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So, My sister has gotten one of these things, a 7 gallon one, apparently.

http://indoors.pricegrabber.com/fish-aquariums/m/44703985/

Now I know it's a far cry from an ideal aquarium, but is there ANY kind of fish that would do well in a tank like that? I personally can't think of any, save for maybe a single betta, or maybe a small school of neons or something, but she insists she wants more than 1 fish.

My personal opinion of these tanks is that no fish on planet earth deserves as little swimming width as 4.5 inches. No fish deserves such psychological torture for even a day or two. IMHO there are only three places these "aquaria" look appropriate,the first of which is parked in the manufacturers office window, having been lauched from a medieval siege weapon. The other places are: wrapped around the neck of the inventor, and then dropped on the entire marketing department of companies that promote them them, Preferably from orbit. These tanks are in a singular design, the very antithesis of good fishkeeping principles, and the designer look belies the primitive and inconsiderate brain that created them. The tanks themselves reflect very badly on the owner in the eyes of anyone who knows anything about fishkeeping.

I'd be putting pressure on her to get rid of it, and I would never feel comfortable recommending a species to live within it, on the basis that whatever fish I recommend would actually end up in that tank, and live the kind of life involving stereotypical behaviour that I might only just wish on my worst enemy. These are not aquaria, they are fish prisons.

I can certainly think of fish that would survive under such conditions, indeed there are probably a couple of dozen species, but none of them would have a quality of life I would consider acceptable.

Plants and triops, or fairy shrimp? Maybe snails, and the very smallest of shrimp ...

4.5ins wide that is being in a narrow cell for the rest of your life. The only thing I would put in there would be those litle plastic fish that move around.
It is not made to house a live fish it is one of those gimics for the comsumer and not for fish.
If it is possible to return it certainly do it and get a decent quality, sized tank.

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Keith

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I know, I know, unfortunately, I am several miles away, and can't physically go there and take it away from her (I would have by now already and given her one of my many unused tanks if I were closer!)

I hadn't thought about plants or inverts; I'll try my best to convince her in that direction. I'm thinking plants(basic, easy ones) and snails. I'm hoping all she wants it for is an accent to a room, so she might settle on not having fish or anything like that.

Returning it for a 10 gallon is exactly what I suggested first, Keith. However, she had bought it on ebay

Can you belived that this thing was advertised as being able to house freshwater or SALTWATER fish?

Applesnails are probably actually be too big for that width. The only interesting snail I would suggest is fancy ramshorns. They come in blue and red along with a few newer shades of those 2 colors but the population would need to be kept under control by not overfeeding and occasionally removing some. Some shrimp might work although I wonder about the aeration and filtration. While they don't take up much room or produce much waste shrimp are more sensitive to poor water quality than most fish. Those tanks really aren't designed with anything living in mind but only how to trick people out of money.

Considering what they can do with picotanks, I would have thought salt might actually be a better choice. Not fish though, that's a bit rough.

Shrimp would be ideal, but she'll have to get decent aeration on there. With plants, go with the more architectural ones like small anubias as trying to tend stem plants or maintain the fluffier types of plants is going to be tricky when it is wall mounted.

Has she considered more along the lines of underwater art?

If she's determined to have fish and will do it regardless of advice, make sure she knows what would be the least problematic. The last thing you want is for her to set it up and add 6 neons and two goldfish (seems to be the popular choice for those tanks)

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

But how much effort goes into a pico tank? A beginner to fish keeping is not going to accomplish a pico. They aren't going to have accurate enough equipment or want to spend the time syphoning with a straw and refilling with an eye dropper or syringe. Picos also tend to not have a long lifespan. Most people take them down and redo them within the year. There are only a handful of older pico tanks out there. Then pico and nano tanks are almost always setup in open containers with large surface area and alot of light for macro. This is a very narrow, tall tank with very limited surface area, probably not much for light, and weak aeration. Everything that makes a nano more difficult in one package. I know I couldn't keep anything saltwater alive in there without some major modifications.

I think no matter what is suggested it's a death sentence in the hands of someone who isn't willing to do alot of research and effort to maintain it. Of course we could suggest trumpet snails. Nothing short of chemical warfare kills those suckers. But most people don't find them all that interesting to look at.

