5 Gallon Aquarium

[ChemBob]

My son has a 5 gallon tank that was in his room. Unfortunately, it was mostly forgotten up there as we don't spend much time up there, so I've relocated it next to my normal tanks and added some plants from my other tanks. He is a bit discouraged by the past several months of it, but I think a new spot will help significantly. He had a Betta in there before, and he may go back with another one. However, I want to give him the option of a few other fish. I've got the following to consider: cherry shrimp, betta, celestial pearl danio, clown killifish, and neon tetra. Any suggestions on my list, or anything else to add?

[KBOzzie59]

CPD's and cherry shrimp.

[Tinyfellows]

Chili rasboras are great 

[CalmedByFish]

I have endlers in a 5 gallon. They fit great, are hardy, and the boys are colorful.

[Eric R]

I'd drop the neons from the list, they should ideally have more swimming room than a 5 gallon can provide.

I second endlers, they are attractive fish, not very large, hardy, as well as livebearers. Seeing baby fish grow-up will help your son get excited and feel good about the tank (as another plus, if a few die for whatever reason, there will be more babies growing up, so a loss of a fish might not hurt so bad as it otherwise would, say if it was a single betta). Plus, you'll probably have enough baby shrimp survive that you can also keep shrimp with them.

Other than endlers, you could also consider least killifish (heterandia formosa), another small hardy livebearer like the endler, so most of the same things said above apply here, except that this one is native to the US and not as colorful. Still, I enjoy keeping them, and I'm working on breeding out an albino strain right now.

[shkote]

I keep a small handful of male Endlers in my dirted 5 gallon portrait at work, and tons of shrimp. They do very well and this tank is unheated and unfiltered and wall to wall planted. At the moment there is also a handful of small CPDs in here while they wait for my summer tub to be ready 🙂

[anewbie]

My neon do fine in my 5 gallon tank - they really don't swim much - then again my cardinals in the 120 don't swim much either. I also have ember in my 5 gallon tank - they swim a bit more than the neon - they love to eat 😉

 

This is the tank. Believe it or not i removed about 60% of the floaters this weekend but alas it is still a forest of roots (some of those roots are over 2 feet long):

 

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by anewbie

[binkysmom]

Chili rasboras are great. I'd do them with a contrast coloured shrimp (orange, yellow).

they really colour up with a dark substrate. It makes their red really "pop".