[Studman0143]

Last night I got my first ever Cherry Shrimp! I have been planning to make this a shrimp tank for almost 4 months now and I finally put aside my busy life and did it. I found a local breeder willing to help me out in the hobby, so I finally took the first steps!

15G Tank
2 Aqueon 10W Colormax bulbs - 2w/g
Penguin HOB Filter - Soon to be replaced by DIY Powerhead-sponge filter.
50W Heater - Set at 74 degrees

Flora:
Water Wisteria x2
Java Moss
Christmas Moss
Marimo Ball
Anubias nana
Anubias coffeeolia?
Anubias barteri
Egeria Najas
Crypts, many species
Guppy Grass
Java Fern
Dwarf Sag

Inhabitants:
Cherry Shrimp

This tank originally had the 3 platy's 5 silver lyretail mollies, and 4 harlequinn rasboras, but the rasboras died when I had a random nitrate spike 2 weeks ago, and I was able to sell the Mollies. Unfortunately I wasn't able to sell the Platy's in time and 1 female had babies, ugh. So after the 2nd female has her babies, I'll try and sell all 3 again and just raise the fry until they can also be sold. Gotta love the circle of life.

The pictures will show the progress of this tank.

COMMENTS AND FEEDBACK ARE WELCOME

CURRENT SETUP

UPDATED 6/5

 

[BoxxerBoyDrew]

So the tank has been running for 4 months now? Is the substrate just the gravel that is in the pics or is there anything under the gravel? Dirt, root tabs, ect...

Your plants are looking pretty good! The Anubias rhizomes look good and healthy! It will be fun to watch it grow in for Ya!

Good luck on the shrimp! I will be setting up a shrimp tank one of these days, when the $ flow is a bit better! I think the shrimp are sooo cool! And if Ya can get them breeding you will have a tank full in no time!

Again Good Luck!
Drew

 

[Studman0143]

So the tank has been running for 4 months now? Is the substrate just the gravel that is in the pics or is there anything under the gravel? Dirt, root tabs, ect...

It's actually been running since about March. Only 4 months ago, when I started looking at this site daily, did I want to do a Shrimp breeding tank. And it is just gravel, there is no substrate below it. I know I probably should have put some in, but it's almost too late for me now imo. I really don't plan on putting any needy plants in this tank. I may do some root tabs for the wisteria and anubias, but everything else wouldn't need much.

Your plants are looking pretty good! The Anubias rhizomes look good and healthy! It will be fun to watch it grow in for Ya!

Thanks, the two biggest ones in there came from the same rhizome. I split them about a month ago because I'm gonna bring one to work for my 1G betta tank.

Good luck on the shrimp! I will be setting up a shrimp tank one of these days, when the $ flow is a bit better! I think the shrimp are sooo cool! And if Ya can get them breeding you will have a tank full in no time!

Money has been an issue for me as well, but I actually do a few things on the side. I've got 2 10Gs and a 29G I'm setting up here soon and they are all maintained and paid for through my projects. I basically grow and sell duckweed here in Utah and I find wood around lakes/rivers and prep it and sell it. Over the past few months I have made just enough to pay for my hobby. It's a good feeling. Maybe you could do something similar to generate tank income :biggrin:

 

[Studman0143]

Update

A few updated pictures. I put in my DIY filter. It's just a Powerhead 30 with PVC pipe glued on to the bottom with a sponge as the filter. I also received the shrimp motel in the mail so I put that in.
I have 1 berried shrimp from what I have been able to see, she looks pretty full. So hopefully we'll see some babies sometime soon. I don't know how soon they have them, but that's all a part of the fun.

I hope to be able to hide the filter better at some point. That or reposition it better, but for now this will work as the wisteria and najas is growing well. I might be able to cover them up in the future with it. that or if the dwarf sag starts growing quickly too. We shall see.

Also, when I went to claim my other 14 shrimp, the guy gave me 6 extra plants at no charge!!! How awesome is that. it's probably because I told him I want to buy some plants from him in the future because he has what I want for my 29G. So I got some baby tears, dwarf sag, a ludwigia of some sort, a type of crypt, moss, and needle leaf java. Most of it went into my other 10G which has better lighting, but nonetheless, it was a great act of kindness!

