5 Gallon Tank.

[PRW1988]

Hey all, I'm thinking of making a small, 5 gallon blackwater biotope (spelling?) tank. I'm going to have 6 neon tetras and mabye some sort of Aglea eater in the tank but there's where my problem lies. What small, yet efficent algea eater would go well in a blackwater tank? Or would it be more advisable to just get a snail? Also, I can't seem to find any blackwater extract or Indian almond leaves anywhere around me. I know that garden centres should carry Peat moss, and I've got my LFS for the drift wood (I like the leaked tannins look in a smaller tank). But would Ph down do the trick to get my Ph acidic enough to be classified as "blackwater"?

In regards to the snails, I've been reading on Wikipedia (http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_%28river%29) that blackwater doesn't have much disolved calcium and that the resulting lack of calcium could make it hard for snails to survive.
Is this true in such a small tank?

I'm sorry for all the questions, just one more. Would 8 neon tetras (or possibly 10) be stretching it too much in the tank bioload wise? The tank has a built in filter and it's an eclipse 5gallon hex.

 

[PRW1988]

Bump

 

[CathyGo]

Don't use the chemical ph adjusters. They tend to bounce the ph up and down a lot.

 

[orange shark]

neon tetras need atleast 10 gallons

 

[K.J.]

No, too small, try 25-ish gallons.

 

[PRW1988]

The main question is not about the neons. The main question was about the Ph. I had some spare Ph down, and tried it on the tank, but the tank's Ph hasn't dropped that much. It went from 8.4 to 7.6... I've added about 4 times the tank (20gallons worth of the chemical) and it's still not dropping. So I've said forget the chemical. I've also just placed some Pine Needles in the filter as (with my brother being a horicultural technician) I know that pine needles (when starting to decompose) tend to change the soil Ph to acidic in that area, so I'm hoping that it'll do the same to my tank.

 

[orange shark]

you could also use peat in your filter to lower the ph

 

[PRW1988]

That's the plan as the chemicals aren't working at all, even when I dosed the tank again. I'm still in cycling though, does this effect the Ph?

 

[aaronnorth]

you shpuld use peat rather than chemicals, as this could affect fish and inverts in the long run, peat and bogwood is the natural way to lower ph. chemicals should only be used if you cannot use peat in your filter.

 

[PRW1988]

Well, the tank has no fish in it currently. So the health of them won't be too much of an issue, I'm buying Peat tomorrow, so I'll hopfully have the lowered Ph by Sunday or Monday.

 

[caboose_122]

i think for a 5 gallon black water biotope it would be a bit small, but i think it could be done.
catfish i would go with otos, 3 or 4 of them, i would try the neons, but the tank is a bit to small, if you dont want otos you could go with pigmy corys i think, the decore should be wood, with scattered amazon sword (i would leave out the sword plant) and you dont need to have high water movement. anthing else look here:
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http/fish.mongabay.com/biotope_rio_sucasari.htm

 

[PRW1988]

I'm planning on 6-8 neons in the tank (yes I know, a fair few, but their waste output is low). I want something for algea but I think that otos may not be good for such a small tank. I may try 2 of them, just to see. As for plants I'm planning on smaller plants such as Cambomba (yes I know it can grow very large, but I have a turtle that loves the stuff, so anything that grows to "wild" will just get pruned and fed to my turtle.), aswell I'm thinking of Java fern and possibly Java moss if I can find any... If not I'll try a moss ball.

A large(ish) piece of bogwood will be the centre piece of the tank, and I'm not planning on soaking the wood as I want the tannins to leak into the water and give the tank a true blackwater look.

 

[KraKen]

I've heard that oak leaves work if you can't find indian almond leaves.

 

[PRW1988]

Alright, thanks that may work too Just got my drift wood tonight, I'm planning on soaking it overnight to release the bulk of the tannins (the wood is really dark).