Help starting my shrimp 20 gallon tank

[Retired Viking]

Good luck

 

[JuiceBox52]

You will end up with brown shrimp bit if you dont mind that then go for it

 

[Essjay]

The different colours of cherry shrimp are all the same species. The red colour was developed first from selectively breeding wild brown cherry shrimps; the other colours were all developed later by more selective breeding. When the various colours are allowed to breed together you end up with the wild colour again. It may take a couple of generations but in the end they'll all be brown.

Re water changes, some people reckon that shrimps should only have 25% weekly water changes. I have only ever kept shrimps in tanks with fish so they've had 50%+ per week.

 

[seangee]

50% weekly changes for 10 shrimp? Are you sure feels a bit overkill

There is another important reason for doing regular water changes in shrimp tanks.

Shrimp are very sensitive to changes in water parameters, which is the reason drip acclimation is always recommended. So I like to keep the water in the tank as close to my source water as possible. Over time the pH especially changes if left to its own devices. I happen to change 75% every week because that is what I do for all my tanks. This actually saved my shrimp colony some time ago. I inadvertently introduced a toxin into my tank and had a mass shrimp die off. I immediately responded with a 90% water change (just before bedtime), followed by another 90% change as soon as I woke up. No further action was taken.

The survivors (and there were very few) did whatshrimp do and today I have over 200 shrimp in the tank without having added any more. If I had been changing 10 or 20% on a monthly basis 2 successive large changes would undoubtedly have killed the survivors as it would have meant a big swing in pH and TDS

 

[Salty&Onion]

Cucumber is always a hit.

Larry is always a hit

 

[Salty&Onion]

The different colours of cherry shrimp are all the same species. The red colour was developed first from selectively breeding wild brown cherry shrimps; the other colours were all developed later by more selective breeding. When the various colours are allowed to breed together you end up with the wild colour again. It may take a couple of generations but in the end they'll all be brown.

Re water changes, some people reckon that shrimps should only have 25% weekly water changes. I have only ever kept shrimps in tanks with fish so they've had 50%+ per week.

I had once a brown almost cherry and others are always just red.