You have what, around a dozen small tetras? Adding 2-3 Otocinclus should be fine. It's not ideal, and a bigger tank would be nicer. Even a 10 gallon tank would be a significant improvement. But, provided you do the water changes, should be fine.

The old rule is you measure width by length in inches, to get surface area of the tank, and then divide by ten. That's how many inches of small (neon sized) fish you can keep safely. Otocinclus are neon sized, for this calculation anyway.

Cheers,

Neale

We wanted to start off with a smaller tank because we didn't know how my son would take to fish-keeping. The 5-gallons seemed so small, the 10-gallons seemed too big. So far my son is enjoying the fish and takes care of them, hopefully he will continue to do so as time goes on.

We plan on doing water changes weekly to keep the fish healthy.

Thank you for your help, I will definitely talk to my son tonight.

Well, my son definitely wants to keep Herbie, and he understands that Herbie will need to go back to the pet store someday.

My husband was wondering if we could keep Herbie in his own tank, rather than return him, and then get another algae eater as per Nmonks' recommendations. Is this a good idea?? What size tank would be good for Herbie, and what kind of supplies would he need in the tank??

Herbie's the sucking loach, right?

You'd probably do best asking specifics in the Oddballs section. There's also a nice profile of them in the fish index.

Cheers,

Neale

mtbgirl - CAEs are one of my favorite species of fish, but keeping one would involve getting a fairly large tank, which I'm not sure you'd be willing/able to do since your current tank is only 7g. This is an article I wrote for Friends of Fish about CAEs; it has some care info and general information about the species. It has one bit of misinformation - the golden variety is NOT wild caught, only the standard is, and it sounds like they're at least starting to farm those - but is Ok if you don't mind it being a bit opinionated. I think it would be a very good life lesson for your son to keep the fish since pets are a life-long commitment, but if you simply can't accomodate the fish's adult size, it would be best to return him.

How do you pin posts?

There's a "pin me, pin me" thread in the Board Announcements section. Add a reply, putting your pinning request. The Mods will pin the topic if they want to.

Cheers,

Neale

Cool. I might write up one on ideal setups for beginners.

I'm testing to see if my picture works sorry if this is annoying

Yes, there are some more exciting varieties. You'll find some on websites such as liveaquaria.com. They can be fairly expensive but remember that they should live in their teens and possibly beyond, and, with a kid (like me!) keeping him, he will be loved and cherished.

EDIT - I just read the second page. Yes, Herbie MUST go. He will get huge and latch on to and feed off of other fish. BEWARE!!!

This post has been edited by tetraman: Sep 27 2006, 12:48 AM

After reading the first post and as I'm starting back with tropicals, I've followed the advice about Otocinclus,

They were 3 for £5, but as they were only small I thought I should get more than 3, the guy at the shop advised against it, saying 3 would be just fine for my tank.

Wow don't they do a good job, so I thank you for some great advice (and him at the shop)

Paul

Just wanted to add another note of caution here for any newbies that may be reading.
I had two Flying Foxes, but a while back the largest of the two (still only small by the way) had to go back to the LFS because he was bullying the smaller one.
From then on, the smaller one grew like anything and was quite a character around the tank ........... untl yesterday, when he started to show a little bit too much interest in my goldfish for comfort.
So he was fished out last night, and will be on his way back to the LFS this morning. I was waiting for it to happen, and it has.
So there we go - these fish are sold as community fish in alot of places, and they are to start with, but I'm afraid things don't always stay that way.

With Amano Shrimp, how many would you need for a 50-60 litre tank to have a substantial effect on the tank. I have two but they don't seem to do that much . . .

I realize this is an old post, but I just wanted to throw in my $.02.

Anyone looking into purchasing an apple snail (AKA Mystery Snail) should definitely check out Applesnail.net. This site is amazing, it contains everything you would want to know about these snails. Also, as said earlier in this string, not ALL apple snails eat live plants! In fact, the most common plant eater (Cannas) are illegal to ship across state lines and are no longer readily available.

In addition, keep in mind that a full grown Brig (non-plant eating apple snail) will occupy 2.5 gal. of water in a tank, and hatching a clutch could yield 50-100 babies. Shipping across state lines requires permits, and it's illegal to ship a brig less than a quarter in size. Make sure you have a home for all of your little ones before you hatch a cluth to save you heart ache in the future.

If you still think that you can provide a good home for a snail, check out Aquabid.com - there's a ton of snailers selling their homestock, and they come in a huge variety of colors that you'll probably never see at the LFS.