Has anybody tried to keep a darter or two in anything less than a 10 gallon? I am just simply curious. I had some in my 210, but they keep getting eaten. I really like these fish and they were so much fun to watch. I thought about making a smaller tank just for them.
Darter tank less than 10 gallons?
Started by
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, Aug 02 2010 11:24 AM
9 replies to this topic
#2
Guest_bumpylemon_*
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Posted 02 August 2010 - 11:28 AM
You could keep swamp darters in a ten gallon
#3
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Posted 02 August 2010 - 11:55 AM
What sort of darters are you thinking of keeping? Smaller darters would probably work, but large darters would be cramped. Territoriality could be a bigger issue if the "losers" have no place to escape from the dominant fish. Also keep in mind that small tanks are inherently less stable with regard to water quality and temperature.
#4
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Posted 02 August 2010 - 02:56 PM
Small tanks less than 10 gallons are unstable. They experience drastic swings in temperature and water quality.
Because wild fish are often more sensitive to water quality issues than fish that have been bred for many generations in captivity, the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate would all need to be at 0 ppm all the time. Because of this waste sensitivity, I don't think it's a good idea to intentionally cram fish into small spaces. It's so easy for a small space to kill a fish. It has to do with how the waste in a small tank reaches a deadly high concentration before the waste in a large tank would. Let me explain. Concentration, for example the unit of parts per million, is calculated by taking the amount and dividing by the volume. Here is an example. Imagine one fish in a 2 gallon tank. 1/2 = 0.5 Pretend that 0.5 represents the concentration of waste. That number is higher than if that one fish was in a large tank. That same fish in a 55 gallon tank would be 1/55 = 0.018. The number 0.018, let's round that to 0.2, is much smaller than 0.5. So the same fish excreting the same amount of waste into a large tank experiences a lower concentration of waste in the water, and therefore a lower toxin concentration. A single fish or single perterbations in tank events have less of an effect on the total water quality of a large tank. Versus a small tank, where even one fish too many or one minor event can cause a major swing in waste concentration that could make the water unlivable for every fish in the tank. It isn't very responsible to induce pain or death in a living creature that you have responsibility for because you personally want to keep them in a small space. And dying from toxic excretion poisoning is a painful death for a fish. High waste concentrations burns their gills, kind of like if you were breathing in a corrosive chemical that ate away at the tissue of your lungs. Their gills never fully heal from being burned.
I apologize if that was a little graphic. I think I'm just trying to explain why I would, if given the choice, always choose a larger aquarium over a smaller aquarium. The same number of fish in a larger aquarium gets stressed less and lives longer than they would in a small aquarium. So choose a larger aquarium if you can.
If you're just going smaller because of price, then you might want to consider alternatives other than buying a brand new aquarium from a local pet store. There are actually plenty of ways to get tanks cheap. You can build your own (with three walls being plywood and pond sealant and one wall being a front viewing glass). Or you could go to garage sales or to www.craigslist.org and buy a used tank. I myself bought my 55 gallon tank for $25 from a seller on craigslist. And I've seen 100+ gallon tanks go for $100 on that website. Buying supplies from non-pet-store sellers or making your own can save you a lot of money, too. My 4 foot light was $30 total including bulbs at Home Depot and is a brighter light (700 lumens per bulb, two bulbs in the unit, full spectrum) than the light that would normally come in an aquarium hood. And upsizing your tank doesn't necessarily mean a big upswing in cost. A 55 gallon filter is about $50, wheras a 10 gallon filter is $25. So there's only a $25 difference for 45 gallons more filtration. The stuff for smaller tanks is often very expensive unit price per gallon. Anyway, my point is that big tanks don't have to be more expensive. You don't have to get a small tank because you think it would cost less. In the long term, after buying medication for your sick fish and after replacing lost stock, it's less expensive to simple have healthy fish that live long lives and possibly reproduce in the tank.
If you are choosing to go with a <10 gallon tank because of size limitations in the place where you live, then I guess I can try to understand. You'd want to pick a species where each individual spends the majority of its life alone, and perhaps the species would live in still water that way you don't have to try to find a powerhead to fit your tiny tank.
