Shrimp Setup
- Thread starter pat3612
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Their's many different types of shrimp, and yes, they need a tropical setup. The temperature of the tank should be around 25-27C. Most shrimp are very social, also.
They don't require lighting, but they do need a filter and a heater (for temperature control). The tank should also be matured for at least 6 months.
They don't require lighting, but they do need a filter and a heater (for temperature control). The tank should also be matured for at least 6 months.
jeej
Fish Fanatic
I have Red Cherry Shrimp, so I can tell you a few things bout keeping those...
Don't have lots of plants in your tank. If the tank is less than 10g then don't have any plants in there apart from Java Moss. The shrimp love Java Moss, grow lots of it on rocks - preferably rocks instead of drift wood as the shrimp aren't big fans of tannins. Make sure the tank has lots of things for the shrimp to climb on, they hate bare tanks, and also give them lots of hiding places. Each shrimp needs its own personal hiding place.
Try to get your water to the right parameters BEFORE you put the shrimp in the tank. Red Cherry Shrimp are hardy and can live in most parameters, they just hate it when their parameters fluctuate.
Ideally you shouldn't have any fish in with the shrimp, especially at first when you are trying to create a new colony. Even if the fish aren't trying to eat the shrimp, their noseyness will stress the shrimp.
Use a spong filter, or at least a piece of sponge over your filter's intake to avoid deaths that way. If your filter/pump return is pretty fierce, try to slow it if you can or point it against the side of the tank. The shrimp are strong swimmers, but wont necessarily appreciate being battered!
Don't over feed. When you first get your shrimp, don't feed at all. Leave them a few days to settle in. Remove any excess food. I've been using Hikari Crab Cuisine and they love it.
Trying to think what else you should know...
As for temp, they do fine between 70-80F. Red Cherry Shrimp seem to like pH around 7.2.
When you first get your shrimp they might go AWOL for a day or two. They are just adjusting and are slightly stressed. I found an exoskeleton from one of mine and like a total n00b thought it was a dead shrimp! But, what that does mean is that the shrimp will now hide until its new shell has developed.
Feel free to ask anything else.
Sorry, forgot to explain about why you shouldn't have lots of plants. They can suck up a lot of the nutrients that the shrimp actually need for their shell.
Also as another nice treat for the shrimp, you can sink water logged dead (brown) leaves into the tank. Just one at a time though. The shrimp will feed off the bacteria that colonise the dead leaf. Just make sure the leaf is definitely brown and waterlogged (soak in a bucket for a few days) and that the leaf isn't contaminated, i.e. only take it from somewhere you know it hasn't been exposed to any pollutants.
Don't have lots of plants in your tank. If the tank is less than 10g then don't have any plants in there apart from Java Moss. The shrimp love Java Moss, grow lots of it on rocks - preferably rocks instead of drift wood as the shrimp aren't big fans of tannins. Make sure the tank has lots of things for the shrimp to climb on, they hate bare tanks, and also give them lots of hiding places. Each shrimp needs its own personal hiding place.
Try to get your water to the right parameters BEFORE you put the shrimp in the tank. Red Cherry Shrimp are hardy and can live in most parameters, they just hate it when their parameters fluctuate.
Ideally you shouldn't have any fish in with the shrimp, especially at first when you are trying to create a new colony. Even if the fish aren't trying to eat the shrimp, their noseyness will stress the shrimp.
Use a spong filter, or at least a piece of sponge over your filter's intake to avoid deaths that way. If your filter/pump return is pretty fierce, try to slow it if you can or point it against the side of the tank. The shrimp are strong swimmers, but wont necessarily appreciate being battered!
Don't over feed. When you first get your shrimp, don't feed at all. Leave them a few days to settle in. Remove any excess food. I've been using Hikari Crab Cuisine and they love it.
Trying to think what else you should know...
As for temp, they do fine between 70-80F. Red Cherry Shrimp seem to like pH around 7.2.
When you first get your shrimp they might go AWOL for a day or two. They are just adjusting and are slightly stressed. I found an exoskeleton from one of mine and like a total n00b thought it was a dead shrimp! But, what that does mean is that the shrimp will now hide until its new shell has developed.
