Hiding Places for Your Desktop Aquarium Fish

ByJim May

Have you given some thought about what kind of ornaments you'd like to have in your desktop aquarium? Your fish and invertebrates need hiding places to live a happy and healthy life so its vital that you provide them with this. Hiding places serve an important function as you fish will exhibit lower levels of stress if they're allowed their natural behaviors as in the wild. These hiding places becomes a protective area or shelter for them. But of course aquarium ornaments are also your decor. With a little bit of thought and careful placement, these ornaments can literally transform your desktop aquarium.

Plants

One of the more common is a bunch of hardy plants that can provide refuge for your fish, from newly born fry to adults. Among some of the more popular includes the Java moss, Anacharis, Hornwort, Java fern, guppy grass, and water sprite. With plants, you'll need to provide the correct exposure of light to ensure they stay alive. These mentioned are quite hardy, and require moderate to low levels of light. The Java moss or Java fern does well in low light, but the rest as mentioned here will need about 2 or more watts of light per gallon of water. Usually these require not much They also don't require supplemental carbon dioxide, so maintenance is very easy once you setup the correct amount of light.

Driftwood

Driftwood are excellent ornaments as they provide lots of hiding places for your fish and add a very natural and textured look to your fish tank. Not only that, they serve as anchors for your plants if you have them. You can buy driftwood that are meant for aquariums, or collect your own. But bear in mind if you do try to collect your own, there are risks involved. People who collect their own driftwood usually boil it thoroughly first as there could be parasites, predators, or pathogens. These can pollute your desktop aquarium and the water, potentially harming your fish.

Rocks

You can purchase rocks that are aquarium-safe. Again they add a great natural look and provide plenty of hiding places for your fish. However, some rocks may contain calcium, heavy metals or other minerals that can affect your water chemistry, so make sure you purchase your aquarium-safe rocks from reputable sources. If your own bigger-sized aquariums with big and heavy rocks, you'll need to make sure your arrangement of rocks are stable and wont topple easily from external vibration or movement.

Aquarium Ornaments

If you're more adventurous, there are no shortages of decorative ornaments you can buy to recreate a specific aquascape. Sunken ships, Roman columns, fake miniature reefs, and plenty more provide excellent hiding places for your fish. As long as they're sold for aquarium use, they're safe and won't leach harmful chemicals into your fish tank's water. You do need to be careful to make sure that there are no sharp edges by filing away the edge with a nail filer until it's smooth. A suprising best seller on Amazon these days are the SpongeBob SquarePants series of desktop aquarium ornaments.

You can visit my site at Desktop Aquarium to read more great articles about smaller sized aquariums such as the Fluval Edge and Chi reviews.

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Ideas for Stocking a 10 Gallon Desktop Aquarium

ByJim May

With around 10 gallons as your desktop aquarium, your options in terms of stocking fish increases. When you have less than 5 gallons, it is better to keep your fish tank limited to either a single feature fish like a betta, or a very limited number of small schooling fish like guppies or their cousin the endler's livebearers. But when you go 10 gallons and above, you'll be able to add in a few more to give your desktop aquarium some diversity (companions!). Stocking fish isn't an exact science so depending on who you talk to there are going to be a difference of opinion whether it is overstocked or not. The issue is not the fish, but the proper environment you can maintain for the fish to be healthy.

In order to keep your tank environment clean and healthy for your fish, be sure to have proper filtration, heating, cleaning, and periodic water changes depending on your selection of fish. With small sized tanks such as these, they are all vital components of your desktop aquarium as the water chemistry is more sensitive to little changes either made by your fish or the room the tank is in. So given a 10 gallon and above desktop aquarium, here are some ideas on how to stock your tank.

Small community fish tank

When you have at least a 10 gallon tank, you can keep a small community tank. Less than this, then you're better off keeping a single feature fish with a few invertebrates. The uniqueness of desktop aquariums is that they're meant to be a small so you feature them in places that a medium or big fish tank just can't. So it is impractical to create elaborate or complex aquascapes filled with dozens of different fish. For beginners it is still a better idea to stick to having a centrepiece fish along with some companions as a small community tank. A betta is always a great feature fish (and arguably the more popular fish among aquaria enthusiasts) but a great alternative is the dwarf gourami. But don't be tempted to put them both in the same tank as they can get aggressive towards each other.

Dwarf Gourami is a great feature fish

Dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalia) are great beginner's fish, as long as you keep them with other small and peaceful species. They are often spectacularly hued, with iridescent bars and orange-red feelers, which makes them a great centrepiece fish. They grow to a maximum of 2-3 inches, perfect for a desktop-sized aquarium. They are hardy fish just like the betta, and prefers a heavily planted tank for hiding places.

Neon tetras or harlequin rasboras

Alongside the dwarf gourami, you can keep 6 neon tetras (Paracheirodon innesi). One of the more popular tetras, neon tetras are also quite hardy fish and suitable for beginners. They are schooling fish so keep a minimum six of them to give you a great shoaling effect when they swim around the tank. As their name suggests, they are great to look at and grows to about 1 inch.

An alternative to the neon tetras are the harlequin rasboras (Trigonostigma heteromorpha). They are also schooling fish so you can keep a minimum of 6 or more depending on the size of your desktop aquarium. A unique little fish, they have a distinctive black triangle mark on their side, a bit like the costume of a Harlequin. They grow to about 1 to 2 inches.

Ghost shrimps and snails

With a dwarf gourami, if you decide on the 6 neon tetras you could include a few (up to 12) ghost shrimps (Palaemonetes) into your tank. Otherwise limit it to 6 ghost shrimps for the harlequin rasboras. They're almost transparent in the water, hence the name "ghost". They walk along the bottom of the tank to collect small food particles to eat, so essentially they're helping you to clean up any excess food. They're also very interesting to look at, that more people are dedicating entire tanks to shrimps alone. Give them some vegetation or plants as hiding spots.

Consider including an apple snail, as they dine on a diet of decomposing plants, algae, and dead animals. They are highly dedicated cleaners that will keep your water quality up and reduce algae levels.

Shape of your fish tank matters

One extra detail you don't want to overlook when deciding what and how many fish to stock is the shape of your desktop aquarium. Rectangle shaped tanks give more horizontal space for your fish to swim, while boxed or hex shaped tanks works great with long and tall plants. Consider reducing the number of fish or invertebrates if you have these boxed or hex shaped tanks to give your bigger feature fish more space and privacy.

If you have a smaller desktop aquarium, you can read my article about stocking a 5 gallon fish tank, or you can visit my site Desktop Aquarium for more informative articles.

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