New coffee table aquarium

[Cichlid Kid]

That would be perfectly suited for a few(2-3) fancy goldfish. Their body shapes are great for being viewed from above, like your table would offer. Imo tetras and other tropicals wouldn't be fully appreciated from an optical level like goldies would. You could really make that thing pop!, with a couple orandas!

 

[jetajockey]

Maybe 1 fancy goldfish, the tank is only about 21 gallons. Water quality will deteriorate quickly.

 

[RFJ22]

Guys, thank you for all the great advice. I have got some books coming on the subject, but it's never as good as advice from experts! The tank is 80ltr I think the idea of some nice goldfish is the best one. With some nice ornaments in the tank, and some good lighting, it should work out well!

 

[Zimmanski]

With 20g you will definitely be limited but there are a lot of neat fish for that aquarium, I like the idea behind the goldfish for the optical thing, but to me I would rather have more movement in a furniture tank. Personally I would do like a couple centerpiece fish, and then a whole bunch of tetras, neons, cardinals, and some of the other cool small ones. Just my opinion though.

 

[Rivercats]

Unless the tank has very very good filtration heavy bodied goldfish like orando's are going to produce too much waste. Their water has to be changed weekly about 50%. I have 8 really big orando's that I had to split into two tanks due to size and waste. I run two filters on each tank along with doing the big water changes. I love the big guys but they are messy fish, much better suited to large tanks.

 

[Majbarsalona]

How are you going to do pwc? The height of the tank is going to make it extremely difficult to siphon water out of/:

 

[tamtam]

so you are saying this tank is 590 mm x 590 mm X 440 mm? By those measurements this tank is roughly 40 us gallons.

IF it's 80 liters though it's roughly 20 gallons.

I'd suggest you bust out a measuring tape and measure it yourself. width, height, length and this will give you the actual size you have to work with.

You really have a lot of options either way.

Personally I'd avoid goldies or koi. As said Koi get huge, roughly 3 feet or more when full grown. Goldies also need a lot of space, you could keep maybe 3 fancies tops in this tank(if it's 40 gal) if it's 20 only 1.

I think a nice shoal of bottom dwellers would be fantastic in this tank. Would be so neat to watch from above.

I'd do a tank of schooling fish. A couple nice larger schools would be great to watch. Something like Zebra danios, cherry barbs or rummy nose tetras.

Platies would probably be really nice too and are a great beginner fish.

Though it really comes down to the size in the end.

 

[BlaseMrNiceguy]

He will absolutely need a python water changer that will be the only way to suck water out.

 

[BlaseMrNiceguy]

I say some really brightly colored, fast moving schools would also be optically appealing from all angels. The bright colors will pop from the top view and also the sides. But think about this somehow manage some black lights in there for affect of course, overexposure would be bad , and glow fish. Imagine turning the black lights on after the lights are out with a school of glowing fish swimming around in your coffee table. Pretty trppy!

 

[tamtam]

I also wanted to throw this article out there. This should really help point you in the right direction on how to set up your tank and what needs to be done.

Guide to Starting a Freshwater Aquarium - Aquarium Advice


one of the measurments you said also was 1 meter by 1 meter by .5 meter. If that's true you are looking at a tank that is roughly 115 gallons. 1 meter = roughly 3 feet. so your'd have 3 feet x 3feet x 1.5 feet, give or take..

As you can see you have a wide range of possible tank sizes. 20 gallons, 40 gallons and 115 gallons. lol.

It's a very nice tank. Would love one if my kids wouldn't smash it. My current tanks are a big enough worry to me. lol

 

[jetajockey]

I'm guessing that the dimensions are including the height /width of the table itself as well.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

It's hard to recommend fish for a shallow tank that'll be viewed from the top. Nearly every thing except ponds are side view only. You may want to consider bottom dwellers. You have so much bottom surface and many of them are flatter than regular swimmers so more of the fish will viewable. Eel like fish may be interesting to watch, too. It'll take a lot of thought to pick out the right fish.

 

[Cichlid Kid]

I apologize, looking at the pic it seemed alot larger than it actually is and i didn't realize it was that shallow. A nice shoal of panda corys against dark substrate would look ok too.

 

[absolutangel04]

Maybe 1 fancy goldfish, the tank is only about 21 gallons. Water quality will deteriorate quickly.

Whoopsies. I was confused about tank volume. If the volume is indeed only about 20g or so, then I agree that 1 fancy is a better option than several like I previously mentioned.

 

[RFJ22]

Massive thank you to everyone for the advise and help with this. I had a friend who is also an aquarist and he's helping me set it all up. As per your advise, I have started with a shoal of 6 neon tetras which look fantastic. Thank you all (I will look into the black light psychedelic option at a later date! Lol)

 

[tamtam]

nice. I have that same "stump" in my tank!

 

[Lt.]

Only 6 neon? In a tank that size, I'd put ten in, they LOVE bigger schools. I'd also add a school of some sort of Cory. Then maybe a betta.

 

[Zimmanski]

Glad to hear it and looks good!! Just to nit pick, tetras School and corys Shoal.

 

[Lt.]

Glad to hear it and looks good!! Just to nit pick, tetras School and corys Shoal.

What the difference? I always thought they were interchangeable words? 8-/

 

[Zimmanski]

What the difference? I always thought they were interchangeable words? 8-/

Small fish School matching each others movements to look like one bigger fish to predators so they don't get eaten, shoaling fish just means asocial group, like how corydoras hang out and forage together sometimes.