1 Year of drama: No Filter Desktop Ecosystem 

What exactly are you blaming them for? Eating a piece of food they found in their tank? That's their job. They aren't predatory, so you can't really blame them for that

@@dimitrijekrstic7567 I mean they probably still did it, casting blame on something isn't always bad you know. Its just pointing a finger.

For second there I thought you meant that some amano shrimp had eaten your brother😂

Full grown amano shrimp will definitely eat neocardina shrimplets. I've had them kill sleeping fish before 💀

The same thing happened to me, a female betta disappeared over a weekend when I was away, I had 2 ammano shrimp in with her and nothing else

I thought about adding java moss. But with my track record of plant maintenance, decided against it. When that stuff goes crazy it goes reeeeeaallly crazy! As I have experienced in other tanks. 😅

Bro he plays Fortnite for a living

Thank you! 💚🦐

Thanks a lot!

Haha, thank you. Imagine it!

Thank you! Really appreciate the comment. Yeah, I really regretted adding the assassins. Things are going much better now, the tank is thriving and has 7 different types of snails and LOTS of shrimp

​@@creatinganecosystemIf you're looking for a few nano fish.... Get Scarlet badis. A cichlid that only gets to an inch in size!

Thank you!

Haha, I can just imagine them all scooting out! Now the shrimp don't even care about the new fish I replaced her with.

Yep, seems like that is most likely the case for my tank too 😕 Glad I successfully used up your lunch break! Thanks for watching.

I haven't slept properly since! 😂

Thank you. Yeah, it was annoying, but I can't really blame her for doing what comes natural lol. The babies obviously tasted too good, so she wanted to try the adults.

Haha, I'll try my best! I'll get another one out within the next week, then hopefully try every week - 2 weeks after that. Thanks for the love 🦐💚

That's cool, but weird! Where are they coming from? 😅 Sound like an interesting project, can imagine it will be tough piecing them together though haha. And thank you!🦐💚

😂🦐🍽️

Yeah. Cool part about them though is once all the snails are gone they can still survive on detritus and scavenging food meant to the other creatures. I once saw a girl with a ramshorn infestation add assassin snails. then they became the infestation after eating to well and breeding. Now they just live in her tank happily even without fresh snails to eat

I wish I knew that before adding them haha. I didn't realise just how savage they were! Now I have no assassins and have added Ramshorns back in lol

@TheSwiftCreek2 do they eat freshwater limpets too? I've got some with (probably) one of my wood decor, and they really bother me. I want to add a single assassin snail to get rid of them, then give the snail back to my friend. I don't like snails, and the eggs destroy the look of my aquascape, that's why I'm planning to only add one helena snail. I did a good job preventing other species to enter my aquarium by quaranteening the plants, but I didn't boil the wood and the stones before adding them, so somehow limpets found their way in. edit: I can't use pest killers, because I have amanos and neocaridina shrimps in my tank, so I don't want to take a risk

That's awesome! Glad you enjoyed 🦐

Haha! The legendary screaming goat. I think you did haha, 30cm cube is 27 litres which is around 7 us gallons.

Cheers! Lot's more shrimp! Plus different types of snails, some other inverts and a smaller species of fish that can't take down a fully grown shrimp haha

Thanks for the advice. That's the one I haven't tried! I've been putting in daphnia and other micro foods, but they are gone within a day, never around long enough to breed. Will check out scuds! I have different, smaller fish in there now.

@@creatinganecosystem when I had daphnia, they died overnight also, so I can’t tell you anything about them… but if you go with scuds, be sure to throw in some LONG DEAD leaves, and an abundance of the scuds, since there are already fish in there.

@@deathbyfishtanks yeah, it now has lots of decaying leaves at the bottom of the tank, which the shrimp and snails love. I'll definitely give them a go, thank you.

It's actually my phone camera with a clip on macro lense of Amazon haha. Probably a mix of Samsung Galaxy S21 and iPhone SE at the time.

Holy shit a content creator with great content AND responds to his viewers. You got yourself a new fan.

@@tokk3 thank you!

