Do you have a nano tank (20 gal or smaller) stocked with shrimp?

[Fishmanic]

nice pics PK

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Kept neos for maybe 2.5 - 3 years now, not sure how long, but about there. 60L tank. Also have a group of amanos that I've kept for less time, maybe a year or so.

I have a thread here somewhere from the time I had to set up this tank, as an emergency to try to save my shrimp colony. They were in a different 60L with guppies, I added some plants from LFS that had been bought in from abroad and were contaminated with a pesticide that was killing my shrimp slowly, as they were unable to moult and died in the process.

So I set up the tank below with brand new everything - new sand, hardscape, in-vitro only plants; and the only non-new thing was an established sponge filter from a different, uncontaminated tank. Moved shrimp in immediately after setting it up, since it was an emergency, you can see some of the shrimp on the tip of the wood piece in the below photo, the day I moved them in. Fed them Hikari Shrimp Cuisine, King Shrimp foods, and softened veg like courgette and cucumber - they love those! Plus almond leaves and alder cones, they will pick at anything new you add to the tank, whether wood piece, a new plant, or anything edible - their sense of "food is here!" is incredible, they find it instantly.

They adapted to the new tank with some extra care, like champs. Rode out a mini-cycle even. Still lost several adults 2-3 at a time from the plant poisoning, but was using Beta g as well as doing daily water changes to manage the mini cycle, and the shrimp acted normally, and the colony as a whole bounced back very well. Continued breeding, and have survived sharing a tank with guppies, platy babies, even a molly for a while, and you know how greedy and fast mollies are!

I think the key is patience in the beginning - it seems to take the first batch a while to decide that their new home is suitable for breeding - get a decent number to start with... I only bought a batch of five at a time to begin with, but they seem to really feel safer and more likely to breed with a larger number of them, so in the future, I'd buy at least 10, but ideally 20 to start a new colony.

I also broke the cardinal rule about not mixing colours, because I couldn't resist getting some blues after starting with reds, and I wasn't planning to breed for profit anyway. No regrets since they produced some really interesting colours, with the odd rili, some blacks, and a beautiful deep chocolate brown, along with the clearer wild types.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Photos of the shrimp tank (past)

Size: 20 gallons (long)

Equipment:

Light: Nicrew ClassicLED

Heater: Aqueon

Filter: Aqueon QuiteFlow

Fertilizers: NA ThriveCaps

Plants: Java Fern, Java Moss, Anacharis (both variants), Jungle Vallisneria, Anubias, Frogbit, Duckweed

Hardscape: Lava Rock, river stones, Mopani Driftwood

Livestock: [8] Bloodfin Tetras, [8] Julii Corydoras, [30+] Cherry Shrimp, [1] Zebra Nerite, [1] Albino Bristle Nose Pleco

Food for fish: Omega One Tropical Flakes, Bug Bite CE Flakes, Bug Bite TF SM.

Food for shrimp: Hikari Crab Cuisine, Omega One Shrimp Pellets, Fluval algae sticks

Lighting Schedule: 12-14 hours a day

Plant schedule: Weekly trimming/replanting

Feeding Schedule: Feed twice a day, shrimp twice a week

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These pictures are from about 5 months ago. I lost interest in fishkeeping for a while, so I had a lot of plant die off. But I'm back at it, and the tank should be looking prime again in a few months.