Feel free to ask anything else.
Sorry, forgot to explain about why you shouldn't have lots of plants. They can suck up a lot of the nutrients that the shrimp actually need for their shell.
Also as another nice treat for the shrimp, you can sink water logged dead (brown) leaves into the tank. Just one at a time though. The shrimp will feed off the bacteria that colonise the dead leaf. Just make sure the leaf is definitely brown and waterlogged (soak in a bucket for a few days) and that the leaf isn't contaminated, i.e. only take it from somewhere you know it hasn't been exposed to any pollutants.
Thanks so much Iam going to Print this out and save it as I still have to get my tank and cycle it and all that ps do I need to leave the tank for 6 months.I have Red Cherry Shrimp, so I can tell you a few things bout keeping those...
Don't have lots of plants in your tank. If the tank is less than 10g then don't have any plants in there apart from Java Moss. The shrimp love Java Moss, grow lots of it on rocks - preferably rocks instead of drift wood as the shrimp aren't big fans of tannins. Make sure the tank has lots of things for the shrimp to climb on, they hate bare tanks, and also give them lots of hiding places. Each shrimp needs its own personal hiding place.
Try to get your water to the right parameters BEFORE you put the shrimp in the tank. Red Cherry Shrimp are hardy and can live in most parameters, they just hate it when their parameters fluctuate.
Ideally you shouldn't have any fish in with the shrimp, especially at first when you are trying to create a new colony. Even if the fish aren't trying to eat the shrimp, their noseyness will stress the shrimp.
Use a spong filter, or at least a piece of sponge over your filter's intake to avoid deaths that way. If your filter/pump return is pretty fierce, try to slow it if you can or point it against the side of the tank. The shrimp are strong swimmers, but wont necessarily appreciate being battered!
Don't over feed. When you first get your shrimp, don't feed at all. Leave them a few days to settle in. Remove any excess food. I've been using Hikari Crab Cuisine and they love it.
Trying to think what else you should know...
As for temp, they do fine between 70-80F. Red Cherry Shrimp seem to like pH around 7.2.
When you first get your shrimp they might go AWOL for a day or two. They are just adjusting and are slightly stressed. I found an exoskeleton from one of mine and like a total n00b thought it was a dead shrimp! But, what that does mean is that the shrimp will now hide until its new shell has developed.
Feel free to ask anything else.
Sorry, forgot to explain about why you shouldn't have lots of plants. They can suck up a lot of the nutrients that the shrimp actually need for their shell.
Also as another nice treat for the shrimp, you can sink water logged dead (brown) leaves into the tank. Just one at a time though. The shrimp will feed off the bacteria that colonise the dead leaf. Just make sure the leaf is definitely brown and waterlogged (soak in a bucket for a few days) and that the leaf isn't contaminated, i.e. only take it from somewhere you know it hasn't been exposed to any pollutants.
Shrimper
Fish Addict
I have a couple of comments... as you might guess from my name you can tell i keep some shrimp! Currently Anamo, Crystal Red Shrimp and an Unknown algae shrimp.
I agree with most of what Jeej has said but I have plants in both of my tanks, and think they can be a good thing for shrimp tanks. The nutrients the plants take from the water are replaced by regular water changes which are good for the shrimp anyway. Also by having live plants you would genrally have a higher level of lighting encouraging algae for the shrimp to feed on.
I agree with them needing stable paramaters but i'm not sure how good an idea it is waiting 6 months before adding them especially if you aren't having tank mates to keep the tank cycled until its ready for shrimp... a fishless cycle will take a few weeks, then you would have to keep it up for another 5 months. I think the main reasons for leaving the tank 6 months is to give bacteria, algae and other things for the shrimp to eat to develop in the tank and a mature tank is genrally more stable. If your going to be feeding your shrimp a decent variety of food then they wont need the additional food from the tank and if you keep an eye of the tank stats you can make sure its still good for the shrimp.