Indeed, they are not easy tanks to do anything with. Once you fix one problem, you run straight into another. Still, there does appear to be far more information and acceptance of tiny tanks within the SW ranks than there is within freshwater, and that should lead to more information and assistance. Plus, even if you just toss in some shells and add the appropriate lighting, a fake SW setup looks much better than a fake FW setup from a decorative perspective.




For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I must say that I find the responses to this interesting...

To address the width issue, people see no problem with housing 1 foot+ fish, such as plecos, oscars... in an 18 inch wide tank, giving them less than 1 & a half their body length to turn around in, but the idea of keeping a fish in a tank that can still allow a small fish up to 3 times its body length for room to move is alarming??? If you follow the logic of what is a commonly employed and accepted fishkeeping practice, then keeping something like a guppy or white cloud in this tank is significantly less cruel than the 'psychological torture' inflicted by housing a larger fish under such conditions, and no-one seems to so much as blink at that.

If you really want to get into it, keeping anything in any sort of tank could be perceived as cruel. The relative size of the tank to the creature being kept in it merely falls into a scale of 1 - 10, and please note that the scale doesn't go down to zero. It is true that many fish keepers accommodate their fish appropriately and take all due measures to ensure that the animal in question lives out a healthy & full life. That said, no matter how well an animal is cared for in captivity, regardless of whether it is a fish, bird, dog or anything else, it must still be accepted that it IS in captivity, and no level of 'appropriateness' can ever be truly ideal. As pet owners it is something we are all guilty of.


As for answering the question that was actually posted....
I would lean towards one of the following options:
A) 7 white clouds / gold white clouds
B) A male betta
C) 3 female bettas
D) 7 male guppies

To any of the above you could add a few atyidae or ghost shrimp, or do a tank dedicated to shrimp.

Snails I would avoid simply because of their waste output & the logistical challenges that this type of tank is going to pose when it comes to cleaning.

Regardless of what she decides to go with I'd recommend planting, as suggested something structured is going to be easiest to maintain, however with options C & D it will be essential to break up the tank & reduce possible aggression a little.

The only major other thing would be the stability of heating. She will need to heat the tank for all of the above bar the white clouds. With that width maintaining a constant temp could raise problems. It may not, but it'll be something to keep an eye on.

Sin

Many do not suggest the keeping of monster fish at all. The tank should be at least the same width as the fish is long. If not then you really should not be keeping it. The problem is people buy these fish unknowingly and then what do you recommend? The best you can even if it's not ideal.

We also come back to the fact those tanks still have alot of surface area and are overfiltered to make up for the large bioload. This tank is 10 times as long as it is wide and 5.6 times as high as it is wide. That would be like a 1' wide, 10' long, and nearly 6' high tank. What's the water like at the bottom? How much water circulation and oxygen reach down there. Consider trying to stock such a tank. You can't think of it as anywhere near the 420 gallons it would hold. Only midsized schooling fish and smaller plecos or bottom feeders would work due to the width and you'd have to stock it 1/10th or less as heavy to deal with the low oxygen problems. Unless you add a ton of water circulation and airstones stocking is strongly limited because of the dimensions. This little tank doesn't have extra oxygenation. If we stock 1/10th as lightly as we would a more standard 7g what have we got left? Certainly not a full school of fish. Not even hardly a betta. We're down to shrimp. Just the gallons and just the width aren't the whole problem. It's the lack of surface area and weak filtration. The bottom of the tank is going to be pretty stagnant and the oxygen level throughout the tank will not support a full stock.

Nice post sham, and I agree with you wholeheartedly. Principles of space in bigger tanks do change radically, and this is to do with the properties of the medium, namely water. The proportionate size of the tank relative to the fish isnt the issue. Every gallon less than 10 becomes increasingly more difficult to maintain due to the miniaturisation of the equipment needed, and the gaseous absorbtion principles of the size vs surface area. These wall mounted tanks are extreme example of bad proportioning that denies a fish oxygen and decent filtration. Granted there are people who would put a 3 foot fish in an aquarium of 18 inches width, but quite plainly they are not good fishkeepers, and a great many of the fishkeeping standards associated perhaps most often with keepers of monsterfish need severe review. Many of them will be abusing their fish, and their principles need updating as severely as someone who uses wall tanks.

