Anyone ever silicone "shelves" in their tanks to increase square footage?

[slipstreamv2]

I don't live in big place, and I can't really get away with having more/bigger tanks.

If you've seen this thread, then you guys know that the square footage in my tanks is like Manhattan apartments.

Since for apistos, footprint/area/SF is more important than total water volume, I was thinking of putting shelves in my 20g tanks, sort of like this:

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Of course, my tank would also be heavily planted to reduce aggression.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how that might work:biggrin:

 

[Mike Wise]

It might work, but don't expect to double the number of fish that you can keep in it. You might want to try putting in deep (4"/10cm) layers of leaves on each shelf instead of plants. This simulates the apisto's natural biotope where females have brood territories that are stacked one on top of the other.

 

[nc_nutcase]

I really wanted an Apisto ‘Colony’ but couldn’t convince myself to do so with more than a 55 gal…

I Siliconed two 12â€x12†shelves on either end at slightly different elevations…

One male Cac killed all the other males…

I’ve since kept a colony in a 125 Gal with a ton of success… really the only thing I did different was use a bigger tank…

In my single experience the shelf idea simply didn’t work… but that was with only one try…

 

[Apistomaster]

In lieu of shelves I have used a multitude of 1 to 1-1/2 inch cut offs of 1/2" PVC to provide more hiding places. Same concept as leaf litter, really, but without the mess. I use EhFiMech hollow ceramic bio media in Apistogramma fry tanks for the same purpose. The numerous small caves reduces the aggression related problems that often occur even among small fry.