Future planning: 5 Gallon Setup

[Ziggs180]

my 29 Gallon is starting to recover from an Ick outbreak, and I dont plan on stocking it anymore. A friend of mine gave me a 5 Gallon tank, and its sitting around doing nothing. I've thrown the filter media from the small filter into the larger filter in my other tank in order to start seeding it, so the new tank would be instantly cycled.

I'm thinking of setting then new tank up as a Betta tank, however I do wants some companions, but I know my choices are extremely limited. However I am open to other ideas of a set up, so any suggestions would be appreciated. I also want to add low maintenance and low light plants.

 

[bruinsbro1997]

It depends on the betta. See how he does with some inexpensive ghost shrimp at first. If he leaves them alone, it should be safe to add fish.

Chilli rasboras and embed tetras are great nano fish for small tanks like this IMO. You could get away with a school of 6 ember tetras or 8 chillis.

 

[Ziggs180]

I just saw a picture of the Embed Tetras, they look rather nice. As for plants, My main tank has some Java fern that is letting out saplings, I might take a few and drop them in my new tank whenever i get it setup. I'm also considering hacking off a bit of Anacharis and putting it in there as well. any plant suggestions anyone could give me for a small tank?

 

[miles]

I'm in the process of setting up a 5g with 3 or 4 bumblebee gobies. They're brackish, so I don't have the option of keeping any other species with them in such a small tank, but they're supposed to be quite entertaining on their own and would be worth looking into. Sparkling gouramis, licorice gouramis, and pygmy sunfish (all fw species) would also work in your 5g.

I'm probably not the guy to ask about plants, but I would assume any of the other plants you already have would work fine as long as you keep them trimmed. You might even want to limit their fertilizer supply (if you give your plants fertilizer) or forgo fertilizer completely to keep them from overrunning the tank too quickly. Other than that, the only suggestion I could give would be an amazon sword (fw only plant)- it's about the right height and spreads outward making it easy to divide when it gets too big.

 

[severum mama]

Licorice gouramis are awesome fish, but are difficult to keep and feed. If you're looking at them as an option, I'd suggest doing a blackwater setup and maybe starting with some live foods.