huge. Regardless, they don't like open water. They're classic "pikes", in the sense of staying among weeds except when lunging out at passing prey.

On the other hand, there are plenty of other "rare" livebearers that would work well in a 20 gallon tank. Halfbeaks are always good value, and provide plenty of entertainment value because they're either eating, mating, or fighting!

Cheers, Neale

Maybe Pike Livebearers.

Are we talking about the same thing? Pike Livebearers only grow 3-4 inches.

 

[nmonks]

I'm talking about Belonesox belizanus. Males typically grow to 10 to 12 cm, females 15 to 20 cm. Absolutely no way anyone should keep fishes this size in a 20 gallon tank. No idea what fish you're talking about! As always, we should stick to Latin names.

Cheers, Neale

Are we talking about the same thing? Pike Livebearers only grow 3-4 inches.

 

[jourdy288]

Yikes! I must have been looking at a misnomer!

 

[invader]

I thought that snakeheads are illegal all throughout the US?

 

[nmonks]

Depends on the species and depends on the state. There's a lot of nonsense behind the ban, with some states banning species that couldn't possibly survive their local conditions.

Of course, it's good sense to make sure that exotic species are not introduced to your native waters, but ironically it is often the small, inoffensive fish -- such as carp and guppies -- that end up doing the most harm. Everyone outside ichthyology has latched onto the Nile Perch story as the "deadly predator that wiped out everything in Lake Victoria", but the reality is such things are unusual. Often, animals adapt quite quickly to new predators. What they can't adapt so well to are things like carp that massively change the environment. Carp eat aquatic plants and stir up mud, turning clear waters into swamps. The carp are air-breathers and mud-eaters, and are fine with this -- but trout, darters, minnows, etc just can't adapt and so die out.

Oh, and the irony of systematically draining the natural waters of California to prop up environmentally catastrophic farming practises (growing lettuce in the desert!!!) while banning Asian snakeheads for the risk they might damage the ecosystem almost beggars belief!

Cheers, Neale

I thought that snakeheads are illegal all throughout the US?