Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I visited a fish shop this afternoon and had a chat with the shop owner. There was a small tank of rainbow shrimps in his shop. The tank could hold no more than one litre of water. There were some java moss and a kind of water grass (I don't know the name), some rocks and soil at the bottom. About five to six juvenile rainbow shrimps lived there. He told me that he never fed them or changed the water. He said they would die if he removed part of the grass. He said he just added a bit water once a while because of natural evaporation. He said he found it easier to keep them when he didn't remove anything from the tank, not even old water. He added that his shrimps lived even longer without a filter. I really wonder if this method really works well.

If it worked there would be adult shrimp in there too. I'm betting 1-2 weeks and they will all be dead if that is how he treats them.

I've heard that some fishkeepers can keep animals in unfiltered tanks with lots of live plants but I think it would take a lot larger capacity tank and someone who is ok with keeping a small amount of creatures rather than the normal bio-load.

I prefer filters, heaters and a lot of space.