Sorry about the glares, I forgot to shut the window

 

[GoldenTetra]

I love shrimp
I noticed the flowering plant, is that a calla lily? I didn't think they were aquatic... might be worth looking into

 

[Studman0143]

I love shrimp
I noticed the flowering plant, is that a calla lily? I didn't think they were aquatic... might be worth looking into

It's a flower that showed up in my anubias nana. Just something that it does. It kind of died after about 5 days and I have since cut it off and haven't seen one since. It sure was pretty cool though.

 

[Studman0143]

Update 11-26-11

I took out the DIY filter because the powerhead did not work properly at all. It was barely pushing any water, so for the time being I put in a Penguin 550. It is definitely too strong for a 10G, but I didn't want to go back to a HOB and I'm still looking for a better solution. So I was able to adjust the flow so it doesn't push too hard. The only unfortunate thing is that it really pushes the duckweed under and it gets caught everywhere. :angryfire

I've always loved duckweed, and I grow it and sell it here locally, but it just isn't cutting it in this tank, so for the most part it is removed, but not completely.

I also changed the hardscape. It dawned on me that as the Wisteria and moss grew, I didn't have much room to propagate, so I had to readjust the layout. I should be able to leave it this way for a while, ha. The najas is growing like crazy and is starting to look good as I bunch it together.

In other good news, the shrimp finally had babies. I was getting really worried for a while because I could never find any of the females, but that was when I hadn't adjust the flow of the penguin, but they are all out and about now with too many babies to count. I also removed the 6 baby mickey mouse platy's and placed them in a 20G I have in my living-room right now.

So far my Cherry Shrimp love eating the leafy part of broccoli and blanched Kale, they don't even nibble on zucchini.

Enjoy!

(Sorry for the glare, I forgot to turn off a lamp)

 

[punchy]

good luck having a billion cherries soon, once they start they never stop.

tank is looking nice, it should fill out well.

 

[Studman0143]

good luck having a billion cherries soon, once they start they never stop.

tank is looking nice, it should fill out well.

Ha, thanks. I won't mind because I am just starting a 30 gallon, so they can start going in there. Plus I can give them to my LFS for store credit if I need to or sell them locally.

 

[Studman0143]

The only thing new about this tank is I bought 3 Bumblebee shrimp yesterday at Animal Ark (LFS). I wanted to add a bit of variety to this tank. I am slowing added Cherry's to my 29G and I'll also see if anybody locally wants shrimp because it's becoming quite the crowded tank.

Enjoy!

One of the three Bumblebee's

FEEDING TIME:

 

[GDP]

Looking good. That wistiria sure is growing wild lol. And yeah once cherries get to breeding thats it lol.

 

[Studman0143]

Thanks. The Wisteria really is getting out of hand. Somebody emailed me today about trading Cherries, so I'm excited to get some new genetics in the tank. It really needs it.

 

[Studman0143]

Last night I met up with a local kid to trade 20-30 Cherry shrimp to help with the genetics. Cool guy, younger than me and has 5x the water I do, quite jealous. Anyways, gave me some guppy grass as well. I've never owned it before but I can tell it would be good for the shrimp to hang out it. It doesn't float extremely well unless I tear off individual pieces so right now it's half floating, half resting on top of my driftwood. Gonna do some research about this plant and try and find a place for it!

 

[madness]

Last night I met up with a local kid to trade 20-30 Cherry shrimp to help with the genetics. Cool guy, younger than me and has 5x the water I do, quite jealous. Anyways, gave me some guppy grass as well. I've never owned it before but I can tell it would be good for the shrimp to hang out it. It doesn't float extremely well unless I tear off individual pieces so right now it's half floating, half resting on top of my driftwood. Gonna do some research about this plant and try and find a place for it!

Guppy grass is quite popular for breeding set-ups (fry tanks) and should be great for shrimp tanks too.

Fast growing, fry like it, can be floated - good combination.

 

[Studman0143]

Thanks for the info

 

[Studman0143]

A quick little update.
I had a huge bacteria outbreak on this tank about 2-3 weeks ago (mostly due to overfeeding I believe). With how dirty the substrate was I decided to just move everything over to this 15G. I know there is some big concerns of turning them to a brand new tank but at least half the water I put in the new tank came from the old tank so there wasn't a ton of new stuff to adapt to. This gives them more space, allows me to experiment with more plants, specifically anubias & crypt species, and allows me to breed more. I like this setup a lot better anyways as the 10G was becoming too crowded.
Enjoy

 

[2in10]

Very nicely scaped

 

[Studman0143]

UPDATED PICTURES 6/5

 

[2in10]

Lovely tank