Reptile & Amphibian Forums

with the unfortunate demise of a few neonate lizards i had "adopted", iv decided to turn there terrarium into an aquarium. as with most of my terrariums, i would like to make it planted with live plants. it is only a 5.5 gallon, so i know my choices of animals and plants are limited so as not to overcrowd. the books i have said that i could get away with some dwarf frogs (1 or 2) an oto catfish or cory cat, and a small school of danios and/ or guppies.
i have a filter and hood and all that, and my main question is if anyone has any info on keeping the live plants alive. with my terrariums i did not use fertilizer, so for the first while i lost alot of the live plants untill the animal matter and decaying plant matter fertilized the soil and now everything is doing pretty good.
i was wondering if it is safe to use aquatic fertilizer with the frogs, i work in a petstore so acquiring whatever would be no problem. my other question is substrate. some resources suggest sand, others gravel, and others a mixture of the two. i would like to just use gravel if possible, it seems easier to keep clean.
any info or experiences would be appreciated, thanks.

For that small of a tank you will not be able to make a terrarium easily. You are best to make it all aquatic and buy water plants that go in the gravel at the bottom of the tank. Those plants generally do well, but sometimes the frogs and fish will pick on them and kill them. BE careful putting danios, neons, guppies because if they are small enough your frogs may try to eat them. The plants wont need fertilizer or soil. If you make a terrarium your frogs could crawl out of the water and get stuck.
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~Crissy
4 Female African Clawed Frogs: Nemo, Casper, Pebbles, Lilo
2 Male African Clawed Frogs: One-Eyed Jack, Stitch
1 Male Pac Man Frogs: Pumpkin
1 Dwarf Clawed Frog w/ five legs
Cichlids-Parrots & Convicts
A few furry four-legged children

For a good palnted aquarium to need 3 things: good lighting and a CO2 injector that is easy to make and clean water. Good lighting go to ahsupply.com and but a light that wil fit your hood. For a CO2 injector I use a 2 liter bottle with, a hole in the cap for aquarium tubing to be siliconed in, a length of tubing and an air stone to act as a diffuser. Look on the net for DYI CO2 diffuser. I fill about 3/4 the way full with warm water add 2 cups of sugar and a packet of baking yeast--within minutes this setup will produce CO2 for you plants. I use an under gravel filter with small gravel to set up a biological filtration with a Aquacler filter on the outside. If you don't want to do this with a filter be sure to change 1/3 water at least once a week and siphon the gravel. Use Java ferns for plants easy to grow on driftwood for natural effect. azgardens.com for plants.

since i posted awhile ago i have it set up with two dwarf frogs, a growing population of ten cent feeder guppies, and a few species of aquatic plants. i did mean a planted aquarium, not terrarium, i just like the look and effect of plants, in land, water, whatever. in my experiences so far though, a terrarium would have been a great deal easier, and one that small can be pimped out easily, i know from the past tenants of the tank.
anyway,i let it cycle for a week with 50 cents of guppies before i did a water test and added plants. then i bought two dwarf frogs and two panda cory cats. the cory cats died ( as did the others from the shipment i got them from) after a few days but the frogs are doing great. theyre a trip, even though theyre some of the dumbest animals iv ever seen. the fifty cents worth of feeder guppies i got can find theyre food, as can theyre babies, but the 4 bucks in frog cant find anything. they just get excited when they smell the bloodworms and start trying to eat the gravel and plants, lucky the gravels too big.
anyway on my 5.5 gallon i have a whisper 20 (i think) its a pretty nice filter, its for 5-20 gallons but i have the current turned down pretty low since its suck a small tank. i use stress zyme to lessen the filters load, stress coat to dechlorinate, and do 1/3 percent water changes at least once a week, with a gravel syphon, to be sure that excess food and waste wont foul the water. im worried because its such a small tank and the fish breed so much, and the frozen bloodworms are sooo messy, although so far my ph and ammonia tests have come up near flawless, cept for the first week when cycling made my ammonia fluctuate a bit. im thinking about trading all the adult feeder guppies in for some fancy guppies, or maybe some hatchets or something, though i dont know if they fare well in that environment. i might even see if i cant track down a healthy cory cat or two, so help clean the gravel.
sorry for such a long post, i just want to share my experiences with one of the smallest and simplest planted herp setups

i would not use danios, mostly because they have the ability to get around 2 inches. too big for such a smaller tank. i'd do a school of white cloud, or gold white clouds. they stay small and can tolerate cooler water too.

All right, I know this message is from 2006, but I'll answer anyaway for anyone who sees this thread.

Java ferns are a good, slow growing plant for a 5 gallon, as well as anubius nana. Water wysteria (hygrophyla difformis) and anacharis also make excellent plants, especially if you have them floating.