15 gallon Biotope?

3535 Views 10 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Zer, Jul 13, 2007

plant_addict

Discussion Starter · Jun 26, 2007

I have a 15 gallon which currently has 3 gouramis for cycling and sand substance. I wanted to make a small amazon biotope with this tank but i wanted to know if its possible to make a nice looking biotope which such a small tank? My filter is a Penguin HOB filter. I'm currently in grade 8 so i don't have much money to spend, so i wanted to know the easitest way to achieve this?
Thanks.

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hughitt1

· #2 · Jun 27, 2007

Sure. How much lighting do you have now? and how tall is the tank?
I would add some small pieces of driftwood, or at least one. A few nice and easy plants to get a hold of from the Amazon include:

Brazilian pennywort
Spiral Val
Sagittaria sp.
Amazon frogbit (floating)

You could also include a smaller amazon sword sp. (e.g. black amazon sword), they are pretty hardy.

If you want to try and get a more authentic biotope feel, you could also consider adding some leaf litter (read up on this before you do it though to make sure the leaves you add are okay), and filter with peat moss to give it a tea-colored look.

What are you planning to do with the Gouramis by the way? They are really cool fish too! (although not quite from the Amazon).

Goodluck with your tank!

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plant_addict

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jun 27, 2007

Ok, first of all the tank is 2'x1'x1'. The lighting is 60watts which is goes over 2 tanks. The gouramis i'll probably give to my friends if i'm unable to find a place to keep it. For swords its a bit hard for me to get ahold of cause all swords i see are pretty big and exspensive and again i'm a student so i'm not so good when it comes to money. I have a couple pieces of driftwood in my backyard that i can try using.

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plant_addict

Discussion Starter · #4 · Jun 28, 2007

the lighting lights 2 tanks which are 2 15gallons same footprint and i was thinking if i could make a southeastern Asian biotope in that? I would then have a dual 15gal biotope setups? Any thoughts about this?

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mickey85

· #5 · Jun 28, 2007

You could easily do that. What kind of gouramis do you have? If they're a smaller species (i.e. 3.5" or smaller), keep them, and add a shoal of small barbs or rasboras. As far as fauna goes, I'd love to see a pair of dwarf gouramis (honey, dwarf, chocolate, etc) with a shoal of 10ish harlequin rasboras or spanner barbs.

With the amazon tank, why not go with a pair of bolivian rams? They're bigger, rather colorful, and hardy. You could then add a dozen or so cardinal tetras to the mix. Set it off with some stem plants (like the val and the pennywort) in the back with one or two smaller swords up front.

Your lighting is essentially cut in half if I'm thinking right, which means that each tank is getting about 30 watts, or 2wpg. That sounds about right for any of the plants listed.

Not sure what kind of stores you have in toronto, but if you have a petsmart or petco sort of store there, always wander through the fish section. I know that here, you can get a bunch of stems for $1.99, and a potted plant for $4.99. Barring that, you could get some plants shipped to you from a place like aquariumplant.com. I'm still quite the newbie when it comes to planted tanks, but all of my shipments from aquariumplant have been cheap and have come to me in perfect condition.

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plant_addict

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jul 1, 2007

These tanks would actually be my first so can i get any tips on maintaining the plants and keeping them healthy?

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hughitt1

· #7 · Jul 1, 2007

the lighting lights 2 tanks which are 2 15gallons same footprint and i was thinking if i could make a southeastern Asian biotope in that? I would then have a dual 15gal biotope setups? Any thoughts about this?

What kind of lights are they? Any chance of uploading a picture of how you have it set-up?

Try searching through here and maybe other forums for "biotope," and you should turn up plenty of ideas on what you could do for SE Asian.. But it should be doable, for plants, things like java fern, hygro polysperma, crypts and red ludwiga. Fish: A Pair of dwarf gouramis some dwarf chain loaches and rasboras or white mountain minnows perhaps.

Again, read up on the forums on how the different gouramis do in community tanks- some (e.g. paradise fish) are much more aggressive than others. Also, some get very large, so for a 15, you wouldn't really want that.

plant_addict said:
These tanks would actually be my first so can i get any tips on maintaining the plants and keeping them healthy?

- Slope your substrate so its deepest in the back (~4-6'') and shallower towards the front.
- Don't leave the light on too much or leave near a window, otherwise algae will set-in fast.
- be gentle with the root, and take your time when planting or transplanting.
- Setup DIY co2 or dose with flourish excel, and do it daily.
- There are many different regimens for dosing and you can read more about it on line on the forums. You can use flourish comprehensive + iron ferts though 1-2 a week, and that should be sufficient.
- Clean up any dead plant parts from filter and water column at least a couple times of weak. You can also use a sharp pair of scissors to remove any damage leaves on the plants which can help stimulate new growth.
- Keep taller plants in the front, and shorter ones in the front.
- Add driftwood / rockwork beforehand.. its much easier than trying to fit a piece of wood or rock in after plants have started to fill out.
- start a log and keep track of your water parameters- temp, ph, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and water hardness.. You don't have to do this, but its not hard and it can make life much easier when you are trying to diagnose future problems, or see what fish would work best with the water you have.

