Fluval Edge 12 gallon for dwarfs?

[Ooulophilia]

Hey, I have been looking at this tank for a while for my kitchen. I thought it would be cool for dwarfs. Has anyone tried this/see any drawbacks to it? Thanks in advance!

 

[rayjay]

Yes, it has a major drawback in that it is too large unless you are going to house 75 to 100 dwarfs.
For the most part, dwarfs don't hunt down food but rather wait for it to come by their hitching point. As such, food density of the live enriched brine needs to be rather intense.
Considering that the excess food has to be removed you would have a heck of a lot of waste each feeding time.
Not removing the excess means that the dwarfs will be feeding on brine nauplii that have depleted the nutrition and leading to their eventual demise.
You probably would have no problem keeping 40 or 50 in a 5g.

 

[Ooulophilia]

Thanks for the input - they make a 6 gallon in the same design - looks like that would be better suited?

http://www.fluvalblog.com/new-fluval-edge-range/

Getting 40-50 dwarfs will be expensive! Is it OK to start with a lower number and work from there? I have raised clownfish in the past so have no problems hatching brine and doing multiple WCs.

 

[Dragon moray ki]

I would think that the 6 would be better and you could keep about 20 in there

 

[asid61]

The 6 gallon Fluval edge might be better suited as it will only need ~10 to start with. If you have your heart set on the 12 gallon, put some dwarves in a seperate 2.5 gllon tank, then move them to the Fluval as the population increases.

 

[TamiW]

I don't know anything about the fluval egde's filtration system but you may have to modify it to work for dwarves. I'd look at the intake first, and make sure that it wouldn't suck up dwarves or their babies - and you may have to put something over it, like a sponge. I'd also consider removing the filter media, so that brine shrimp could pass through it without clogging the filter. You could replace any sponge/fabric like material with bio-balls or ceramic media, which the brineshrimp should pass by. Or rely on rock in the tank. Live rock isn't recommended, but dead live rock would be fine.

 

[timinnl]

The filter is a basic aquaclear HOB filter. A couple of people on the org had dwarfs in the smaller size one. I think the issuse was in regards to the lighting and rust.

Tim

 

[Dragon moray ki]

Just put a pre filter over the in take for the filter

 

[small alien]

Those fluvals, while cool looking, seem like a pia longterm with cleaning and such.