No thank you! 😅 Anyway. Your sound effects are spot on. I'll await your next upload and binge watch everything else.😂

Yeah, what's that all about?! Haha. Weirdly, even though it happened 18 months ago, I noticed what looks like a bone of sorts in the tank this morning, but possibly too big to be the fish. Strange it happening 1 day after uploading a video about what happened nearly 2 years ago!

Nooooo haha. Here's what I'd recommend. You could add some moss in, providing you're not lazy like me and will trim it periodically before it goes absolutely crazy. Add some leaves from your garden or, if possible, from a local pond/river that is healthy. The leaves provide cover for the shrimp and also will bring in some micro organisms that the fish will eat. Good luck!

I think these shrimp must be making light work of our fish 😅

Yeah, tell me about it! Super weird! I mean most likely she was shrimp food, but I checked the entire tank for bones and found nothing, unless they buried her!

You're absolutely right. I learnt the hard way. I have a new tank that has a soil cap of around 2" of sand, hopefully it will do much better.

I was hoping the hairgrass would carpet, it started to spread, but just died out in the end. The tank is much better for shrimp now.

Possibly, but who knows. Might have gotten the occasional one survive. I've just added some java moss to it, so we'll see how many shrimp survive now. Different fish though.

I'm working on it 😅 I have another 18 months of footage of this tank haha

Jesus, that's brutal! Shrimp is one thing, but other fish, especially ones that keep to themselves at the bottom is next level. Sorry to hear your Betta was a savage also.

@@creatinganecosystem I know, it's pretty brutal what bettas can do. I mean, if they can kill an opposing male then really, a smaller corydora is really no challenge? I don't know why I didn't think of that. I suppose I was hoping if it wasn't a flaring male betta, my Boba Fett could tolerate the non-intrusive tenants. I think Barbara and Boba Fett were made for each other, lol. Bob has found a new owner who only wanted one fish. I want a clean up crew too! So no more Bettas for me. Got some new pygmy cory's and CPD's. Edited to add, he was originally called Timothy, until we discovered he was a secret assassin. So he was renamed, Boba Fett (aka: Bob). Which suited him much better. You call a timid fish, Timothy.

@@CK-solutions very good point! I was naive in thinking Barb would just ignore the shrimp and not see them as food, when I was giving her copepods and daphnia etc. but I guess a shrimp is basically just a bigger version in a fish's eyes Bob and Barb together... Can't imagine anything would survive in that tank! 😅 Agree on the name change too haha

@@creatinganecosystem I doubt they would survive each other either. 🤣

Sorry, I missed this comment. The ones on the right side are rotala rotundifolia, the ones at the back left are, I think, Ludwigia repens.

I didn't 🙁 not sure if I saw a bone in the tank a few days ago, but I'm not sure.

🦐😭

10 hours with a 4 hour gap in the middle. 7:00am ON 12:00pm OFF 16:00pm ON 21:00pm OFF

@@creatinganecosystem thank you! I am starting off with 6 hours and was thinking im overdoing it 🙏

@@justbettathings 6 hours shouldn't be a problem. If it's working, don't change anything. I've had success on a couple of my no filter tanks with the above schedule.

😂

Hmmm... A possibility, will have to research compatibility with what's in there now. I haven't kept them before.

Put lots of plants in. They add oxygen to the water and don't overstock the tank with fish.

Thank you. She was a beauty. And yes, she has been replaced now, the tank has quite a few new additions.

Same, tried it a few times in different set ups. Never tried with CO2 though

I forgot to add it to the video. I checked for ammonia and nitrite after she went missing, in case that was the cause if she died, or if she was dead in the tank she could cause an ammonia spike. But both were at 0. Just one of those things I'll never know, I guess.

