Can I have some fish suggestions please?

[Christie_ZXR]

I have a super low tech tank on the windowsill. No lights, heater or filter etc, just uses sunlight. I'm after some ideas for fish for it. Temps don't drop below 16 (or if they ever do, a heater will go in)
The idea with this tank was to almost treat it like a natural pond, and it's sort of loosley based on Diana W's ideas.
Soil, sand and stones as substrate, and just tapwater. (gives me a ph of 7.6ish) Plants are literally all cuttings from other tanks, so there's a mish mash in there. Tank is 27L if I remember rightly.

The fish need to be small, and tolerant of the temp fluctuations between night and day. My initial thinking was just white cloud mountain minnows and a few cherry shrimp. But I'd really like a small, coldwater tolerant algae eater for some help with keeping the glass clean if possible, and the only one I can think of is hillstream loach, which isn't suitable at all. (no flow and not enough room) Or ottos? I have some in another tank, so they could possibly be summer residents only. But even so, the night time temps will still drop, possibly too much for ottos. My other thought was a bristlenose, but I'm still dubious about temps. I thought of an apple snail, but I'd reckon it's too big, and as for nerites, they pooh too much! I'd reckon they'd limit my options for other fish by producing too much waste for the plants to handle, although I may be wrong.


Anyone got any ideas? Or would my best resident be a nice algae scrubber sat next to the tank...

Ty everyone

 

[sparkyweasel]

American Flag Fish are nice, they browse on algae and are happy in coldwater. You will probably still need to keep that algae scrubber handy though; if you keep the glass clear yourself the fish will nibble algae off the plants.

 

[darren636]

i would not suggest any fish in that small tank- especially at those temps.

 

[Christie_ZXR]

American Flag Fish are too big really I reckon. Gotta stay with small and slim bodied for it to work, and not too many of them, so they're not producing more waste than the plants can handle.
Didn't know if there was something like a coldwater dwarf bristlenose that I didn't know existed or anything, but I think I'm asking the impossible there!!

darren - as far as I know, wcmm are happy between 16-22 degrees, which is why I was going to go for them. If I ever find the temp looking like it's going out of that range, I can add a heater with no problems. I'm not too sure what would be the problem with a few of them and a few cherry shrimp as the occupants? They're often recommended for biorbs (Don't want to start the biorb argument! Think those tanks are like marmite, you either love 'em or hate 'em ) for the same reasons I was thinking of them, small and low waste producers. I'd reckon that as long as it's properly maintained, 27L would be enough for 4, maybe 6 of them and a few shrimp.

 

[JenCliBee]

WCMM are also very active fish, temp yes would be fine but 27l isn't going to give anywhere near enough space for such active fish..... they may well be recommended for bi orbs but weather they should actually be in there is a different matter altogether.

I agree with Darren, i wouldnt recommend any fish in that sized tank (maybe one).... cherry shrimp would probably work well though.

Not sure why you would want to risk fish in the tank anyways... no filter (yes i guess do-able with enough plants)... but no flow really isn't suitable.

If you were to add a heater what about a betta?, setup seems like it would suit one pretty well and with the low/no flow... it would be the only fish which i think would meet the criteria aslong as parameters can be kept stable.

 

[darren636]

wcmm are very active fish... i would not be happy having them in anything less than four feet of water. same goes for any danio except cpd's.

 

[Getthejist]

I thought cpd's still prefer 3 foot tanks? Also with a heater a betta should do fine, except I think no flow is a bad choice as even Walstad uses a good amount of flow, but for a betta I guess lower amount of flow would be acceptable. I would suggest getting a really small filter possibly with a spray bar to produce a small amount of surface agitation and flow.