But darters are social creatures. They enjoy living near one another. So you have to give them enough space where you can comfortably house a sample population that would live just as it would in the wild. Giving them a lower quality life than they would have had if you hadn't interfered with them isn't fair to them, and it isn't fair to you because you won't be able to observe them as they are when they are happy. So get a tank big enough for the species of darter you choose to live just as it would in the wild. Get enough space to house ten to twenty of them comfortably, and let them interact, form harems(if that species does), and mate just like they would in the wild. That way, you get to observe their whole life cycle. Breeding your darters would be way more fun than just stuffing a single one or a couple angry ones into a small space and then watching them live out their short life span and then having to go catch more. Sustainable fish keeping. It's a good idea.
Well, good luck. I'm sorry if I ranted at you. I just really do believe that bigger aquariums are better than small aquariums, both for the fish that have to spend their whole lives in that box and for the people that want to see the fish interact in the many diverse ways that they would in the wild.
Because wild fish are often more sensitive to water quality issues than fish that have been bred for many generations in captivity, the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate would all need to be at 0 ppm all the time. Because of this waste sensitivity, I don't think it's a good idea to intentionally cram fish into small spaces. It's so easy for a small space to kill a fish. It has to do with how the waste in a small tank reaches a deadly high concentration before the waste in a large tank would. Let me explain. Concentration, for example the unit of parts per million, is calculated by taking the amount and dividing by the volume. Here is an example. Imagine one fish in a 2 gallon tank. 1/2 = 0.5 Pretend that 0.5 represents the concentration of waste. That number is higher than if that one fish was in a large tank. That same fish in a 55 gallon tank would be 1/55 = 0.018. The number 0.018, let's round that to 0.2, is much smaller than 0.5. So the same fish excreting the same amount of waste into a large tank experiences a lower concentration of waste in the water, and therefore a lower toxin concentration. A single fish or single perterbations in tank events have less of an effect on the total water quality of a large tank. Versus a small tank, where even one fish too many or one minor event can cause a major swing in waste concentration that could make the water unlivable for every fish in the tank. It isn't very responsible to induce pain or death in a living creature that you have responsibility for because you personally want to keep them in a small space. And dying from toxic excretion poisoning is a painful death for a fish. High waste concentrations burns their gills, kind of like if you were breathing in a corrosive chemical that ate away at the tissue of your lungs. Their gills never fully heal from being burned.
I apologize if that was a little graphic. I think I'm just trying to explain why I would, if given the choice, always choose a larger aquarium over a smaller aquarium. The same number of fish in a larger aquarium gets stressed less and lives longer than they would in a small aquarium. So choose a larger aquarium if you can.
If you're just going smaller because of price, then you might want to consider alternatives other than buying a brand new aquarium from a local pet store. There are actually plenty of ways to get tanks cheap. You can build your own (with three walls being plywood and pond sealant and one wall being a front viewing glass). Or you could go to garage sales or to www.craigslist.org and buy a used tank. I myself bought my 55 gallon tank for $25 from a seller on craigslist. And I've seen 100+ gallon tanks go for $100 on that website. Buying supplies from non-pet-store sellers or making your own can save you a lot of money, too. My 4 foot light was $30 total including bulbs at Home Depot and is a brighter light (700 lumens per bulb, two bulbs in the unit, full spectrum) than the light that would normally come in an aquarium hood. And upsizing your tank doesn't necessarily mean a big upswing in cost. A 55 gallon filter is about $50, wheras a 10 gallon filter is $25. So there's only a $25 difference for 45 gallons more filtration. The stuff for smaller tanks is often very expensive unit price per gallon. Anyway, my point is that big tanks don't have to be more expensive. You don't have to get a small tank because you think it would cost less. In the long term, after buying medication for your sick fish and after replacing lost stock, it's less expensive to simple have healthy fish that live long lives and possibly reproduce in the tank.
If you are choosing to go with a <10 gallon tank because of size limitations in the place where you live, then I guess I can try to understand. You'd want to pick a species where each individual spends the majority of its life alone, and perhaps the species would live in still water that way you don't have to try to find a powerhead to fit your tiny tank.
