Fish or a 5 gallon tank?

Question

Hi dudes and duddettes. I plan to buy some fish for my daughter, some that wont need too much special care (tropical would be ideal since the temperature here raises up to 42 C). Could you advise me on this one? I know the tank is pretty small, so I dont want to overcrowd it. Thanx

Yeah, I thought about the beta, but the tetras and neons and.... its too much variety! Oh, I already bought the starter kit with filter, heater and everything ($40 bucks!).

Answer 1

For starters, DONT get goldfish, tetras, or any fish that grow to be more then 3".
I would recommend either a guppy, male betta, female betta, or frog tank. For a guppy tank I would get 3 male guppies and 1 otocinclus OR 2 ghost shrimp.
For a male betta tank I would get 1 male betta and 3 ghost shrimp OR 1 otocinclus.
For a female betta tank I would get 1 female betta and 1 otocinclus OR 2 panda corydoras or dwarf corydoras catfish.
For a frog tank I would get 2 dwarf african frogs and nothing else.
The easiest for your daughter to take care of would be a male betta w/ ghsot shrimp, though the frogs can be fun, just be sure to keep the tank covered.
Good Luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 2

isn't 42 c like 1000 f?

my first advice is get large silk plants that make the tank look more like an overgrown terrarium. add a couple hide out decorations and you have the perfect home for 3 or 4 female bettas. they can live together provided they aren't stuck up in each others faces 24/7.

you can use this same arragement minus the hideouts for a couple dwarf puffers and snails. snails are puffers favorite food and the shells keep their little puffer teeth filed down. just throw some baby snails in and they will make lots of food for your puffers. the puffers will spend their days looking out the tank (they are very curious about their environment much like bettas) and checking under plant leaves for snails.

third choice would be a couple dwarf gouramis or sparkling gouramis. gouramis are relavtives of bettas and the ones that stay small are find in 5 gallons. sparkling gouramis also sing as part of their mating ritual. not many people have singing fish.


enough yet? a dario if you can find them and some dwarf rasboras. darios are cute little guys that are very territorial so you can't really put them together. dwarf rasboras are tiny little schooling fish so you get like a mini aquarium effect.

Answer 3

Wow. Ofcourse!

My uncle got me a 5 gallon fish equarium too!

The tank is pretty good for a person who's never done this before.

To make it much easier go to a pet store and ask for a starter kit of a 5 gallon tank.

It should cost about (50-70$)

But with the rocks the accesories it whould be about 80-90$ depending on the price of the accesories.

The thermonither for the aquarium is 7.00$

Buy about 11-13 fish and that whould be the best thing ever.

Ok buddy, ur looking at approxamently 100$...


Hope i helped..

Answer 4

If you buy goldfish, they don't need the heater. Any other tropical (other than Beta) will. The key to not over crowding is simply to mentally visualize your fish all lined up in a row. Do not exceed the full length of your tank and the fish will be fine. I have a five gallon tank and I bought two goldfish with those bobble hat like heads. they tell me it may be a little over crowed when they are full grown, so be careful. Good luck and enjoy.
P.S. If you choose the beta, only choose one. They will fight to the death!

Answer 5

You're pretty limited with your 5gal. Why don't you take her with you and ask a professional at the store? They will probably recommend a betta though. They are pretty much a one fish per tank kinda guy, but sometimes you can get a male and a female together and they won't fight. The males are the really pretty ones. Plus she would be able to make the tank her one by putting as much decorations in as she wants and not inhibit his space. Really pretty fish.

Answer 6

My son has had a goldfish for 5 yrs now. She had babies at one point that we found homes for. She is way easy to take care of. A lot of people on Yahoo have frowned on my suggestion of how we care for 'Porky' but lets face it. You are a parent and doting on a fish is last on your list for the week. We got a ten gal tank with bubbles and put a plecostomus in there to handle the green algae. They don't need a heater as they can handle the cold fine without getting ICK like tropical fish do if the temp of the tank changes. Like any fish tho the heat will get to them, we live in the desert and so during the summer we just drop a couple pieces of ice in the tank here and there and shes always been fine. We don't do full tank changes but once every few months if the tank looks like it needs it. We feed her pond pellets that you can buy in bulk. As long as you clean the filter once every couple weeks, give the fish a pleco (vaccumm, lol) for cleaning purposes... they are way easy kid fish! And btw, for those nay sayers, we used to have a 275gal aggressive tank and when we moved across country couldn't garauntee transport, but we still have the test strips that I have used on this 'Porky' tank and all the ph is just fine and her water is always crystal clear. We have had to get algae pellets for the pleco because if he runs out of algae he sucks on her and she looses scales to him. The pellets for him stopped that.

On the fun side though we got guppies for our other son that we had for years. They do need frequent tank changes though as their ph is high when they 'pee'. But, they have lots of babies and the boys loved watching them have babies and see them grow up. You just buy a lil 'house' or rock with holes for the babies to escape to and stay until they are big enough to not get eaten, which doesn't take long for them to get big enough. You could start with 2 femalesand 2 males and you will be giving fish away within the month. They are neat.

Puffers are fun too.. Get the little ones, I don't remember the name, they don't get very big, spotted puffer I think is the name. We had three in a 10 gal octogon tank, and they are hilarious. We would give them 'krill' and you could hear them chew it! They were too cute to watch. We had two archers in with them, but Archers are bigger fish and would eventually have to be moved to a bigger tank.. Those are cool because the boys would flick the top of the water and they would come running to the top looooook and if you held krill about 6 inches above the water they would spit at it to 'knock it down' to eat. If the tank was open and you were next to the tank with something they thought they wanted they would spit at you up to about 3ft away to get it. They were funny too.

There are some suggestions, all pretty easy to care for and neat for the kids. Sadly, we had our 275 gal, a 75 gal and 5 10gals before we moved. We weren't sure everyone could take the move so we gave them all to different friends and family except the goldfish because we were pretty sure she could make it easily then she was accidentally frozen on the move from NY to NV and was easily revived with warm water, lol. Gold fish are pretty hearty with the right conditions, lol.
Have fun with what ever fish you get, they are all fun. We can't wait to settle down and get tanks again. The bigger ones are a ton of work, but they are all fun. Our little tanks were holding tanks for fish that were being 'abused' by other fish in the bigger tanks. We had a 'hospital' tank, that was 'Porky's' tank because she was non aggressive for the most part and too big to get eaten, lol. We had holding tanks like the puffer tank for the Archers until they were big enough to go into the larger tank. Out of all of them, the fish in the smaller tanks were the most fun, lol.


Good Luck!! Have Fun!!

Answer 7

1 or 2 mollies would be good. Or 2 or 3 gold fish... or a beta fish!

Answer 8

DANG. Gets pretty hot where you are. Goldfish are fun and do not require too much care. I'm thinking one betta would be best. They are very easy to keep. and they're beautful. If you give me more info. on the tank i can help you more.