[HeathBar]

This my little 5g shrimp tank that I have at work. It is very very low tech, and has been running for about 3 years now. It's home to about 100 RCS and Malawa shrimp plus a ridiculous amount of tiny snails. Unfortunately I lost a large amount of my RCS a few months ago due to the filter breaking while I wasn't in the office. They are slowly making a come back though.

The only plant I have in there right now is one Anabius nana, which is doing really well.

I'm looking for some ways to spruce it up a bit while still keeping it low maintenance/low tech.

My main issues with it right now are:
*It always looks dirty, even after I scrape the glass and try to remove the bushy green algae.
*How can I get rid of all these snails without harming the shrimp (all the tiny orange specs on the gravel are the snails)? I have one Assassin snail that came as a hitchhiker but he doesn't seem to make a dent at all, lazy bum...
*I want to add some more plants but I'm not sure what, I just know that I don't want any moss, I'm not a big fan of it.
*Any fish suggestions besides otto's that won't harm my shrimp? People are always asking me why my "fish" tank doesn't have any fish :icon_roll

 

[ThinkTank]

Cute tank. Put a pair of pea puffers in there and they'll take care of the snails. Mine are ok with shrimp...but baby shrimp may be another story...

 

[madness]

You might try some floating plants like frogbit. They will help slow down the algae and the shrimp love hanging upside down from them or playing in the long roots.

 

[duff]

+1 on the floating plants (red root floaters would look good) and maybe dwarf Cories? My assassin snails are very slow in keeping the population down as well. But I do see a continuous trail of empty shells I also snail hunt on a regular basis to keep them down as well... cucumber for a few hours brings them all out for easy pickings. The Algae looks like Clado - if you have a closed top a few Amano shrimp would help as well. Though I do find an open top is an invitation for crispy Amano shrimp...

Good luck and keep us posted - nice little office tank!

Duff

 

[HeathBar]

Oooo I didn't know Amano's would eat clado, that's great news! I was considering a puffer for the snails, I've kept them before and they are so cute! I'm just worried that they'll eat the my RCS babies since I'm trying to boost their numbers a bit right now. If only I could train it to only eat the malawa shrimplets

How many assassin snails do you think would be a good amount for 5g's?

 

[firefiend]

A couple Nerite Snails will help algae control and they won't breed in freshwater. A single Apple Snail will also help... just one though because if you get several of mixed genders they will breed.

+1 on the floating plants too. Frogbit is good. I prefer Hydrocotyle species only because I enjoy the stems crawling out of the tank.

 

[NoahLikesFish]

I repeat don’t get duckweed IMO I’d do water lettuce hyacinth and Slavinia I’d stay away from frogbit cause it can take over a tank