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Converting a 35L for shrimp

daizeUK

daizeUK

Member
Joined
18 Jun 2013
Messages
161
Location
Berkshire
I've got my eye on some blue cherry shrimp sold by a local breeder and I'd like some advice on how to set up my 35L to be shrimp-friendly. I have lots of questions, where do I start?!

I'll start with plants I guess! Should I go for a CO2-enriched aquascape with carpeting plants OR low-tech with lots of moss?

Do I need to worry about my pH/TDS? I've got pH 8.2 hard water around 300mg/L CaCO3. The local shrimp breeder tells me they dilute with RO water. Do I also need to use RO or will the shrimp acclimate to my water?

Alternatively would a specialised shrimp substrate be useful to lower my pH/TDS (like the kind they sell on Hobby Shrimp)? How long does the effect last for? Are these shrimp soils any different from a normal enriched planting substrate?

Finally on to fish! Currently I use the tank to grow out juvenile platies (from 1-3cm) and longer term I'd like to keep some Norman's Lampeye in there. The breeder tells me that shrimp will be happier without fish. Would cherry shrimp coexist happily with either/both of these tankmates?
 
Thanks for the reply but most of that info is for CRS which are more sensitive than cherries I think. I don't have a TDS meter so I was hoping someone could advise me based on my water hardness and pH.
 
I'm not that far from you and my standard red cherry shrimps are fine and breeding like crazy in normal tap water. I don't know if the blue cherry shrimps are more sensitive though. I might be more wary about our tap water if they are. I bought a Cheap TDS pen to better understand the water quality in my tanks and found that the tap water can vary. It is usually around 300-320 although this drops when the water is left to stand over night.

I don't use a shrimp-specific substrate, just a fairly inert iberaki akadama. Tesco's low dust lightweight cat litter is work a look; that's what I'm using for my next tank. I don't think you need to waste your money on specialist shrimp substrate. My current tank is low tech at the moment although this will be changed soon. The only fish with the shrimps are chilli rasboras and an oto. I don't know about lampeyes but if the platties can fit baby shrimps into their mouths, they will!
 
I keep red cherry,snowball and the blue pearls in water the same parameters as yours with no problems at all and they are breeding very well too:)
I have them in a pressurised CO2 set up dosing EI and also in a set up dosing complete liquid ferts and liquid CO2.
I would always recommend drip acclimatising them for 3-5 hours especially if the breeder you're getting them from is using remineralised RO with a much lower TDS.
As to fish,yes the breeder is right when he says they will be more relaxed in a shrimp only set up but I keep mine with celestial pearl danios,endlers and rosy loaches and all seems to be fine.
I don't know how they would get on with platties,if you are just growing them on in there it might be ok but I wouldn't like to say for sure.
 
Thanks for all the advice! I've actually got Tesco's cat litter in that tank right now and I want to swap it out because I hate it! I've been unsuccessfully trying to keep staurogyne rooted in it for weeks and just had enough of it. I will probably return to sand with tropica plant growth substrate underneath.
 
I kept lampeyes with my crs and they will eat the newly hatched shrimplets. Apart from that the lampeyes are jumpers so you would need a lid on the tank and they are happiest in shoals 15+ so your tank is a bit small. These are a very shy fish and every time you approach the tank they will hide, if you don't have lots of plants they will lay on the substrate or try and get under things. Trying to catch them is a nightmare!
 
Thanks for the info on the lampeyes! The tank is an Arcadia 35L and it has a clear glass lid that covers most of the tank except for a small 4x10cm gap at the front and back. Will they aim for this gap? I had heard that they were not so jumpy as other killifish so I was hoping they'd be alright. I was planning to get a shoal of 6-8 of them.

The tank would be planted with plenty of hiding spaces but it's on my kitchen worktop so they'd be seeing quite a lot of me! Don't they come out of hiding at feeding time, at least?
 
I had a similar gap that I had to fill with floating plants. If I sat beside the tank very still they would come out and they came out for food too. I started with10 in a 54l. They were so nervous in that smaller number I lost 3 in as many days. I bought another 10 to bring the numbersto 17 and they were more relaxed but I still lost another couple when I'd removed the lid for water changes. I moved them in with the puffers as a temp measure and the stillness of the puffers seemed to give them confidence and they would feed with them. I'd go with at least 12-14. It seems a lot in such a size of tank but they are happier in a shoal. Mine ended up going to a ukaps member that had a 350l tank so heaven! They breed like stink too so I still have a lone fry living in the shrimp tank that hatched out after the adult shoal were taken out. Oddly, and presumably because it hasn't known anything different, this lone fry seems perfectly happy and is feeding on the microscopic waterlife in the water. He has his 'lamps' already but is still too small to be a threat to even the newest shrimplet.
 
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