7g tank, help!

[Melon]

I've got 7g MiniBow tank, a filter that came with it and 50w heater. now im getting a bit stressed out about what else i need to get. I haven't decided on fish, so some input on that would be appreciated. Originally the tank was supposed to be saltwater but along the way i decided to get freshwater first and then decide weather i want saltwater or not. Now i need to find out what is all the tank needs. I am planning on having some plants in it and wondering if there something im required to have for them. Do i need an air pump? pretty much any help on what is all that i need for a mini fw tank would be nice

edit: for fish i'd like to have some tetras and maybe couple a bit bigger colorful or pufferlike (if possible) fish.

 

[Burks]

With a 7g your choices are somewhat limited on fish and maybe plant selection. Neon Tetras, Glolights, Black Neons, and such would be good choices. Puffers, to my knowledge, aren't very friendly with plants or other fish. They can be aggressive.

Now lets chat about plants. What kind of lighting does the tank have (wattage, flourescent/incandescent/power compact)? This will determine what type of plants you can grow. I'd say to start off with stuff like Java Fern, Java Moss, etc. Easy to grow plants and hard to kill. I have tons of both in my tanks. DIY CO2 would be a good addition. With a 7g tank I think a 1L bottle would work well.

What kind of filter does it have?

 

[JohnPaul]

The type of filter you have will go a long ways towards determining whether or not you need an airstone. As Burks said, the lighting is going to determine what you can do as far as plants. Given that it sounds like this is your first tank, I would disagree with Burks on the CO2 part; it adds another something to worry about that probably won't be needed if you stick to simple, low-light plants. (At least at first...once you get the hang of maintaining a planted tank, you might very well decide to up your light, add CO2, and work with more demanding plants. But I'd suggest you leave that for 6 months down the road...)

General rule of thumb on stocking is 1" of fish (full adult size) per gallon of water. One school (5-6 fish) of small tetras, and maybe one "centerpiece" fish (a betta perhaps, or a dwarf gourami, something like that) and your tank is full. Ghost shrimp would make a good cleanup crew for the bottom and not add to the bioload (unlike any of your other options, such as cory catfish).

Or, if you wanted to go the puffer route, one or maybe two dwarf puffers. Nothing else with them, at least not without a backup plan, becuase puffers are known as nipping or even killing just about anything else you put in with them.

Let us know what you decide!

 

[Melon]

The tank has 14W flouresent light, and whisper power filter 115volts 60Hz. I found what looks like leopard puffer ( i forgot the name, will write it down next time im in that pet store) not too long ago and love those adorable things. I'd love to have one or two of them. But if i cant get any puffers i want to have whole bunch of tetras. And i pretty much dont know anything about plants. Thank you for the help

 

[Guest]

well, that is decent lighting for a 7 gal tank. the very basic rule of thumb is based on watts per gallon, and that gives you 2 watts per gallon, putting you in the medium - medium low catagory.


if you go to www.plantgeek.com and select medium low plants, you can get an idea of what will grow in your tank.

As for fish, a nice school of harlequin rasboras always look AWESOME in smaller planted tanks, like 6 or so of them...or my recent favorite, Von Rio Tetras. Maybe a few spixi snail and a set of 3 oto cats for clean up crew and interest would be nice =)

I would not do more than 6 small tetras/rasboras and a small cleanup crew if i were you.

 

[JohnPaul]

Well, if it really is a leopard puffer, then you can eliminate that as a possibility immediately. Leopard puffers, more commonly known as the Green Spotted Puffer (GSP), can grow up to 6" in length, needs water that is brackish (bordering on full marine), and probably a tank of no less than 55 gallons by the time it's full grown.

The only puffer you could consider would be dwarf puffers, which are full freshwater puffers and only grow to about 1" adult length. But again, you can't really mix puffers with much of anything, so you need to decide whether you want it to be a dwarf puffer tank, or whether you want it to be something else (tetras, etc.)

As for plants, any pet store that sells plants and has people who know anything about aquariums at all should be able to point you to the plants that would be appropriate for your set-up. Thigns like java fern, java moss, anubias, some crypts, some (smaller) swords, val, hornwort, anacharis are just some of the plants that should do just fine in the tank you described.

 

[Melon]

well ill probably end up getting dwarf puffer fish then, some shrimp (unless it would kill it) and plants. i still have one question, do i need an air pump? and if i dont, can it harm the fish or plants if i still get it?

 

[Burks]

I didn't know if the tank had some kind of power compact lighting or not. In your case, 14w over a 7g, CO2 is not really needed. You can easily add it when everything is doing well and such. Problem with the WPG rule is it breaks down the smaller you get. 2wpg over a 7g is totally different than 2wpg over let's say a 90g. Granted, you'll still be able to grow a nice variety of plants.