But darters are social creatures. They enjoy living near one another. So you have to give them enough space where you can comfortably house a sample population that would live just as it would in the wild. Giving them a lower quality life than they would have had if you hadn't interfered with them isn't fair to them, and it isn't fair to you because you won't be able to observe them as they are when they are happy. So get a tank big enough for the species of darter you choose to live just as it would in the wild. Get enough space to house ten to twenty of them comfortably, and let them interact, form harems(if that species does), and mate just like they would in the wild. That way, you get to observe their whole life cycle. Breeding your darters would be way more fun than just stuffing a single one or a couple angry ones into a small space and then watching them live out their short life span and then having to go catch more. Sustainable fish keeping. It's a good idea.
Well, good luck. I'm sorry if I ranted at you. I just really do believe that bigger aquariums are better than small aquariums, both for the fish that have to spend their whole lives in that box and for the people that want to see the fish interact in the many diverse ways that they would in the wild.
Edited by Okiimiru, 02 August 2010 - 03:10 PM.
#5
Guest_bjbass_*
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Posted 02 August 2010 - 03:33 PM
Small tanks less than 10 gallons are unstable. They experience drastic swings in temperature and water quality.
Because wild fish are often more sensitive to water quality issues than fish that have been bred for many generations in captivity, the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate would all need to be at 0 ppm all the time. Because of this waste sensitivity, I don't think it's a good idea to intentionally cram fish into small spaces. It's so easy for a small space to kill a fish. It has to do with how the waste in a small tank reaches a deadly high concentration before the waste in a large tank would. Let me explain. Concentration, for example the unit of parts per million, is calculated by taking the amount and dividing by the volume. Here is an example. Imagine one fish in a 2 gallon tank. 1/2 = 0.5 Pretend that 0.5 represents the concentration of waste. That number is higher than if that one fish was in a large tank. That same fish in a 55 gallon tank would be 1/55 = 0.018. The number 0.018, let's round that to 0.2, is much smaller than 0.5. So the same fish excreting the same amount of waste into a large tank experiences a lower concentration of waste in the water, and therefore a lower toxin concentration. A single fish or single perterbations in tank events have less of an effect on the total water quality of a large tank. Versus a small tank, where even one fish too many or one minor event can cause a major swing in waste concentration that could make the water unlivable for every fish in the tank. It isn't very responsible to induce pain or death in a living creature that you have responsibility for because you personally want to keep them in a small space. And dying from toxic excretion poisoning is a painful death for a fish. High waste concentrations burns their gills, kind of like if you were breathing in a corrosive chemical that ate away at the tissue of your lungs. Their gills never fully heal from being burned.
I apologize if that was a little graphic. I think I'm just trying to explain why I would, if given the choice, always choose a larger aquarium over a smaller aquarium. The same number of fish in a larger aquarium gets stressed less and lives longer than they would in a small aquarium. So choose a larger aquarium if you can.
If you're just going smaller because of price, then you might want to consider alternatives other than buying a brand new aquarium from a local pet store. There are actually plenty of ways to get tanks cheap. You can build your own (with three walls being plywood and pond sealant and one wall being a front viewing glass). Or you could go to garage sales or to www.craigslist.org and buy a used tank. I myself bought my 55 gallon tank for $25 from a seller on craigslist. And I've seen 100+ gallon tanks go for $100 on that website. Buying supplies from non-pet-store sellers or making your own can save you a lot of money, too. My 4 foot light was $30 total including bulbs at Home Depot and is a brighter light (700 lumens per bulb, two bulbs in the unit, full spectrum) than the light that would normally come in an aquarium hood. And upsizing your tank doesn't necessarily mean a big upswing in cost. A 55 gallon filter is about $50, wheras a 10 gallon filter is $25. So there's only a $25 difference for 45 gallons more filtration. The stuff for smaller tanks is often very expensive unit price per gallon. Anyway, my point is that big tanks don't have to be more expensive. You don't have to get a small tank because you think it would cost less. In the long term, after buying medication for your sick fish and after replacing lost stock, it's less expensive to simple have healthy fish that live long lives and possibly reproduce in the tank.
If you are choosing to go with a <10 gallon tank because of size limitations in the place where you live, then I guess I can try to understand. You'd want to pick a species where each individual spends the majority of its life alone, and perhaps the species would live in still water that way you don't have to try to find a powerhead to fit your tiny tank.