If you choose carefully you can keep some fish with shrimp. I have kept my Anamo Shrimp with Cory Catfish and a Betta and the other shrimp with Cory Catfish and always added the fish a few weeks before the shrimp. I've not had the CRS long enough for them to breed so can't say about any long term problems. The CRS aren't shy with the Corys, they have only been together a few weeks and the shrimp already walk right up to the fish to steal their food. Lots of hiding places are a must though, the tank is 40 gallon and I've got a lot of Moss, plants and things in the tank for them to hide in. That said if your thinking of using a 5 gallon there aren't really any options for tank mates.
Although its recomended not to feed them when you add them to the tank, when I added mine they had lost nearly all their colour and feeding a tiny bit of crab cusine helped them get their colour back in a few days.
One of your other questions was about keeping different species of shrimp together. The main types of dwarf shrimp you will see in LFS and ebay are Anamo, Crystal Red Shrimp, Red Cherry Shrimp, Bumblebee shrimp, Tiger shrimp. You might see long arm shrimp and filter shrimp. Generally Long arm shrimp are agressive and can't have any tank mates. Fan shrimp are genrally ok with any shrimp tank mates but deffinatly need a mature tank as they filter their food directly from the water. As for the dwarf shrimp they will live nicely with each other but there are chances for them to hybridise with each other and produce funny looking shrimp. The easiest way to tell if they will hybridise if check the scientific name Neocardina and Cardina species should be ok together.
Have a look at Shrimp Now for loads of info on keeping various species of shrimp.
Mikaila31
Always Watching
I agree with shrimper. My cherries love plants, my tank is normally choked with plants. IMO the cherries are going to get most of their nutrients from the food. If there is a lack of nutrients in the water the plants are going to show signs first. I also have wood which is where most of them enjoy hanging out. It is easy to keep adult and juvi. shrimp with fish, but it is a little harder to breed cherries in a tank w/ fish. Upon the removal of fish from my tank cuz of ich. The shrimp population had been steady for about a year. With in a month without fish the population exploded from 20 to 200.
jeej
Fish Fanatic
Sorry guys, just to clarify, my comments with regards to wood and plants were aimed at small tanks, i.e. less than 10gal - I just failed to make myself clear, my bad!
It's no secret that keeping steady water parameters is easier in a bigger tank, so ideally the bigger the better. But I have some RCS in an 8gal at the moment, so I have restricted my flora to just Java Moss and my decorations to just rocks and I also have some of that plastic guppy grass that you are meant to anchor under the substrate. I have two small bits; one on the gravel and one bit upside down floating at the surface - the shrimp love hiding in it. My setup isn't meant to look particularly pretty at the moment, I am just trying to get a colony going. I saw my biggest female this morning carrying lots of yellow eggs, so that is promising!
My aim is to get a 15gal tank up and running just for these RCS, then once I get a nice number of mature RCS I will move them into my main 65gal tank. For the price I paid for them, I didn't want to dump them straight into my main tank for them to die.
Oh, as for waiting 6 months... lol, why would you do that?! The tank just needs to be cycled and then primed for shrimp, i.e. right water parameters and items for the shrimp. Get some Java Moss growing!
It's no secret that keeping steady water parameters is easier in a bigger tank, so ideally the bigger the better. But I have some RCS in an 8gal at the moment, so I have restricted my flora to just Java Moss and my decorations to just rocks and I also have some of that plastic guppy grass that you are meant to anchor under the substrate. I have two small bits; one on the gravel and one bit upside down floating at the surface - the shrimp love hiding in it. My setup isn't meant to look particularly pretty at the moment, I am just trying to get a colony going. I saw my biggest female this morning carrying lots of yellow eggs, so that is promising!
My aim is to get a 15gal tank up and running just for these RCS, then once I get a nice number of mature RCS I will move them into my main 65gal tank. For the price I paid for them, I didn't want to dump them straight into my main tank for them to die.
Oh, as for waiting 6 months... lol, why would you do that?! The tank just needs to be cycled and then primed for shrimp, i.e. right water parameters and items for the shrimp. Get some Java Moss growing!
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