Tall / vertical tank stocking ideas?

[NoCo tap water]

Hello all. I’ve recently picked up a new to me acrylic. It has the footprint of a 20gal tall but is 24in high. Comes out to about 30gal. I’ll be running an under gravel filter. 

I like to choose what fish I want to keep, then build a tank around that fish from the start. In this case it was the tank it’s self I wanted due to its odd shape and perfect fit in my fishroom.

I’m going round and round with how to stock this. I do know I will be doing living mangrove roots, but past that I’m pretty open. I want to leverage the tanks odd shape instead of having to feel like I have to work around it. There is some info out there on stocking tall tanks , but it’s not new information for me.

I don’t like most tetra and I have enough small schooling fish. Im open to brackish, still not ready to go full saltwater.

The only thing I can think of is a multi level anglefish tank. Bottom dweller, 4-6 angels, surface dweller (hatchet fish ?). 

Maybe a native Molly tank but this doesn’t seem right for them.

Any recommendations to this tall 30gal?

Edited Monday at 10:55 AM by NoCo tap water

[Littlefish]

With mangrove roots, maybe a pea puffer tank?  It would look like brackish, but wouldn't need to mess with salinity.

[MWilk]

Native Molly is exactly where my thoughts go. Naturally colored Sailfin mollies are beautiful. 

[beastie]

Sadly tall tank doesnt really mean the volume you have. Almost none of the fish use the vertical space, they are all about the footprint, the horizontal. The rule of thumb is therefore to consider these tanks as lower in volume and plan fish according to that, for you it is 20 gallon.

I could see a pair of small apistogramma, with a focal point of visual barriers and like a big root stump, and due to the heigh, having some fun top dwellers, some nannostomus, few hatchetfish,...?

 

I liked this setup MD did, even though I dont like the rest of the tank 

 

[NoCo tap water]

On 10/15/2024 at 1:51 AM, beastie said:

Sadly tall tank doesnt really mean the volume you have. Almost none of the fish use the vertical space, they are all about the footprint, the horizontal. The rule of thumb is therefore to consider these tanks as lower in volume and plan fish according to that, for you it is 20 gallon.

I could see a pair of small apistogramma, with a focal point of visual barriers and like a big root stump, and due to the heigh, having some fun top dwellers, some nannostomus, few hatchetfish,...?

 

I liked this setup MD did, even though I dont like the rest of the tank 

 

Yeah, I like it and I agree, it been fun trying to overcome what I thought would be an easy issue to figure out. As or right now I plan to have it graded steeply for the back left (by the mechanicals). I’ve ordered some caribsea super natural . $33 for 40lbs shipped to my door from chewy. Went with a lighter substrate to go with the blue background.

Due to how tall the tank is, I plan on only a couple of plants. Hygro Willow will be placed towards the left rear to encourage growth up and outside of the tanks. Some super red Ludwig on either side of the willow and tall repens on the bottom because I finally have a tank that I can use a taller carpeting plant.

It’s going to be an angle tank with the smaller hatchet fish ( it’s marbled but I forget the name ), and a pleco or catfish of some sort.

 

 

Edited 13 hours ago by NoCo tap water

[beastie]

On 10/15/2024 at 1:08 PM, NoCo tap water said:

It’s going to be an angle tank with the smaller hatchet fish ( it’s marbled but I forget the name ), and a pleco or catfish of some sort.

Beware, those "bastards" jump, jump and smack into the lid and give themselves a concussion, find the smallest gaps and rocket out of the tank. TBH I think there is a number they are comfortable with in each tank (this is just my guess, but I have had them for three years, and despite me trying, they settle onto a number, and I lost most of them in the first few months, but none of them the following years, I moved them to smaller tank, NO LID, and they are fine in the number they decided). They are also sensitive to acclimation, stress and ich.

They are nice to look at for a while, but as a single species, hatchets are a tad boring (for me, I like to look at them, they work well even with larger scary fish like pearl gouramis, but on their own after some time...yawn. They hardly ever move. But fun to watch them hunt)

But pretty 🙂

[Littlefish]

I've seen hatchetfish tanks with a 3/4 or 2/3rds water level, and food like repashy either suspended, or stuck on the glass to watch them squirt it down.

That would be possible with this tall tank!

[NoCo tap water]

On 10/15/2024 at 5:13 AM, beastie said:

Beware, those "bastards" jump, jump and smack into the lid and give themselves a concussion, find the smallest gaps and rocket out of the tank. TBH I think there is a number they are comfortable with in each tank (this is just my guess, but I have had them for three years, and despite me trying, they settle onto a number, and I lost most of them in the first few months, but none of them the following years, I moved them to smaller tank, NO LID, and they are fine in the number they decided). They are also sensitive to acclimation, stress and ich.

They are nice to look at for a while, but as a single species, hatchets are a tad boring (for me, I like to look at them, they work well even with larger scary fish like pearl gouramis, but on their own after some time...yawn. They hardly ever move. But fun to watch them hunt)

But pretty 🙂

I hear ya on the tight fitting lids. I’m in Colorado, it gets super cold and dry. Even though all my tanks are self sustaining most get a water change every week due to evaporation. Heck, I already have the hose out, may as well take 10% out while I’m there.

I use cut to fit pieces of clear desk protectors to cover any space I can to help with evaporation and heat retention. This one isn’t notched yet. Should keep those guys contained.

I have an open top 55 guppy pond that used to have full coverage by floaters. That also helped a bit with evaporation, but not as much as I hoped. 

[Tony s]

Been thinking about this all morning. You may be able to get a pair of pearl gourami in there. The gallonage is about right. They swim slowly and all over the tank. See if you can get them breeding.  And then a fancy bristlenose as well

[MWilk]

Sounds like a nice tank plan. The caribsea “gravel” is great, just the right size where it almost looks and acts like sand but doesn’t float around at all. 

[NoCo tap water]

On 10/15/2024 at 12:00 PM, MWilk said:

Sounds like a nice tank plan. The caribsea “gravel” is great, just the right size where it almost looks and acts like sand but doesn’t float around at all. 

I couldn’t agree more. I used the midnight river black (?) on my last one. Looks awesome.

This gravel with a ugf seems to be near ideal.

[MWilk]

On 10/15/2024 at 2:26 PM, NoCo tap water said:

I couldn’t agree more. I used the midnight river black (?) on my last one. Looks awesome.

This gravel with a ugf seems to be near ideal.

That stuff looks so cool. It has a very unique consistent shape to the stones. Especially for the price, it’s hard to beat.