But darters are social creatures. They enjoy living near one another. So you have to give them enough space where you can comfortably house a sample population that would live just as it would in the wild. Giving them a lower quality life than they would have had if you hadn't interfered with them isn't fair to them, and it isn't fair to you because you won't be able to observe them as they are when they are happy. So get a tank big enough for the species of darter you choose to live just as it would in the wild. Get enough space to house ten to twenty of them comfortably, and let them interact, form harems(if that species does), and mate just like they would in the wild. That way, you get to observe their whole life cycle. Breeding your darters would be way more fun than just stuffing a single one or a couple angry ones into a small space and then watching them live out their short life span and then having to go catch more. Sustainable fish keeping. It's a good idea.
Well, good luck. I'm sorry if I ranted at you. I just really do believe that bigger aquariums are better than small aquariums, both for the fish that have to spend their whole lives in that box and for the people that want to see the fish interact in the many diverse ways that they would in the wild.
No problem at all. I agree with what you are saying. I have a 210 that I have put them in, but the predators snack on them. I just thought about doing something on the smaller side for some darters. I don't necessarily have to go less than 10, but I thought I would ask as I know some darters are pretty tiny. Thanks for the detailed information! If I were to do a darter tank, I would probably go with a 30-50 gallon then.
#6
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Posted 02 August 2010 - 06:01 PM
An experienced aquarist should have no trouble keeping small tanks stable. I have several 2 1/2 and 5 gallon tanks. If you aren't experienced, then stick to the bigger ones until you are. The smaller darters would be fine in smaller tanks. You'd want swamp darters or johnnies, something that doesn't want a lot of current.
I have a 30 gallon tank that I like quite a bit, it's long enough for a decent sized power head with a lot of current. I can keep any size darters in it. I don't keep any fish with darters that can eat them. Whenever you want to mix different species of fish, look at their mouths. If one can fit in another's mouth, it will probably end up there sooner or later. It's easy to underestimate the size of a fish's mouth, too. I've had fish eat other fish that I would have sworn were too big.
I have a 30 gallon tank that I like quite a bit, it's long enough for a decent sized power head with a lot of current. I can keep any size darters in it. I don't keep any fish with darters that can eat them. Whenever you want to mix different species of fish, look at their mouths. If one can fit in another's mouth, it will probably end up there sooner or later. It's easy to underestimate the size of a fish's mouth, too. I've had fish eat other fish that I would have sworn were too big.
#7
Michael Wolfe
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Posted 02 August 2010 - 10:26 PM
Has anybody tried to keep a darter or two in anything less than a 10 gallon? I am just simply curious. I had some in my 210, but they keep getting eaten. I really like these fish and they were so much fun to watch. I thought about making a smaller tank just for them.
Other advice to the contrary, I will have to tell you that something like swamp darters are pretty tough and I have certainly kept two in a 6 gallon tank with some live plants in and they have been doing very well for over a year. Native fish are all about habitat. They are not really "sensitive" just tuned to the habitat... that being said, some habitats are very stable and the fish from these are not likely to do well in an aquarium unless you provide then with just that habitat... others are more generalists and will do fine as long as the basics of oxygen and food are provided... in my opinion swamp darters are one of these.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin
#8
Guest_Okiimiru_*
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Posted 03 August 2010 - 01:37 PM
Other advice to the contrary, I will have to tell you that something like swamp darters are pretty tough and I have certainly kept two in a 6 gallon tank with some live plants in and they have been doing very well for over a year.
Do they breed in your 6 gallon tank?
#9
Guest_Jan_*
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Posted 03 August 2010 - 05:19 PM
I have four small darters in a 10 gallon, with a small aquaclear filter and aerator. They have been in there 5 months and are doing well. They are a swamp darter (he's great!),two tesselateds, and a peidmont. I actually took some of them out of the 55 gallon tank. Reason being they were being out competed by more active shiners and minnows and were becomingDo they breed in your 6 gallon tank?
undernourished. They are doing better in the smaller species only tank. I'm just sayin . . . .
#10
Michael Wolfe
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Posted 03 August 2010 - 07:09 PM
not these two, no gaurantee they are a pair and they have had a variety of tank mates and varying levels of neglectDo they breed in your 6 gallon tank?
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin
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