Pygmy cory cats in a 5 gal?

[elijahfeathers]

Soooo if you can have 6 of them in a 10 gallon with a betta... would 3-4 be adiquite in a rather densely planted, filtered 5 gallon? I have a few shrimp currently but they don't seem like they'll be lasting as Aden sees them as food... lol. A small school of those would look neat though I thought. I'm looking for any feedback. I'm willing to up water changes within reason to make it work (within reason meaning not like 75% every day or something).

The tank's been established for a couple months, however I don't own a liquid test kit so I can't say if it's cycled or not. I do a 50% wc every week currently. It houses 1 betta at the moment, and some remainder of five shrimp. xD

[elijahfeathers]

This is the tank btw

[GreenTea]

I'd say no, just because even though they might be ok bioload wise, it's not a lot of room for them to dart and swim around in. I'd just let your betta have the run of the tank :)

[elijahfeathers]

I was wondering about that too. However the pygmies don't really get over an inch long apparently. If it doesn't work out for the 5 gallon it's alright, I'll just put a spectacular amount of ghost shrimp in as they seem to make my fish very happy and very full. I know I haven't updated my siggy, but Zariel died and I found a home for Scrappy whom I rescused. I've been thinking about rehoming one of the two left in the 10 gallon and try for making a community in that. that involved a betta. That would take some investment though to plant more heavily, and finding good, new homes for fish is difficult.

[GreenTea]

Yeah the pygmies stay small, but still don't think they'd be happy in a 5 gallon tank. And yeah re-homing fish is hard, but kind of fun in a way, when you know they're going to good homes!

[elijahfeathers]

Well, I'm going to look for more info. Several sites said it was generally okay... however those were nano tank people. I'm eager for any input from anyone who's owned them and can tell me about their level of activity.

[GreenTea]

They are extremely active, pretty much always moving. What sites said it was ok? What are the dimensions of your tank btw?

[elijahfeathers]

Mine is a standard 5 gallon I don't know the exact dimensions, but it's the regular boring old rectangle shape. :P

[elijahfeathers]

searching "5 gallon pygmy cories" yields mostly suggestions that it's alright, including wikipidia.

[SmokeNLark]

Hmm, my first instinct was to say no, that it was too small, but looking it up a bit seem to say it's ok. I looked on the sister site, tropicalfishkeeping.com.
http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/profiles/pygmy-cory/
That's the fish profile. "small group in a 5 gallon", I'd probably get 4. As long as you keep up with changes, I see no reason not too. And now I want to find some for my 5 gallon. haha