Help needed

[SPLiSH]

I'm soon getting this water feature, and it's a stone trough with a little cascading waterfall. It's really nice but it would look better with fish.

The trough holds 20 gallons. It doen't have a filter so to speak, but it has a tube about 1-inch wide that sucks the water from the trough and takes the water up to the waterfall. Then the water falls gently down into the trough. The water is really well aerated.

I really want to put fish in it, but I have 2 questions:

a) Could I adapt the tube to function like a filter? If yes, how?

B) If possible, what fish could I keep in it and how many?

Thanks tons,

Prue.

 

[sakaspuds]

you need to attach the tube that comes out of the pump to a box filter, then when it comes out of that it needs to back into the waterfall, you will need to fina a way to stop bigger stuff getting sucked through the system though

 

[SPLiSH]

Thanks sakaspuds Will do.

Does anyone know any possible stocking options? As I said, it's 20 gallons. Could I get away with a few guppies and a pair of swordtails? All I've ever kept is bettas so I'm not used to having to think about community requirements.

 

[koimom]

I don't know your weather climate, but most tropicals will not do well except in a heated tropical tank. Perhaps white cloud mountain minnows and mosquito fish; but 20 gallons is still going to be pretty small. Is the stone trough sealed properly? If not poisonous chemicals could leech into the water and kill the fish. How deep is it? If it's very shallow then any fish you put into it would easily become a meal for predatory birds and cats...any one else with thoughts or ideas on this one?

 

[Opcn]

Well being in Australia I'm assumeing that you'll be keeping tropical fish easily. Firstly I would start by afixing a screen over the intake tube because impellers are bad for fish.

I cant tell you if your product is fishsafe or not because I have no idea what it is, but if its rubber or plastic chances are its fish safe.

Personnaly I would stock with native fish, barring that get something used to fast water like a small tailed guppy or a minnow of some sort, maybe a pair of dwarf cichlids (you could sell fry that live). If you are any where near another watersourch (quarter mile) I would strongly advise going with native fish, there are predators who may pull out fish and if there is water near by a fish could get dropped in to it and start an infestation. This is a particularly large threat with females who store sperm (such as livebearers) because one fish can littereally turn into 10000 in a year (she has a batch of 30 fry every month and 15 of those 30 have batches of 30 fry each every month starting at 3 months and there fry have fry) Predation is a real threat so buy cheap fish and dont name them. Also bettas are a poor choice because they preffer slow water and here will be a great deal of flow in a water feature such as yours.

Personnaly I wouldnt use any filter, the rockwork will act as all the filter you will ever need, maybe find some native snails and toss them in to take out some nutrients.

 

[SPLiSH]

Thanks Opcn!

Well, I had a chat to the shop owner and he said the lovely, rustic look on the trough was obtained using "rust oxide". That can't be good for fish! So I am now getting a big stone........ erm ....... thing. Imagine a soup bowl, only huger. It looks really nice, it is 26 gallons in volume and it comes with a filter and pump. I'm gonna put some guppies and platies in there. I don't want to over crowd. Or is that to small for them? I'm pretty new to this whole fish thing so I don't want to stuff up.......