15 gallon tank for a 5 year old.

tophat665

Greetings all. I just upgraded my 7 year old's 20 high to a 40 breeder, and my 5 year old was feeling grumpy because her tank is only 5.5 gallons (course, it's a 30 buck male yellow butterfly steel blue halfmoon betta in there, but she just knows her tank is tiny next to her sister's). In any case, I got a good deal on a 15 (24x12x12), so I figure I can tell her she's got 2 tanks and mollify her that way.

So now I am looking for something to put in there to delight a kindergartener.

So far, my thoughts have been (These are all for different tanks)
- 3 dwarf puffers
- Threadfin Rainbows and some bottom feeders (kuhlis, corys, moth cats or oil cats)
- Neons (not thrilled with this or similar small tetras)
- Bumblebee gobies and a couple (3) glassfish.
- Microrasboras
- Honey Gouramis
- Sparkling gouramis
- Female Bettas
- White Cheeked Gobies

So what say? What would get a little one to say, "That's COOL." (Bearing in mind she already has one very cool fish indeed).

MegK

i think any fish would do.

and im assuming your the one taking care of the tank right?

tophat665

Yeah, I'll be taking care of it.

I want to try and get something colorful or active or odd. Something with a high neat-o factor for her, and something that I can try and wrap my head around and put together a nice little eco-system.

I've written a number of posts on fish for the small tank, but my issue is that I maybe have too many things to think about. So I can handle the bioloading and the aquascaping, but help me out with the coolness factor. This is a pretty savvy 5 year old, so just any fish won't cut it.

Lupin

My answers are in green font. I have not commented on two fish in your list as I've never kept them yet.

Falina

I'm trying my best to have a 5 year olds frame of mind here, and I think that dwarf puffers might do it for me the most. They're really cute and kinda funny looking, and entirely different to the betta that she's already got. Plus they are taken care of quite differently to other fish which could be educational to her.

Either that or a small community consisting of threadfins, cories, microrasboras, CPDs or whatever she likes best. Maybe this would be a good route go go since she could have the most variety of different fish in the one tank.

tophat665

Lupin, Julie, Thanks for the input.

Julie, Shoot for an 8 year old mind set. This one is pretty canny.

With Lupin's advice, you're best options of DPs or micro-community are the top two contenders now. I'll be attending a seminar on Rainbowfish this evening, so that may clinch it. Half Dozen threadfins, 5 Kuhlis, an Otto, 10 or so microrasborae (which would be the correct latin plural :)). Sounds like a plan. That or 3DPs and 3 ottos.

? CPDs?

Lupin

Celestial Pearl Danios.:)

tophat665

What I continue to think of as Galaxy Rasboras. No worries.

tophat665

OK, I've settled on 6 Threadfins, 6 Kuhlis, 3 Ottos, 12 or so Microrasboras or Ember Tetras, and 10 or so cherry red shrimp.

Too much? Skip the ottos in favor of the shrimp? Can I up the number of rasboras or tetras (I'm estimating their bioload at 2"/gallon, so that's just a hair under 3 fish/gallon for any of them.) I have found that 6 is a good minimum number of kulis.

Substrate will be Tahitian Moon Sand (black) with a couple of flourish pellets ground up into it. Plants will be straight vals, java moss, and maybe a nice little crypt as a centerpiece. Hardscape is going to involve lots of red slate. No Driftwood.

Lupin

It looks fine to me but then I have a habit for keeping a lot of tetras in one tank.;) 15 rasbora/tetras will be okay. I won't skip the otos and will simply add the shrimps if it were my tank.