[HolyAngel]

Hey everyone, got a bit of an issue I'd like some advice about. A what would you do. I have a 5 gallon established shrimp only tank that's been up for about a year now. I now have a good mix of species that I can't have interbreeding and I don't have room for more/multiple tanks in my house right now, I basically have two options here besides leaving it as is:

1) get another 5-ish gallon tank to sit next to the current one that I will link with a siphon/u-tube and have the intake of my canister filter in one tank and the outtake in the other to force water through the tube.

2) completely teardown the current 5 gallon and replace it with a 10gallon or 20 long or something that I can transfer everything/everyone into.

My other thought besides the breeder box's I have is to maybe get the intank dividers and split the 5 gallon... But the tank is already so small and I don't want to have to worry about flow in separate compartments = low oxygen or dead spots or something.

I don't want to mess up my cycle in any way whatsoever as I have a lot of high dollar/high quality shrimp in here and more on the way next week. I just want to make sure everything is getting filtered properly and everything and I'm not sure the breeder box's are the way to do that correctly. What would you do?

 

[HolyAngel]

Goals are:
more filtration/stability
Can keep the species separate with plenty of room for them to grow

Cannot:
Setup a separate tank, it's Either do nothing, add, or replace for right now unfortunately.

 

[Bahugo]

I would say option 1 if you are worried about interbreeding. Or a 20g long you could probably divide 2 times (so you have 3 different sections).

How many species do you have that will interbreed?

 

[HolyAngel]

Option 1 is what I've been leaning towards..

I have 3 species that will interbreed, basically I keep CRS/CBS together, but the golden bee's are separate, and tangerine tigers will need to be separate from the rest as well.

 

[HolyAngel]

I currently have the CRS/CBS in the tank itself, and the golden's in one of two satellite breeder box's I have. The tigers would go in the other but neither offer enough room for them to grow out and breed really..

 

[gordonrichards]

5 gallon tanks are rather small.

You may end up being happier with getting a 20 gallon long setup with a cast iron stand. You'd have room to expand in the future.

IME, I started with:
1 10 gallon
Then:
2 10's
1 20 long

so on and so forth.

 

[shrimpnmoss]

Do a 20g long. It'll be better in the long run..

 

[GeToChKn]

Do a 20g long. It'll be better in the long run..

Ya, 1 20long even divided into 3 gives you almost 7gal each part and bigger than another 5gal. The tank divider I have has small holes in it so the water can flow through division to division, so heater, filter, etc can be in 1 side and still affect the rest of the tank. I have one dividing my 20gal long right now into 2. Might eventually goto 3 with it. I'm sure a very newborn shrimplet could in theory make it through the holes, but once they are a week old, they won't be able to fit as I have some week old shrimplets and they are already bigger than the holes. If one made it through, by the time it was breeding age, I'm sure it would be big enough to notice you had 1 orange one in a batch of crystals or something. I'm thinking of dividing my 20gal into 3 parts as well. I do have a sponge filter in the shrimp side right now, mostly to give them the filter to feed on and have fun with. I have a Rena xp1 on the other side but I might switch that out for 2 more sponge filters if I decide to split it into 3. I guess it partially depends on if I get 1 or 2 new breeds of shrimp tomorrow when I go shrimp looking. lol.

If I didn't have the tank already setup though, I might decide to go with cut pieces of plexi and silicone them into the 20long and make 3 total separate tanks from the start from it, 3 sponge filters and be done with it. My tank is already setup, had berried shrimp I didn't want to move out into a container for 3 or 4 days while I let the silicone dry, etc, so I got the clip in kind with the holes in it. If I do end up spliting it into 3, it will red cherries, yellows and snowballs in that tank, tigers in my 5.5gal, crystals in 7.7gal cube, and move my 2 dwarf frogs and tetras to the 2.5gal.

 

[shrimpnmoss]

Check this sick tank out...is this along the line of what you're thinking?

http://www.shrimpnow.com/forums/sho...atum(review-after-almost-1-year-of-use)/page2

 

[HolyAngel]

So ya think it'd be better to just replace the tank with a 20 long and split that for them rather than try and add on to this one? I have my 15gal i could use but i have aquasoil and whatnot for it that i already purchased, i'm sure i can't use that without cycling first.. so, new tank, new substrate? Should I save the water and the current substrate for use in the new one? btw, is it wrong to have a sunsun 302 on a 5 gallon? because thats what I did lol, totally tired of that cheap zoomed 501 not actually pushing any water :/

 

[shrimpnmoss]

If you're building a new tank you might as well cycle new substrate for it. Do it right. Your shrimps should survive for a month while you're cycling anyways. You should also do the Zoo Med mod to increase the flow. There is a thread on TPT somewhere about the mod.

