# Starting a 36 gallon bowfront



## nanovaseftw (Dec 25, 2009)

So I just picked up a 36 gallon bowfront with filter, gravel vac, and stand for 75 dollars. It's been running for 3 days. I threw in about 3 inches of silicate sand yesterday along with some stresszyme, and I stuffed the filter from my nano filter into the new filter chamber to help cycle the tank quicker. Right now I'm doing water changes to get rid of the dust from the sand  I should've rinsed it.

Anyways, I have a few concerns:

Ideally I'd like to have 3 types of fish. A fish that hangs out towards the top of the tank, a fish that lives amongst the plants, and a fish that lives on the floor of the tank. Right now I have ghost shrimp and I'm really bent on getting crystal red shrimp, and I know that narrows down my choices quite a bit but I'd like to hear some opinions on shrimp friendly fish that cover these three areas. 

I'm also curious how long it will take for this tank to cycle. Given I have a filter from a cycled tank in it and am dosing with stresszyme. I've also put a couple good sized rocks in that have been buried in the gravel from my previous tank.

Any input on this would be GREAT.
Thanks in advance,
Taylor


----------



## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Smaller cory species for the bottom are PROBABLY shimp safe; for top swimmers Trig.espei's and similar fish are definitely shrimp safe, though they will also swim the mid levels. I'd think that zebra danios would be fine with shrimp as well. Basically try to stick with smaller species if you plan to co-house shrimp. If you absolutely HAD to have a cichlid of some sort with shrimp, the Badis badis, darios, and pygmy banded sunfish have not earned a bad rep to my knowledge with shrimp, but they are so small you'd almost never see them except for the brightness of the badis and the contrast of the bandeds. I'll be using pygmy banded sunfish myself in a 3 gallon.


----------



## nanovaseftw (Dec 25, 2009)

Thanks for the reply. What is a common name for trig. espei's I am having trouble finding them under that name? I was a little afraid I'd have to stick with smaller fish, I was hoping for a slightly larger one but I guess fish cant resist being oppurtunistic eaters haha.

edit: I think Im going to end up putting the shrimp into my old nano aquarium, because it seems to be narrowing my fish choice down terribly.


----------



## flashbang009 (Aug 6, 2009)

Clown loaches love to chill at the bottom but i don't think they get along well with shrimp. Giant danios always swim at the top and get to a decent size.


----------