I'm sure other people can add more useful suggestions, but again, browse the forums- alot of info is already out there

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cavemanf16

· #8 · Jul 5, 2007

I have a 15G tank as well, although it's not currently in operation. My recommendation on using such a smaller tank with strong lighting is to save up at least $40-60 for a very good filtration equipment. I had a decent filter rated to handle 20G for my 15G tank, but I found it very difficult to maintain nice, clean water without water changes 2-3x per week. That's a lot of work, and not an enjoyable way to waste 20-30min every couple of days. Since you're a student who hasn't yet hit high school, you won't want to be investing that much time in tank upkeep once the homework load increases in a couple of years.

As far as Amazon biotope ideas, my 15G looked great with a couple of small and medium pieces of driftwood from my LFS, and some light colored gravel (not white, more like a light tan gravel). If I had also built myself a DIY CO2 system for this little tank I think the plants and animals would have been much happier overall. In my experience, the regular Amazon sword plants I had overtook the tank big time, but some anubias and other shorter plants were nice while I had the tank setup.

I would also recommend keeping the fish load at 10 or fewer fish overall, as I had about 3 rasbora's, 2 Tiger Barbs, 7 zebra danios, and 5 shrimp at one time, but those numbers quickly shrank to 3, 2, 4, and 4, due to some rather aggressive danios and hard-to-maintain water chemistry. (and the tank STILL required weekly water changes of 50% at least to not get cloudy with waste) The more fish you want to add past 10, the bigger the filter you'll need to keep up with all the fishy waste byproduct. I learned my lesson the first time, so my advice is to be content and go easy on the bioload in smaller tanks like a 15G.

FWIW - I'm thinking of rebuilding my 15G with just a few more aggressive fish like Blue Rams or Gourami's and a few shrimp to 1) keep it simple 2) keep it cheap, and 3) keep it easy to maintain. (due to the hopefully lower overall bioload in the system)

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musho3210

· #9 · Jul 5, 2007

hughitt1 said:
What kind of lights are they? Any chance of uploading a picture of how you have it set-up?

Try searching through here and maybe other forums for "biotope," and you should turn up plenty of ideas on what you could do for SE Asian.. But it should be doable, for plants, things like java fern, hygro polysperma, crypts and red ludwiga. Fish: A Pair of dwarf gouramis some dwarf chain loaches and rasboras or white mountain minnows perhaps.

Again, read up on the forums on how the different gouramis do in community tanks- some (e.g. paradise fish) are much more aggressive than others. Also, some get very large, so for a 15, you wouldn't really want that.

- Slope your substrate so its deepest in the back (~4-6'') and shallower towards the front.
- Don't leave the light on too much or leave near a window, otherwise algae will set-in fast.
- be gentle with the root, and take your time when planting or transplanting.
- Setup DIY co2 or dose with flourish excel, and do it daily.
- There are many different regimens for dosing and you can read more about it on line on the forums. You can use flourish comprehensive + iron ferts though 1-2 a week, and that should be sufficient.
- Clean up any dead plant parts from filter and water column at least a couple times of weak. You can also use a sharp pair of scissors to remove any damage leaves on the plants which can help stimulate new growth.
- Keep taller plants in the front, and shorter ones in the front.
- Add driftwood / rockwork beforehand.. its much easier than trying to fit a piece of wood or rock in after plants have started to fill out.
- start a log and keep track of your water parameters- temp, ph, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and water hardness.. You don't have to do this, but its not hard and it can make life much easier when you are trying to diagnose future problems, or see what fish would work best with the water you have.

I'm sure other people can add more useful suggestions, but again, browse the forums- alot of info is already out there

Good sugestions, few mistakes that may mix him up, small plants in the front and big in the back (you said both in the front) and you can use CO2 and/or excel, not just or.

A final tip i can give is do not go with unatural ornaments, you will hate them really quickly.

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hughitt1

· #10 · Jul 5, 2007

musho3210 said:
Good sugestions, few mistakes that may mix him up, small plants in the front and big in the back (you said both in the front) and you can use CO2 and/or excel, not just or.

Indeed. Thanks for the correction

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Zer

· #11 · Jul 13, 2007

exciting idea,
i think that it would be quite a sight to see two biotopes from across the world planted next to each other. best of luck in your adventures in to aquaria!

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