Nano tank expirement.

[Guest]

Okay, I know I announced a while back that I was gonna do a 9.1 shrimp breeder, but unfortunately, due to space and money, I cannot. So I'm using the old 3.5 that housed a betta once upon a time. Shrimp are still for sure. Iv'e heard rule of thumb although for nano tanks are 1 inch of fish needs 1 gallon, but it's different for shrimp (allegedly it's 10shrimp a gallon). My scape won't be to crazy, and I won't have any plants (last time I used plants I had a HUGE algae breakout and when I tried to solve it, both my confidence and my Otocinclus were down the drain, my substrate I want is a layer of both aquasoil and sand but I'm scared it will get sucked into the filter at the side of the tank (I hate that tank feature). I'm thinking of either stocking it with Orange Ricefish or a Yellow-y(?) betta. Any recommendations! I need all the help I can get. 

 

(And if you want me to elaborate on anything please ask). 

 

Thank you to all of you who respond in advance. 

[Odd Duck]

Rice fish are quite active and probably not well suited for a 3.5 gallon.  A single betta is borderline and 5 gallons is better for bettas and more easily kept stable.  A 3.5 gallon can be tough to keep stable - my 3 gallon shrimp only tank just crashed last week and as far as I can tell killed all the shrimp I had in there.  And I have nearly 50 years of aquarium experience although much less time with shrimp.

Don’t set yourself up for failure by trying to keep very active species of fish in a tiny, nano tank.  It will likely be far more frustrating than it’s worth.  Shrimp would be a better bet with small, weekly water changes.

[Guest]

@Odd Duck, should I buy a new, bigger aquarium (5-6 gal?) and stock it with shrimp and ricefish? 

[Odd Duck]

Even though rice fish are small, they’re active enough I would rather see them in a 10 gallon or even a 20 long.  They’re busy fish.  Not as busy as guppies, but busy enough.  I’ve not kept them in years but I also think of them as being a touch flighty, so a little extra room for hiding spots or more plants would also be really good for them.  Something that gets tall enough to get to the surface or a good clump of floating plants with good roots - frogbit, dwarf water lettuce, or stems that like to float like pearlweed, water wisteria, guppy grass, etc, is helpful for them.

Hopefully somebody will chime in with more recent experience with them.

[Daan C]

In that size, I'd go shrimp only.
I had 20 shrimp in a 5G, they breed untill they are 60-80 and than they stop.
If I remove 50, they start again.

It has a lot of moss, I'd recommend trying plants again

[Expectorating_Aubergine]

I know you don't want any plants. But what you're attempting will be way easier if you had some plants. Might I suggest pothos rooted in water? They are ammonia hogs, and will probably pull out other biologicals out of the water. Not to mention what a good scape the roots are for shrimp/small fish. I'd also throw out subwassertang as a candidate. It's not fussy about light, and shrimp love it.

Edited February 6 by Expectorating_Aubergine