Flex 15 change my stock or aquascape?

[DrownedFishonFire]

Have a flex 15g that used to house micro natives now I have at least 12 blue eyed daisy rice fish left waiting to be moved out of 75g into a more smaller contained setup so this is it for them as I need that 75g space to move some of bigger fish stock around. Not doing heated tank route either on this setup.

this aquascape is what I really thought was cool by itself however the rice fish like a lot of plants from what I understand and I’m wasting the flex’s light potential.should I just redo and try to source plants to grow on the rocks? what kind of plants would look good in here? I’m not willing to play around with co2 stuff tho any feedback? Keep this plant less and Trade away the rice fish for another nano fish that fits this theme better?

 

[DrownedFishonFire]

Mods can u move this to advanced aquaria discussion?planted/aquascaping ?

 

[tlindsey]

Have a flex 15g that used to house micro natives now I have at least 12 blue eyed daisy rice fish left waiting to be moved out of 75g into a more smaller contained setup so this is it for them as I need that 75g space to move some of bigger fish stock around. Not doing heated tank route either on this setup.

this aquascape is what I really thought was cool by itself however the rice fish like a lot of plants from what I understand and I’m wasting the flex’s light potential.should I just redo and try to source plants to grow on the rocks? what kind of plants would look good in here? I’m not willing to play around with co2 stuff tho any feedback? Keep this plant less and Trade away the rice fish for another nano fish that fits this theme better? View attachment 1470025

View attachment 1470026

A couple of Amazon Swords in the corners and maybe one in the front ?

 

[tlindsey]

A couple of Amazon Swords in the corners and maybe one in the front ?

You will need root tabs to feed once a month to each plant.

 

[jjohnwm]

Have you considered getting some form of Java Moss and letting it grow over those rocks? Once you get a good growth of it, the ricefish will form a nice breeding colony, with young appearing more or or less on a continuous basis. They do eat their young, but with a healthy enough growth of moss there will always be some who survive to adulthood. Some finely-divided floating plants, such as hornwort or perhaps frogbit (great roots!), provides better cover for the young and also filters the light a bit, which is a plus with java moss to prevent algae growth.

You'll need to be careful to avoid introducing snails as they will eat the eggs, and I have had mixed success with Cherry Red Shrimp added as well. Sometimes they seem to eat the eggs, while in other instances they seem to "clean" them along with the moss, which they will pick through continuously and groom into a beautiful lush lacy mass. If you have the floating plants, plenty of shrimp will spend their time up in the floating mass, right at the surface, which makes an interesting picture. The shrimp will also breed like gangbusters, and the ricefish tend to be very inefficient predators so many shrimp will survive and grow as well.

The moss/ricefish/shrimp combo is one my favourite set-ups for a smallish planted tank. My ricefish were Oryzias latipes, which do well in coolish water (68 - 70F) which is also very suitable for shrimp. I'm not sure about the temperature requirements for O.woworae so you should check that out; if they need 70 - 75F shrimp will still thrive, but much warmer than that and they do not do as well, at least for me.