Nano Tank for Ram

[TinyTank]

I set up a miniature tank on my desk at work.

The tank is a Marineland Eclipse 3 gallon tank with the Marineland system 3 wet dry filter/hood on it. The tank is heated to about 81 degrees F and has a sand substrate with various live plants and a piece of driftwood. The water in the tank came from my 30 gallon tank at home and has been cycling with a couple of guppies for a week. Now I have removed the guppies and I really want a dwarf cichlid. I am getting the tank water tested at my LFS today and then I will be able to tell you better the water chemistry.

I was considering putting one or maybe two blue ram's in this tank with two oto's. Is this advisable? I don't want to deal with mating behavior.

Thanks
Jon

 

[TinyTank]

Okay the LFS tested the water and this is what they found:

Ammonia (NH4)- .75
Nitrite(NO2)- 1.0
Chlorine- 0
pH- 7.3
Carbonate Hardness (kH)- 1 degree
General Hardness (dH)- 6 degree

They suggested I continue to cycle the tank for two more weeks with a couple of guppies. Should I add peat to the filter?

 

[fishgeek]

not with a kh of in a tank that small
you will surely have pH instability

andrew

 

[farm41]

I would not add any fish until ammonia and nitrite are at zero. Just add a pinch of flake food or whatever you are feeding to the fish in your other tank, to keep feeding the nitrogen cycle.

For more on the nitrogen cycle, please read:

http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html

hth

 

[Leipo]

I wouldn't add any dwarf-cichlid to a tank that small...

 

[TinyTank]

Thank you for your advice. I respect your experience in this matter. For now I plan to continue the cycling of the tank till I get better numbers. Don't worry, I won't put any dwarf cichlid in the tank till it proves to me that it can maintain balanced water chemistry. So for the next couple of weeks it will be cycling and water testing.

 

[Mike Wise]

I tend to agree with Leipo. The tank is too small for any pair of cichlids. You probably will do OK with 1 Orinoco Ram, or 1 of a smaller apistio species, but that is all.

 

[BigDaddy]

3 gallons really isn't a lot of space for most dwarfs. I feel sorry/guilty if I have to put one of my fish in a 5 gallon hospital tank for any length of time...

 

[Mettle]

3 gallons really isn't a lot of space for most dwarfs. I feel sorry/guilty if I have to put one of my fish in a 5 gallon hospital tank for any length of time...

Really? I've seen a lot of people with 5 gallons set up for breeding apistos and various killies. Works great for them.

 

[Mike Wise]

A 3 gallon tank is 40% smaller than a 5 & will have a shorter length, too. That means less distance between fish if they become territorial.

 

[ciclidcrazy!]

Yeah, I think a tank to that size is gonna be a problem because rams tend to be territoral. You might be able to do maybe a pair of apistos.

 

[Mike Wise]

Probably the only apisto species that would do, as a pair, in such a tank is A. sp. Balzfleck/Breeding spot/Courting-spot - not an especially pretty fish but at 1½"/35 mm long they are tiny. Virtually any other apisto pair is too large to keep in such a small tank for any lengh of time.

 

[TinyTank]

Okay the 3 gallon nano tank has cycled for over three weeks now. I bought my own test kit and tested the water today.

Ammonia- NH4- 0
Nitrite- N02- 0
PH- 7.3

I still haven't put any apisto in the tank yet. I am thinking about putting one oto in and then adding peat to the filter and testing for a couple of more weeks. That PH just won't come down. The Rams at the LFS are in water that is at 7.1. They are german blues and farm raised. If I can get my PH down to at least 7.1 I might try to go with one Ram. The tank is simply too small to expect a pair to live in it.

 

[paul_fox]

Dont put an otto in it, they need a mature tank, I wouldnt put them in tank less than around 3-4 months old

 

[TinyTank]

Nano Tank Update

Nano Tank Update:

Well in spite of contradictory advice I put a single German Blue Ram in my 3 gallon tank a couple of weeks ago. The water chemistry is stable and ammonia and nitrites are at zero. So far he seems perfectly healthy. I decided to observe him closely and if he showed any signs of stress I would take him home and put him in a larger tank.

Two weeks have come and gone and he seems perfectly healthy. All of the descriptions of this fish I've read list him as a shy fish but mine isn't. In this species tank he comes right up to the glass will follow my finger around begging to be fed. He seems very curious about my PDA and computer mouse next to the tank. He has already dug a nice pit in the unplanted corner of the tank right under where I usually feed him. He seems to enjoy moving the substrate around, I am glad now that I went with sand instead of gravel.

The only maintenance I do is a 20% water change every Friday. We are also coming up on the first monthly filter change. I also have a few species of very fast growing plants in the tank which I trim back for appearance sake. I suspect that the fast growing plants are helping somewhat to deal with the nitrites.

He does share the tank with an oto (Otocinclus affinis). The two of them seem more or less oblivious to each other. I've considered removing the oto and going with a small algae eating type shrimp instead. I've heard they do a reasonably good job of cleaning the tank and don't create quite as much waste as the oto.

I've been feeding four TetraCichlid pellets daily and 1/4 of an Hikari Tropical Algae Wafer. On Friday I put in a half of a Wardly weekend feeder.

I haven't tried any live foods yet, not sure what would be best.