Plantless tank species recommendations?

[laoshun]

Hey guys, I was thinking about doing a plantless tank since my betta tank is heavily planted, does anyone have a good recommendation on a fish type (schooling or non-schooling) that would be perfect for this sort of environment?

Thanks in advanced.

[kfryman]

Most fish come from areas with plants. If you want you could do dwarf cichlids and keep them in a pair in a 10 gallon tank. They only require freshwater shells, so es cargo shells work. They enjoy things in the tank as well like rocks.

[thekoimaiden]

Kfryman is right. Most fish come from waters with either marginal plants or floating plants, and all will benefit from plants. If you want to do a plantless tank, you could a biotope for something like a hillstream loach. They come from fast-flowing waters with no plants. Look into more biotopes and you'll find some other ideas.

Or cichlids. They are notorious plant-shredders, but they also need tanks larger than 55 gallons.

[Olympia]

Hillstream loach and mountain minnow river is one of my dream tanks.
But you need high high filtration for the loach.
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[Sakura8]

How big is the tank? A single convict would work fine in a 20gal long and they CAN'T have plants. They tear them to pieces with their digging.

Goldfish don't really *need* plants but they require at least 20-30gals too.

[LittleBettaFish]

You could do a blackwater type set-up using something like Sparkling Gouramis or some kind of rasbora/tetra.

All you need is a sandy substrate, a few root looking branches, some leaf litter and maybe a couple of handfuls of peat. I always think they look spectacular when done properly.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/simulat...in/photostream

Something like that would be awesome.