⁠@@creatinganecosystemI mean, having no filter is a risk itself. It's not just for the cleaning, it also introduces oxygen to the water and creates surface agitation. Bettas and shrimp do well with gentle filtration. There may have been other parameters off besides the ammonia/nitrites/nitrates, and using a filter helps keep things stable. I know there is a lot of normalization of low tech or no tech for betta care, but just because they can survive in a tank without certain tools doesn't mean they're thriving. Bettas can live a few years in ideal conditions. Not trying to dunk on you, I really like seeing ecosystem content like this, but would like to gently push you to consider filtration even if you're trying to make an ecosystem tank, especially in a small tank. A lot of people get inspired into the hobby from content like this and might think they can get away without a filter etc and run into losses as well.

@@hissingwillows668 I agree with most of this. It's never going to hurt to add a filter, but at the same time, if you put enough plants in there and a deep enough substrate the filter is not needed. There are plenty of things I could have done better with this tank, but it's still going now, full of different snails, shrimp and new fish and I haven't lost a single one that I'm aware of since the Betta. I have just started a new tank with a deep sand substrate and an internal filter.

@@creatinganecosystem Plants can definitely help but they don't do everything a filter does (and vice versa). Frankly I just don't ever see a good reason to not have a filter at all that doesn't ultimately come down to just liking the vibe of low-tech as opposed to an actual welfare benefit, because even if you add factors that can help with stability and oxygen there's no benefit to actually removing the filter as opposed to just choosing the appropriate kind of filter for a given animal *and* having plants. Plants aren't going to be creating surface agitation or flow, and may or may not be introducing enough oxygen for the fish. Bettas tend to hang out exclusively near the surface like she was near the end when they can't get enough oxygen lower in the tank. They do tend to like the upper area of the tank more, but in good conditions will utilize their whole tank space. Again, not trying to beat you up, just coming at this from a place of seeing way too many people in beginner groups putting together bad situations for their fish based on seeing something where someone didn't have xyz basic equipment and assuming they can do the same (with or without also keeping it planted, deep substrate, etc). I'm glad to hear the tank is doing well now and hope it keeps doing well

@@hissingwillows668 I believe, in a heavily planted tank, or with floating plants and with a deep substrate, the plants do everything that is needed. Surface agitation is not necessary, the plants produce oxygen, the intake ammonia, nitrite etc. and the bacteria can colonise the substrate and other surface areas. I'd say it's more important for a filter in a bigger tank, just for distribution of nutrients, oxygen, carbon dioxide etc. but I don't think it's as important in something this small. I don't think oxygenation was ever the problem in this tank. It could have been improved, with sand as a substrate maybe, or maybe some other things like java moss for the any shrimp to survive, but again, not necessary, but it was perfectly fine for the fish. I get your point, but personally, I would much rather see more people trying the low tech method with lots of plants, than how most beginners start in the hobby with a colourful gravel in a SpongeBob fish tank.

Thank you. I thought about it, but I knew it'd get too wild and I'd just let the tank go to crap (worse than I did with the guppy grass 😅)

i thought you would have maybe 50k subs you deserve my sub@@creatinganecosystem

I know, I had a lid on and checked everywhere for her body. Even checked water to see if there was an ammonia spike, but nothing! It's either the shrimp or aliens 🦐👽

@@creatinganecosystem damn

She was only given flake food like 4 times ever. I haven't used traditional flake food in any of my tanks for a while now. Mostly live or frozen daphnia, copepods, bloodworms etc. I don't have a Betta at the moment, but I'll check that bug bites out.

Honestly, I expected her to get the babies, keep the population in check, but not the full grown adults. If the occasional babe made it through, bonus. Especially when I was throwing in brine shrimp and daphnia all the time too. I've kept a Betta with shrimp before without any issues.

@@creatinganecosystem and in my tank 2 assassin snails very quickly killed every single snail besides nerite and mystery snails. Aquarium is a closed system, so predators very quickly kill everything they can. I actually used to feed my bettas with scuds, and they are essentially shrimp, around the same size as cherry shrimp.

@@dmitrimikrioukov5935 yeah, the assassins were savages! Took them no time at all to wipe out the snails, same for me the nerites were fine. I have had another comment about scuds, will be buying some soon. The tank is much better now, so many different creatures are surviving together.

Nah, I don't think that's the case. She just an angry greedy fish

You're 2 years too late... 😝 I only fed her flake food like 3 times in a year