• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Neo shrimps are tough little critters!

Joined
3 Jan 2016
Messages
383
Location
Woking, UK
About a month ago I set up a small bowl, about 3 to 4 litres, with some Tropica soil mixed with grit, some dwarf hairgrass and some mini in-vitro hairgrass. I put an IKEA desk lamp over it on a timer for 8 hours a day. I filled it with water from my 20 litre nano tank, which houses ember tetras and blue velvet shrimps.

I was astonished how quickly the hairgrass got established, and after about 10 days I decided to do a slight cull of mis-coloured shrimps from the nano tank. Having nowhere else to put them, I simply dumped them into the bowl. I figured they’d stand a 50:50 chance of surviving.

Far from merely surviving, they appear to be thriving in there. I see occasional molts, and now I’m seeing countless babies. I’m certain that none of the five or six shrimps I put in there were berried at the time, so they must have bred in the bowl. And given the short timescale, I reckon they must have got on with it straight away!

The bowl gets weekly 50% water changes using water from the nano tank, so it’s getting second-hand nutrients. It has no filtration or aeration, but I do see bubbles rising from the hairgrass. Amazingly there has been almost no algae - just a tiny bit of staghorn on some of the longer threads of hairgrass directly under the light (now trimmed off), and there may be a slight haze developing on the glass near the bottom. I lob a tiny piece of tablet food in there every few days, whenever I think of it.

I didn’t give the aesthetics much consideration, so when lockdown eases I may look in local shops to see if I can find a suitable small piece of stone to act as a centrepiece.

I’m just amazed at how these shrimps have made this their home!


DB1836CA-E766-4623-9DB7-AC44BEF237CC.jpeg
 
I agree - looks fab! You don’t find the shrimp get jumpy in an open top shallow bowl? Mine have never tried to jump out the tank, but I’ve only had them since August and read somewhere they can do this
 
I agree - looks fab! You don’t find the shrimp get jumpy in an open top shallow bowl? Mine have never tried to jump out the tank, but I’ve only had them since August and read somewhere they can do this
I’ve never noticed any evidence of them jumping out.
 
I have almost identical setups as yours. I have several 2 to 4 liter planted bowls hanged by my west facing window with no aeration, filtration or heater, just a few hour afternoon sunlight. I have ramshorn snails, Amano and different color Neo in each of them. I replace 20% water weekly by refilling water from my high tech tank thereby getting second hand nutrients. I feed my shrimp with a few pellets every other day.

The plants are thriving with no algae except green silk or clado which I removed physically every few weeks. I grow dwarf hair grass, dwarf Sag or guppy grass in each, and all have floaters. My shrimp have never climbed out of the bowls despite water filling to the rim. But I couldn't keep nerite snails which did crawl out. My shrimp do not proliferate as yours. My red and black Neo are multiplying just enough to sustain the population, but my blue dream population is thinning out by attrition.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_9129.JPG
    IMG_9129.JPG
    3.9 MB · Views: 155
  • P1010697.JPG
    P1010697.JPG
    7.9 MB · Views: 138
Back
Top