 

[HolyAngel]

Yeah even then the filter still barely puts out more than a trickle, total waste of money on that thing. I've modded it 12 different ways, swapped parts, tried pretty much every way you could put it together, same amount of flow, maybe it'll pump 5 gallons in an hour but that's pushing it.

 

[HolyAngel]

So trying to decide between using the 15G+aquasoil, or 20L+something.. I like these caribsea instant natural line of substrates and they carry it locally.. It's either that, flourite, or Eco complete... Or order more AS.. any suggestions?

 

[GeToChKn]

So trying to decide between using the 15G+aquasoil, or 20L+something.. I like these caribsea instant natural line of substrates and they carry it locally.. It's either that, flourite, or Eco complete... Or order more AS.. any suggestions?

I guess substrate can partially be determined by if you need a lower pH, are you going to use a substrate to do it, or just RO water or what? If you start with a new 20long, cut plexi and seal off and make 3 spaces, you could even use a certain type for each space if you wanted a lower ph for crystals in 1 space and normal soil for a different if you didn't care about the pH, etc for the tigers since they seem to be a lot more tolerate of pH than crystal/bee's.

The advantage of using 3 seals spots is that any disease, etc, would be contained in each space. The downside is filtering/heating. Like I said, with the divider I have, it has small holes to allow water flow, heated water, etc to flow threw. Topping off water on 1 side fills both, etc, and still gives you a bigger water amount to keep parameters more stable while still having 2 tanks.

I'm off to get some shrimp, possibly snowballs and some super bright yellows. We'll see when I actually see them and get back.

 

[HolyAngel]

Well I always use pure RO water since I'm only keeping CRS and other caridina's. I have been using flourite capped with Tahitian moon sand for the past year or so with no issues.. I just happen to have the AS here, the other stuff I can pick up locally so substrate doesnt really matter I guess.. Should I just grab the new tank/use the 15, and new pre-cycled substrate and swap everything but the substrate over including the tank water to that one then? Rather then wait a month for the AS to cycle? Does that seem wise?

I just lost two golden's in two nights in the breeder box as I think it's not getting enough microfauna/flow in there for them so I need to do something quick. I have them all in the 5 gallon now and that+the filter seemed to bring everyone back up to snuff, but I don't want them to interbreed. I will most likely get the netted dividers like you have GeTo for whichever tank I get as id like to have all the extra water/stability for everyone. There should be no risk of disease as theyve all been quarantined for months and fine.

 

[HolyAngel]

Well, I decided to teardown the 5 gallon and replace it with my 15 gallon with two intank dividers so I can separate the CRS/CBS from the golden's and the TT's once I get em. I put tourmaline bc on the bottom followed by Ada powersand special and then capped it with tahitian moon black sand as that's what I have and Im not putting in aquasoil nor do I have a need for it. That'll have to wait until my next tank. So this tank shouldn't have to cycle since all the goodies in the substrate, I transferred the water over, have an established sunsun 302 on it plus the sponge filters, and dumped half a bottle of bacteria supplement into the tank along with some prime. This should be golden, now to just cross my fingers..

Also replaced the zoomed plant bulb I had with a reptile full spectrum(6700k) 2.0 UVB bulb as I've read they(exoskeletons) benefit from the uv rays. We'll see how this goes!

 

[HolyAngel]

From this:

To this:

I still have to move the sponge filters and stuff, maybe scape idk. I need some mesh for all this moss!

 

[HolyAngel]

Oh also, when I emptied the breeder box's they smelled horrible! And the tank didnt, so I'm sure it was due to lack of flow in there, they definitely should not be used for long term holding of anything unless they're bare bottom and you manually swap all the water out every couple days, the air line isn't enough.

 

[HolyAngel]

Thanks for the help/advice everyone! If you have anymore please leave it!

 

[GeToChKn]

Looks good. I may have to split my 20 long into 3 eventually. I got some snowballs and yellows yesterday. Did some tank shuffling last night to get everyone separate, so my reds, crystals, snowballs are all in separate tanks or areas, and then my yellows and tigers are together. They won't interbreed I know, so not a huge deal right, especially since I only have 3 male tigers right now, I don't expect any breeding from them. lol. Once I get some female tigers though, I am going to split my 20long and put my reds, yellows and snowballs all together in that tank. I'll probably ditch my rena as well on it and just put 3 big sponge filters in each part. We'll see. Always so much to want to do, so little space and money. lol.