Hi guys, I was hoping someone could give me a suggestion for a good centerpiece fish for my 20 gallon high. Tank is moderately planted with a small group of 5 (1.5 inch chain loaches) and a 2 inch hillstream loach right now. I have 2 mini (528gph chinese rated) powerheads right now on opposite ends of the tank firing diganolly downards at the front and back glass. The loaches all seem to really enjoy the current, so I would prefer to keep the powerheads. I know that usually bettas and gouramis are most often recommended as centerpieces for 20g tanks, but I was looking for something that could appreciate the moderately strong currents. Any ideas? Thanks everyone.
Centeripiece fish for 20g high (and likes current?)
- Thread starter garypham
- Start date
Maybe not a centerpiece but one thats different and loves current would be bamboo shrimp. They are decent size but not huge and will spend all day fanning in the strong current. Not sure of a decent size fish that would be ok with the flow but not eat your other inhabitants
Some of the wild type mouthbrooding bettas from Borneo live in high flow streams.
I keep 3 Betta edithae in a high flow tank with riverine cichlid juvies, a 50 gal with 500 gph influent into one end, direct flow to the other end effluent goes to the sump.
1 or 2 of these might work in your small tank.
Note how the vallisneria bends with the strong flow
I keep 3 Betta edithae in a high flow tank with riverine cichlid juvies, a 50 gal with 500 gph influent into one end, direct flow to the other end effluent goes to the sump.
1 or 2 of these might work in your small tank.
Note how the vallisneria bends with the strong flow
I have also kept Betta albimarginatta in these higher flow conditions, if more color is your goal.
They do seem to appreciate places to shelter from the flow at times
, and rocks or sunken driftwood has worked well in that reguard.
They do seem to appreciate places to shelter from the flow at times
, and rocks or sunken driftwood has worked well in that reguard.
Those are some great suggestions guys. I never considered shrimps for my tank before, definitely sounds interesting. I also never knew about those other types of bettas as well, I'd probably have to ask my LFS if they know anything about them (I imagine it would be expensive if they had to special order?). I've also looked at some other threads and see that some people recommend a single male swordtail as a centerpiece. Would a 20g high be too small of one of those? How does a swordfail fair in currents? temperment?
I have wild bettas and swordtails in my refugium. The bettas stay up high where there is a ton of current and the swords stay lower.
Where do you guys get your wild caught bettas from? At my local LFS, i usually just see the usual veiltail/halfmoon/crowntail/elephant ears. Is it safe to assume that any nonfancy male bettas with short fins are considered to be "wild" and not specially bred?
I have an amazing lfs here. Almost all of his stock is community fw. He has a ton of tanks but only one with a few glo-fish and one with a Oscars (he didn't want to carry them but the demand was overwhelming). Everything else is great, and he sources fish locally whenever he can. He's really into bettas, especially the wild ones.