Substrate for a planted nano shrimp tank?

[CoolhandLocke]

My main tank is done for now, but I have a mini 2.5 gallon tank I'm going to redo and put something in. There's a few small plants in there now with regular old aquarium rock and 3 ghost shrimp; doesn't look bad to be pieced together from leftovers, but I would like an actual substrate in the tank.

Wondering the best kind of substrate to use when I redo it? Would like to lay a carpet of moss down in the tank, probably throw a few small plants in as well. Filtration will be a tiny sponge filter once I get it rigged, but for now it's an air stone. Just looking for something solid for a few shrimp and the moss. I was looking at the Fluval stuff but heard mixed reviews. Any advice would be appreciated, going to make this my project for next week

[freph]

Anything is fine. I personally use black diamond blasting grit in my shrimp tank. Sand, aquasoil, akadama, etc. are all fine so long as you maintain good water parameters.

[Bananariot]

Ghost shrimp? Any substrate will do. It's not until you get passed neocaridinas should you look for "buffering substrates." those kind of substrates are meant to lower pH and make the water softer.

Ghost shrimp if not dead because of poor capture and living conditions by the lfs, are hardy by nature and don't mind any kind of substrate. I would go with something cheap like sand and or gravel if ur gonna only be keeping ghost shrimp.

[diwu13]

I don't really like sand because of how light it is. Making planting stems in it hard in my experience. I would say gravel (don't get the painted kind) or flourite.

[Bananariot]

Also ghost shrimp can either breed in freshwater or not because there are so many kinds. It they have a larval stage that requires green water. Pain in the butt to breed.

Also they grow up to be aggressive to other freshwater shrimp so mix at your own risk if u decide to do so.

[Bananariot]

Originally Posted by diwu13

I don't really like sand because of how light it is. Making planting stems in it hard in my experience. I would say gravel (don't get the painted kind) or flourite.

Lmao if u can't tell I don't like ghost shrimp very much so I wouldn't waste fluorite on them xD

Once you get into nano freshwater shrimp, you'll never look at ghosts the same

[CoolhandLocke]

The ghost shrimp are going back to the pet shop lol. I just bought them to have "something" in the tank until my pumpkins arrived, then they got bumped over to the 2.5 gallon... now they're getting bumped back to the pet store lol.

I'm not a fan of sand either unless there's some very heavy sand I can buy, the last I bought floated a lot at first and was a pain in the ass to clear out and get settled down. Fine now, but it kind of made me lean away from sand.

I keep seeing some kind of granule/pebble type substrate in a lot of tank pictures. I've seen black looking nuggets of sorts and brown rocky looking things, just have no idea what they are. Some kind of neo will go into the tank along with flame moss, a few little plants and maybe an erio.

No ghost shrimp though.. I have one that is super cool and active but the 2 females are about as boring as you can get. The day I got the pumpkins and saw how they act, I knew the ghosts were gone lol...

[Steveboos]

I used Flora-Max Midnight on my Nano Shrimp tank and it is amazing. I also have used this as a top cover for dirted tanks with great success in a 125 and a 75 Gallon tank. Also Eco-Complete would be a great choice for a substrate that's smaller than pea gravel, yet bigger than pool filter sand.