[Keith]

I bought a 55 gallon tank and decided I wanted to fill it with both fish and frogs. I'm thinking I will make about 15-20 gallons water and the rest land. The water would probably be about 7 or 8 inches deep. I was wondering what kind of fish you guys would recommend to put into this pond. The frogs I will put in will be either azureus or leucs.

 

[Keith]

P.S. I would really like to use neon tetras. Would those be okay to use in this situation?

 

[Roots]

A lot of people do not recommend water features in Viv's for various reasons. But I think if done properly than can be quite nice additions - just so long as the frogs have plenty of room. As far as fish go I have had Killie fish in mine and they do quite well in viv. conditions and they look amazing. I got mine from here:

AquaBid.com - Sell or buy aquarium related equipment and fish in an auction format!

Good luck with your build.

 

[SmackoftheGods]

55 gallons sounds like a big tank... but it's not that big a tank. Also, if you're planning on only having eight inch deep water I'm not sure how you plan on having 20 gallons of water and still have enough room for your frogs.

My suggestion? Unless you're doing a truly massive tank, frogs go in vivariums, fish go in aquariums.

 

[Keith]

Well 20 gallons isn't really what I meant. I mean like 40% of the tank space.

 

[Woodsman]

Hi Keith,

There are a lot of safety issues in keeping dart frogs and water features. You might want to consider dividing the tank and have an aquatic side and a terrestrial side. I have a 55 gallon that is divided to keep two D. leucomelas pairs separate, but visually looks like one set-up. I'm sure you could create the same for your 55 gallon.

Good luck, Richard.

 

[Neontra]

Do you mean like a pauludarium or just a pond and land mass (if that makes a lick of sence) I think in a 55g, you don't have too much height, so if you do a background and the entire ground or most of it is water (that is my definition of a paukudarium) then I wouldn't do it. Now if you did a pond in the center (a large land side on the left and right with it sloping into the center) you could do a nice drip wall and keep a few neon tetras, but only a few. A large water mass in a vivarium for most frogs is not recommended from what i've heard, but if you search up hillsteam build with the search button, someone created a few thousand gallon tank with 2 massive water features, but it was a MASSIVE tank (Maybe 20 full grown people could fit in it, maybe more) and the water features maybe took up 15% of USABLE space. There was a total of around ~200 gallons of water, but a 55, like someone else posted, may seem large for a frog viv, but really isn't.

 

[Keith]

Yeah, I guess I will probably just do a pond in the center then.

 

[YoungFrogs412]

I second neon tetra as well. They are small, will stay small and got a nice red/ blue neon colors to them. Guppies are popular as well!

 

[guppygal]

I have to agree with Jake. I tried a paludarium with a 50 gal a long time ago, and there just wasn't enough room. I ended up making the water shallower and added substrate sloping down to the water and placed driftwood in the water to create a swamp. This is where I've successfully raised oodles of tads ~