If anything was pointed out there, its that there needs to be more unification and consensus about good fishkeeping standards amongst fishkeepers of almost any size of fish.

The psychological impact of fish in such sizes do matter anyway. A one inch fish often cruises at speeds comperable to that of a 6 or even 10 inch fish. The issue isnt just about proportionate size, its about movement, and the principles of friction vs muscle effort in fish usually mean most fish from an inch to several feet long maintain startlingly similar cruising speeds, and no fish should have to lead a life of a tail flick, and bump, a tail flick and bump, etc etc. There is an optimum efficiency in fish movement as almost standard, and its the physical properties of the medium that dictate fish ability and behaviour. Any fish would be driven insane in these tanks.

Plus 2 feet in length the fish has to change its speed to match it calorific intake, and the metabolism of the fish slows, thus if a guppy was the size of an arowana, and not subject to the limitations of friction, muscular effort and calorific consumption it would be swimming at an average of about 80mph. If a guppy ran on arowana energy consumption principles, it would take a couple of minutes to swim the length of a 3 foot tank, whereas we know they can, in reality, do it in a couple of seconds.


No fish deserves to have its movement interrupted so often by impassible barriers. And yes, I do believe arowana should be kept in 3000 gal plus ponds, which equates to keeping a guppy in a normal sized 15-20 gallon. There is no contradition. I wouldnt put one in an 18 inch wide 100-200 gallon. I have mentioned time and again the risks or stereotypical behaviour and severe and probably painful eyesight damage for arowanas kept in large standard size aquaria. It is my firm belief they are a warmwater pond, or public sized aquarium fish.


When you work out the surface area vs water volume and flow you realise that tank is barely suitable for one small labyrinth fish, let alone a small shoal of small coolwater fish with a high metabolic rate.

Id put good money on a small schoal of WCMM's suffering at least 10% acclimation risk of death as almost standard, and a very large chance of metabolic failure, renal failure and death from ammonia and nitrite exposure plus low saturated o2 contributing to loss of immune system, and increased sulphide bacterial communities near the bottom. Saprolegnia also stands a very good chance of becoming prevalent.

Id lay $50 on 4 out of 6 WCMM's not making it 6 months. This tank is barely suitable for one fish. Its definately not suitable for community, and absolutely definately not suitable for a beginner, who may not have a firm enough grasp of water quality control, and the feeding restraint required to keep the fish alive under such circumstances.

Beginners want them, and beginners cant handle them. Pros could handle one, sure, but 99% of pros wouldnt want one, and probably look at them with a degree of disgust, as befits their fish housing capability.

Good news guys, convinced her against having fish in there by explaining that it's not really "low maintenance" like is says on the box, but quite the opposite! It actually said that you wouldn't need to do any water changes since it has a filter!

So anyway, she found a LFS and bought some plants and gravel (Not sure what kind, looks like anacharis and a few java ferns), and it looks great.

So rest assured that there will be no fish or inverts in the tank (well maybe some pond snails).

You could convince her to have a look around trendy shops for those glass fish attached to floating glass bubbles. I think they'd look good in a narrow planted tank.

<Vet in Training>
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Hello people, after reading how terrible these tanks are I had to reg, & comment. I own one 75Lx15Hx4.5W. Have been successfully breeding Endler Guppies now for three years using this tank and now 3 other 10 gal tanks.

Love my tank now on to this thread. I am now looking into converting it into a SW reef system. Before you gasp, I have seen active live successful reefs in 1 gal vase. Its on YouTube now.

I'm willing to go as far as building an outside sump and drilling the tank but I don't think I need to. Check this guy out Mini Aquaripure http://www.aquaripure.com/products.htm


Attached Image:

Aussie Wall reef tank build

Regardless of what she decides to go with I'd recommend planting, as suggested something structured is going to be easiest to maintain, however with options C & D it will be essential to break up the tank & reduce possible aggression a little.


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