Stocking a 6G

[Legacy]

I was given a 6G Eclipse setup for free but the catch was I had to take it with 2" CAE. I am by no means a CAE fan but I don't want to give him away. Right now the tank has a bunch of silk plants and a black sand substrate. I'm interested in stocking it with maybe a couple more fish but what would work out in this tank?

I understand that small doesn't automatically mean that a small tank is enough room. I also understand that most of the smaller fish really need a school of 6 or more to be happy and that would push me over the limit for this tank. So what small freshwater fish are an option for me?

If I didn't have the CAE I would just go low-end brackish and put 6 Bumble Bee Gobies in there. But, I can't do that. I was thinking corys are interesting, gouramis some what interest me also. However I'm not into Bettas, keep that in mind. =)

Thanks,
David

 

[Tiffi]

Maybe some male guppies? Tank Girl made some good experience with a nano setup and a guppy in it. Or maybe some shrimp, they are very interesting too.

I would be careful with overstocking such a small tank though. They ecosystem is not very stabile at all. I guess in aquarium terms the saying the bigger the better is quite true. But since you have to work with it take some fish that are not very demending for space and super high water quality - like guppies, bettas, shrimp.

I don't know much about gobies but IMO gouramis and corys need a lot more space!

 

[Legacy]

Male guppies could be ok. Glass catfish don't seem to do much but float around, anybody know if one or 2 of those would work out? I actually have 2 ghost shrimp in there right now.

 

[czcz]

I don't want to give him away.

You will need a bigger tank then. In the meantime, I suspect they get too rowdy for tankmates in such a small tank. A male cherry barb and a couple of females in a heavily planted tank (the females will appreciate the cover) could be very interesting, and you may be able to add a school of pygmy cories, too.

How about giving up the CAE, but instead of bumblebee gobies, breeding some animal as food for your other tank? Could be cool.

 

[Legacy]

I don't want to give him away.

You will need a bigger tank then. In the meantime, I suspect they get too rowdy for tankmates in such a small tank. A male cherry barb and a couple of females in a heavily planted tank (the females will appreciate the cover) could be very interesting, and you may be able to add a school of pygmy cories, too.

How about giving up the CAE, but instead of bumblebee gobies, breeding some animal as food for your other tank? Could be cool.

I understand that a CAE is capable of reaching a maximum size of 12". However, my father-in-law had this one for 5 years and it is still only about 2" in length. I thought maybe I'd have to give it away when it got too big for my tank. Like I said, CAEs are totally dullsville but I don't want to give it away to a LFS and probably just send it to it's death.

I looked into the glass catfish thing and that's a no go. Pygmy Cories could be cool, but not sure if there is enough footprint on the tank to accomidate them. I could always put a dwarf puffer but I don't want to risk it slowly killing the CAE.

As for breeding animals for my other tank. I could use some snails for our upcomming Green Spotted Puffer. My other tank is archers and they are really just eating crickets, bloodworms, mysis, and cichlid pellets so they're ok on food.

 

[tinkerbell]

I'm new.. sorry to ask here, but I saw it in this post. What's "nano" mean?

 

[Legacy]

I'm new.. sorry to ask here, but I saw it in this post. What's "nano" mean?

In most cases Nano refers to small cube shaped tanks, generally 5.5G. You see a lot of people doing Nano Reef tank setups holding mostly inverts because they're usually too small for anything other than one percula clown. If you go smaller than Nano I think it's defined as Pico, not 100% sure. I remember a friend of mine was doing a Pico reef with a 2.5G Mini Bow.

Often times Nano/Pico tanks will be hooked up to sump filteration systems much larger than the actual holding tank. It's pretty neat. Nanos will fit just about anywhere and upkeep is pretty inexpencive considering how little the water changes are. However you end up doing a lot of custom work for an awesome setup and if you ask me the water parameters are harder to keep stable.