Reef nutrition

Fish in a Lowboy or Other Shallow Tank

MolaMola

MolaMola

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Seeking suggestions and experience from those who have housed fish in a shallow tank, say 12" or less in height.
I currently have a 10" H lowboy roughly 50g and am about to reset a 22g bookshelf tank (3' long).
My questions include fish jumping out, fish not stressed out by the shallow depth, fish who eat algae, fish who get along.
Lowboy is my first bare bottom tank (also sumpless) and it needs change bc I lack algae control creatures. It has no screen top.
Bookshelf has had and will have again sand and rock. Temporarily housed a pair of clowns who seemed fine; now just has shrimp. No lid or screen either. Considering bonsai softies tank with shrimp, inverts bc it sounds interesting and maybe could include small fish like clown gobies.
(Not much fish experience bc I always feel like fish must feel trapped in their tank space.)
 
MolaMola said:
Seeking suggestions and experience from those who have housed fish in a shallow tank, say 12" or less in height.
I currently have a 10" H lowboy roughly 50g and am about to reset a 22g bookshelf tank (3' long).
My questions include fish jumping out, fish not stressed out by the shallow depth, fish who eat algae, fish who get along.
Lowboy is my first bare bottom tank (also sumpless) and it needs change bc I lack algae control creatures. It has no screen top.
Bookshelf has had and will have again sand and rock. Temporarily housed a pair of clowns who seemed fine; now just has shrimp. No lid or screen either. Considering bonsai softies tank with shrimp, inverts bc it sounds interesting and maybe could include small fish like clown gobies.
(Not much fish experience bc I always feel like fish must feel trapped in their tank space.)
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Fish that jump out: if you have a lid it's no fish. If you don't have a lid it could be many/any of them. If you look at frag tanks at any of the reef shops, they all have everything up through small tangs, so anything is definitely possible, with risks

Fish that are happy: clowns are the stereotype of small tank because they basically just stick in their spot and hang out. If you get lucky there will be an anemone there and it looks cool. If you get unlucky they will decide to hang out in a random tank corner or always by a power head and you'll be annoyed. There's a variety of nano fish guides out there with good advice.

Fish that serve a purpose, such as eating algae: I think this is a lot harder, depending on your feelings about husbandry and swimming space. Tangs are in all the commercial frag tanks because they're very productive, but in nature they swim on giant reefs. In tanks they get constant food, in nature they become food. Probably an opinion topic versus a right topic. Other algae eaters I think are pretty overrated in my experience trying to find good small tank algae eaters.

I have however had a lot of success with inverts. A bunch of snails helps, and this sea hare I have is amazing. I'll probably swap him out soon as a PIF she in the future try and buy another small one.

Overall, I tried to do the small tank with fish that serve a purpose thing. I am underwhelmed. Doing it again I'd get fish I like, and go heavy on inverts that serve a purpose. Urchins, sea hares, a variety of snails, and in a bare bottom I like having a peppermint shrimp as my meat cleaner-upper + bug eater + ich fighter.
 
Coral reefer said:
I was going to say tomini over scopas, but is the reasoning that the tomini and algae Blenny eat the same stuff and the scopas will be different a little with the mouth shape (presumably)?
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I have seen tangs in shop frag tanks, but I feel like they don't belong in a shallow tank. And they don't need rockwork to hide and sleep in? And won't they grow too large? Could one of those tangs be moved into a 105g in the future without causing problems? I'm feeling stressed about it, but maybe the fish would not be.
 
MolaMola said:
I have seen tangs in shop frag tanks, but I feel like they don't belong in a shallow tank. And they don't need rockwork to hide and sleep in? And won't they grow too large? Could one of those tangs be moved into a 105g in the future without causing problems? I'm feeling stressed about it, but maybe the fish would not be.
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I agree that tangs in low tanks “ain’t right” but they are there fo help YOU.
@Coral reefer the tomeniensis is a good selection as they tend to stay smaller.
But yes, they all have a niche to occupy and consume similar but different algae.
 
MolaMola said:
I have seen tangs in shop frag tanks, but I feel like they don't belong in a shallow tank. And they don't need rockwork to hide and sleep in? And won't they grow too large? Could one of those tangs be moved into a 105g in the future without causing problems? I'm feeling stressed about it, but maybe the fish would not be.
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Ime tomini stays relatively small and would be ok in 105 and are good algae scrapers from rock
 
Coral reefer said:
Ime tomini stays relatively small and would be ok in 105 and are good algae scrapers from rock
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Thanks for all the ideas from everyone. I'll have to think about it. Maybe I'll try a blenny and inverts to start. I could try the tomini bc I could move it to my big tank, but my urchins and such in there take care of a lot of the algae. Then again, I have algae issues there still.
As mentioned by @richiev , I have always had clowns bc they seem content and active in their small anemone area. I had a tiger goby that loved to peek out of a cave and lounge around on a couple of rocks, as well as a blenny who spent a lot of time in and around his large barnacle home. My current chromis quartet plus orchid dottyback seem active but content. Last week instead of feeding some red Rod's food, students used a flat pack of blood worms I had gotten for my teacher buddy's freshwater fish. Our fish went CRAZY for those threadlike blood worms and one chromis shot up out of the tank, bounced off two kids and landed on another one's shoe. Fish seems fine, but added to my fish anxiety, haha.
 
MolaMola said:
Thanks for all the ideas from everyone. I'll have to think about it. Maybe I'll try a blenny and inverts to start. I could try the tomini bc I could move it to my big tank, but my urchins and such in there take care of a lot of the algae. Then again, I have algae issues there still.
As mentioned by @richiev , I have always had clowns bc they seem content and active in their small anemone area. I had a tiger goby that loved to peek out of a cave and lounge around on a couple of rocks, as well as a blenny who spent a lot of time in and around his large barnacle home. My current chromis quartet plus orchid dottyback seem active but content. Last week instead of feeding some red Rod's food, students used a flat pack of blood worms I had gotten for my teacher buddy's freshwater fish. Our fish went CRAZY for those threadlike blood worms and one chromis shot up out of the tank, bounced off two kids and landed on another one's shoe. Fish seems fine, but added to my fish anxiety, haha.
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Yes, fish love the frozen bloodworms
 
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