my new biorb

[renaldz]

hi there today i went out and bought the standard tropical biorb and was just wondering what you all think i should stock it with when it has been established??
thanks
renaldz

 

[WILDER]

how many gallons is it please.

 

[renaldz]

ohh yer sorry bout that should really of said ermmm it is 30 english litres which i think it bout 16 gallons. I aint 100% tho

 

[Bloo]

Here is a fairly recent thread on Biorbs - and the thread also contains a link to a forum dedicated to Biorbs. That might be of greatest help to you.
However just remember that due to the shape of biorbs, you are very limited as to what fish you might want to keep.

Edit - and according that that thread they are 8 US gallons (6.5 UK gallons)

 

[debiasir]

betta is the only thing i think should be kept in a biorb, i had very bad experiences with a biorb .

 

[guppy]

ohh yer sorry bout that should really of said ermmm it is 30 english litres which i think it bout 16 gallons. I aint 100% tho

its like 9 or 10 uk gallons

 

[debiasir]

30 litres will be 6.5 uk gallons, but the surface area is very small

 

[renaldz]

yer i have just checked up and it is roughly 6.5/7 uk gallons! Smaller than i originally thought but it will be fine!

 

[GSD]

mabe a betta?

 

[OohFeeshy]

A bettas about it. You can't have any bottomdwellers, the substrate is too sharp. In a 6 gallon, I'd imagine you could possibly have...

5 or so bumblebee gobies (if you make it brackish, which I think you can do)

1 Dwarf puffer

A few smaller livebearers (guppies or platies, but male only)



But, see what other people say. Watch out though, I know some people really hate biorbs. As such to call them 'containers' not tanks. You know who you are LOL.

 

[debiasir]

dwarf puffer would be ok in a birob i think. expensive 6 gallon tank though

 

[sylvia]

I agree, it's not worth the money IMO. I have to say that I've never had one of these things myself - do you know whether it would be dangerous to have very small fish in there - would the filter system suck them up (seem to recall a diagram with a tube-like thing in the middle that might be a problem).

If they are safe, you can do a tiny planted community. No bottom-dwellers though and, if you want a decent number of fish, you can only get realy, realy small species - what do you think of 5-6 spotted rasbora, a trio of endler's or mosquito fish or maybe a honey gourami or some sparkling gouramies? Any combination would work as long as you stick to the right ratios, don't over-crowd the gouramies and make sure the rasboras are in a small school.

If you can't go with these, maybe get a trio of platies and a betta or some guppies (not with a betta). A dwarf gourami would also work instead of the betta.

There are also some killis you could do. Try breeding a pair of american-flag fish in there for example (plant heavily though - either live or fake doesn't matter).

As I said before though, I'm not too familiar with the workings of this contraption so be careful of your choices. Is there no chance of replacing the substrate with something less sharp? Then you could have pygmy cories, small loaches, otos (may be possible anyway as they tend to stick to the glass/plants) etc. You could even have shell-dwellers or a badis. There's small gobies (both freshwater and brackish) that would work too but I wouldn't feel comfortable putting them in a tank with such sharp substrate. Also, I don't know how well yu could grow plants in that gravel.

 

[debiasir]

the tube in the middle allows bubbles to coe up and break the surface you can by a thing to go in the tube at the top so fish cant swim down there.

 

[OohFeeshy]

As far as I could find out, the ceramic substrate is mainly for bacteria to colonise. You could probably replace it with sand, but I'd watch out.

EDIT- Is the filtration basicly a newer version of the UGF?

 

[sylvia]

If it does turn out to just be a fancy UGF, you couldn't use sand. If the only reason the substrate is there is for bacteria to colonise, it would be fine to replace it with whatever you want.