Which Small Fish For A Fluval Edge Tank?

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I agree with Kelly, bettas are not suitable for that tank, a member on this forum was in a similar situation. There is not enugh gap in the surface for the betta to breathe.

Can you explain this "gap" thing further? Do you mean, "gap between the water surface and the lid?" (there is a few inches, and the lid has a screen that's open to the air). Or do you mean that the square opening up top is not large enough in area? I'm puzzled by this gap thing.

I can tell you that I have a betta in a fluval edge with a couple of little panda corys and my betta is doing great. I had him in a half gallon betta dish and felt bad for him within a couple of weeks of getting him, so I bought him the edge. He's loving it. He's active and healthy, swims around a lot and comes to the glass on all sides to follow me around and see what I'm doing, and he goes to the top for little gulps of air from time to time. It's just a 1 inch fish -- the opening is about 6" by 4", and there is plenty of air space above the water surface -- more than enough for my betta to access air.

The only negative is that he keeps depositing little bubbles all over the surface of my tank against the glass, so I have to keep using my algae magnet to clear the top if I want it to look nice ;). On the other hand, my betta loves following the algae magnet around so it seems to be a game for him. I assume that an active, curious fish is a healthy fish.

Anyway, the fish is doing great so I am curious why you feel it should be having problems breathing and what the relevance of "gap" is.


I should add a note to this:

For the first half hour or so that my betta was in the Edge, he'd go to the top, find there was glass instead of surface, and seem to panic a little. He'd swim about the top rapidly looking for the surface until he'd find the good-sized opening in the middle back.

I felt a little bad for him, but he got it all sorted out in no time. He's been in there three weeks and has not shown any sign of this problem since that first half hour. In fact, when I reach for the food tin, he goes right to the surface space to wait for his food. I'm satisfied that he knows his way around now.
 
I would plant it up and have 1x dwarf puffer with a group of ghost/tiger shrimps, maybe try an otto also.
I'd want to add another filter into the tank if going for DPs which would possibly ruin the look of the tank. I wouldn't rely on the HOB filter alone. ;)

I agree with Kelly, bettas are not suitable for that tank, a member on this forum was in a similar situation. There is not enugh gap in the surface for the betta to breathe.

Can you explain this "gap" thing further? Do you mean, "gap between the water surface and the lid?" (there is a few inches, and the lid has a screen that's open to the air). Or do you mean that the square opening up top is not large enough in area? I'm puzzled by this gap thing.


Anyway, the fish is doing great so I am curious why you feel it should be having problems breathing and what the relevance of "gap" is.


I should add a note to this:

For the first half hour or so that my betta was in the Edge, he'd go to the top, find there was glass instead of surface, and seem to panic a little. He'd swim about the top rapidly looking for the surface until he'd find the good-sized opening in the middle back.
I think your last paragraph is what the gap issue is mainly about.
I wouldn't like to put a betta in an Edge as the amount of surface area isn't very sufficient at all.
I used to struggle with the thought of having one in a 30L biorb due to small surface area and that's almost twice the surface area than the Edge has.

Fish wise how about some Hengels or Harlequin rasboras.

R brigittae was a fish I thought about before I went marine with my Edge, but I would be too concerned about them getting sucked up the filter intake.
 
Welcome to the forum Tamra.
The gap we seem to be discussing is the area of open air above the water surface. The oxygen that can be easily dissolved in your water is mainly dependent on the area of water surface that is exposed to the open air. The gaseous exchange happens at that surface. If you have good circulation and a nice large open surface, you end up with the maximum concentration of oxygen in the tank's water. If you have a restricted open surface area or poor circulation near the surface, you are faced with a smaller ability of the water to exchange gasses with the atmosphere. In that case, oyur fish can suffer from inadequate oxygen in their water unless the fish population is kept quite low for the volume of water in the tank. Much of the discussion seems to be centered around whether or not the open surface is a limiting factor. I intend to stay out of this one. In addition to oxygen transfer at the surface, you need to be aware that a Betta splendens will frequently breathe atmospheric oxygen at the water's surface.
 
Welcome to the forum Tamra.

Thanks! I haven't kept fish in more than 10 years so I'm just getting back into it. I'm going to monitor my tank very carefully and am testing my water daily to determine if they are doing well in the Edge. My betta seems to be comfortable with going to the opening for his little surface breaths, so I think this is not an issue for him at this time. I have a black veil tetra in there and its active and showing no signs of hanging around the surface, so there does not seem to be a lack of oxygen. I work at home and am keeping an eye on my tank all the time. One thing I love about the Edge is that it looks nice enough to be on my breakfast bar, so I'm seeing my fish several times a day and really engaging with them. I'll let everyone know if I notice any problems, lose any fish, or see any signs of poor oxygen. I have the filter set to about half power.
 
R brigittae was a fish I thought about before I went marine with my Edge, but I would be too concerned about them getting sucked up the filter intake.

Dangit! You could have just gotten the Fluval intake cover... it's this black open-pore foam tube sold for the edge but obviously you can fit it on aquaclears, etc... I love mine because it doesn't clog like nylon stockings do... oh well, hope the marine worked out well for you!
 
The marine worked out beautifully for me and it was what I really wanted to do with the tank in the first place, but I nearly chickened out :lol:

I haven't seen the filter covers tbh, and did try a bit of nylon netting over the intake which worked perfectly when I had small marine critters in the Edge. I got my Edge when they first came out in the UK and I couldn't even get hold of the proper heater etc that went with it at the time, they were so scarce.

I don't need to worry about that now as I have the filter intake behind live rock and nothing small enough to worry about getting sucked in :D
 
I have added a couple of corys and black veil tetras to my tank (I'll move the latter when I get a larger tank, which is in the works). Due to the comments about the water surface area and oxygen issues (and being soundly lambasted in other areas of this forum for even buying this tank), I decided to do my due diligence and make sure Fluval has worked out a system that properly makes up for the small opening.

I have a chemical test kit to test the oxygen level in my water and I'm doing frequent tests at different times of day (and watching for obvious low oxygen signs like fish rushing to the surface looking for air!). So far it's tested in the safe level for the water temperature (about 77 degrees most times of the day, so between 25 and 25 celsius). I'm using the TetraTest. I will probably try another type as well to be sure because it's not the easist thing to read. I've been testing all kinds of things, including tap water, water from my cooler, etc, to get a good idea of the range. Anyway, it's a good strong pink colour which I believe is what we're looking for.

I've also been using test strips to test PH, nitrites, and nitrates and they have been consistently excellent. I'm very pleased with the filtration.

My betta seems happy. He has even started hanging out with my corys and sharing their pellet food, which is just weird. I saw him yesterday squeezed between the two of them nibbling on their shrimp pellet with them. I have an unusually social betta! (yes, I do feed him betta pellets, sometimes flakes, occassional bloodworms or a bit of pea, and he likes those too). Occassionally he remembers who he is and flares at his tankmates, then swims away.

So ... no one has mentioned putting any kind of small airstone in their Edge. Would that not help too?

(btw, I love the idea of having a marine edge and building a nano reef. I have to learn more about doing this, but I think it would be beautiful!).
 
If anyone is curious, I did add a pump and a very small airstone to my Edge and it's worked out very nicely. I get a little more air against the top of the glass, but not much. I have it nicely situated so that the bubbles go up to the opening. The oxygen level in the tank is terrific now -- very strong pink colour when I test it. It was a bit tricky to position nicely, but overall, not too bad!
 

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