Need some help with tankmates...

[mefishy]

Hi everyone! I'm new here and I thought the people on this forum could help me

I'm going to have a 5 gallon mini bow tank soon which is going to house a betta. I was wondering how many pygmy corys I could put in, because one person on petfish.net who has alot of them told me that they reach 1/2" at adulthood, but alot of other websites say they can be 1" at adulthood, so I dont know which is right.

Can someone tell me how many pygmy corys I can put into a 5 gallon with one male betta?

If I can't do the pygmys, I'm going to go with 2 otos...but I really want the cute corys

Thank you!!


Also, as a side question, how do you gravel vacuum the tank without sucking up the pygmy corys? Do they usually scurry away?

[MatsP]

If you don't have the male betta, I would say half a dozen, but the betta will use up some fish-space, so maybe three?

Vacuuming should be no problem at all. I've vacuumed tanks with molly-fry that are just a quarter of an inch(6-7mm) SL. It's a normal reaction for fish to swim against any current in water, so they will not really get sucked up in the gravel vacuum [of course, if they do get sucked/lured in, they will swim RAPIDLY against the current, so they're not going to get sucked down the tube unless you're really not paying attention]. Keeping a thumb near the end of the vacuuming hose is always a good idea if you're worried about gettting fish sucked into the tube - I do that for my pest-snails, not that I worry about the snails health, but they get stuck in the vacuum tube/hose and it's a royal pain to get them back out again...

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Mats

[mefishy]

- I do that for my pest-snails, not that I worry about the snails health, but they get stuck in the vacuum tube/hose and it's a royal pain to get them back out again...

--
Mats

Lol!

thanks for the info too