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10 gal Shrimp Tank photo log

10K views 79 replies 13 participants last post by  Chesh 
#1 ·
I started to talk about this tank in my other photo log, but decided it needs its own thread. Let me backtrack a bit to explain how this tank came to be.

In January blackwaterguy showed me that a favorite seller of his had the coveted farlowella catfish. I'd been searching for these for a while and didn't hesitate to buy them from a trusted hobbyist (her website is msjinkxd.com if anyone is interested). As a split second decision I decided to order some red cherry shrimps with him knowing that I wouldn't have a lot of movement or color in my tank with just Java loaches and my farlowella. Well long story short, I fell in love with them. They are insanely interesting to watch move around the tank and eat everything. I love their long feelers and how they poke everything with them.

The more I researched the more I realized that my tank might not be the best for these little guys. Gourami are known shrimp eaters (I can vouch for that), and tetra will take a swipe at the babies. If I wanted a strong colony I would have to change something. I had a betta tank that was showing terrible growth on the plants and struggled with algae. I decided to break that tank down and set up one of my spare 10 gal tanks as a shrimp-only tank.

I just got around to doing this on 27 Feb. This is how the tank looked on the night I set it up.



Today, I received an order of plants for my tanks. Some went in my community but others went in my shrimp tank. I added Bacopa and Myrio to this tank. This is how it looks now.



The substrate is eco complete. The lighting is a single T8 6500k daylight tube. I use Equilibrium to raise my GH as I have very soft water. I also dose with flourish comprehensive once a week (might be upped to twice later). It does have a small amount of copper, but not enough to harm shrimps.

The plants in there are anubias spp, subwassegtang, riccia, Rotala rountidifolia, Bacopa carolinia, Myriophyllum mattogrossense, and dwarf sagittaria.

I'm going to try to take weekly pictures to track the growth of the plants as well as the growth of the shrimp colony. Right now I have have four shrimps left (you can thank the gourami for that...) that will be moved to the tank this weekend. The female is carrying eggs, so I should at least have some babies in a couple of weeks. When the shrimp go into the tank, the betta will be removed to a breeder box until I can find him another home.
 
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#29 ·
I'd just let them pick up after the puffer and eat the algae. When you get like 100 in there, you'll probably need to start throwing a sinking pellet or two their way every week. I never fed mine when they were in the 29 with the loaches. They just ate the leftover food.
 
#31 ·
As I planned, my new shrimpies arrived today! I am thrilled to have some more females. I got at least four more. Most of them are as gorgeous as my shrimps, but some are more red cherry grade. But right now I need to worry about getting my numbers up lol. I can cull later.


Here they are being drip acclimated. You can already see that some are a really deep red. At least two of my females are saddled already.


Don't know why I took this acclimation picture, but I did.


This is the only picture I was able to snap of my new shrimps. This is that massive, red female. She's at least a couple cm longer than my big girl (who I previously thought was big!). I really hope she has at least one clutch of eggs before she died (large shrimp are old shrimp). She would be able to carry a ton of eggs!!

Unfortunately I have already lost a shrimp. One of the deep red females jumped while I was putting them in the tank. I think I damaged her when I picked her from the carpet. Really bummed about that, but overall please with these guys. Now I just sit back and let them breed!
 
#33 ·
They followed your command! I woke up this morning to find my female (who was previously the only mature female in the tank) had molted and was laying eggs.

Unfortunately I've lost two of the new shrimps today. That large female from the picture was the first to go. She was really old and I kinda questioned why the seller sent her. Old shrimps don't take the changing tanks really well. And I also lost an older male. I'm more bummed about the female because I really only need one male.
 
#35 ·
I want to say I got 6 females and 4 males, but I'm really not too sure as some of them aren't mature yet. I think I have a couple of immature females along with those large red ones you saw in the photo. So some of those you counted as males (and I thought they were males too at first) were just females that paled during the trip. I also got one that is like less than a month old juvvie. No clue what that little bugger is lol! But he was a freebie.
 
#36 ·
So now that my shrimps have been in the tank for a few days, they are settling in very well. While I was laying in front of the tank I got out my tripod and took a few shots. The plant growth is slow, but steady which is pretty much what I expected. I didn't expect the tops of some of my rotala to begin turning red! It's quite pretty!



And I even managed to snag a pictures of my first batch of shrimp babies!! They are showing great color!

 
#38 ·
So with the good, comes the bad. I turned on the light to find my only berried shrimp dead. She was the last remaining female from my original batch. I'm so thankful I bought those extras now. I'm going to try to hatch the eggs she was carrying. I've read that placing the body in a net near the outflow of the filter will help increase the chances of the eggs hatching. So I've done just that.... Give it a couple of weeks and we'll see how it goes.



I have come to the conclusion that the pH in that tank is just a tad too high for the shrimps. Most people keep these sakura reds around 7.2, but my pH is 8.0. I want to add more driftwood to the tank, but for now I have a filter bag filled with oak leaves in there. I'm hoping this will help bring it down until I can get the wood.
 
#40 · (Edited)
I don't know what I did to cause the universe to unsubscribe me from this thread, but glad to be back and see how lovely everything looks! Bummer about the losses, but congrats on the new additions! The little ones are just too adorable for words. REALLY interested in seeing how it goes with trying to hatch the eggs without momma's help. Good luck - I hope it works! It'll be so fun when you reach the point where you have TOO many shrimp :) *can't wait*

P.S. because acclimation pictures are fantastic, and for some reason nobody ever posts them! Thanks for filling a void!
 
#41 ·
I do love my little shrimplets! I'm glad to see so many of them. But I have more sad news. I woke up to find two more shrimp dead. I really think my high tap water pH is the problem. I have a lot more driftwood in my other tanks and that brings in down, but here I just have two dinky pieces. I ordered some more last night, so I hope they come in before I lose too many adults. I'm down to like 5 now, but still see two saddled females (ovaries full of eggs).

As for the eggies... I had some trouble with my setup come water change time, so I extracted the eggs (using a magnifying glass lol) and plopped them in the bag with the leaves. I originally read not to do that because the snails literally suck the eggs out, but these guys are buried in leaves. They will have plenty to eat, so I don't have to worry about that.

As for the leaves having any effect, they are. The pH today was 7.8 where it used to be 8.0. But I want it lower. I want it around 7.2. Really anxious for that wood to get here. :s Depending on when it does I might not have any adults left.
 
#42 ·
Big Changes!

So the wood and the moss arrived this weekend! I took out the bacopa stems because I just didn't like their look. I like the dainty leaves of the myrio and rotala. I've added java and x-mas moss and some frogbit from BWG. I'm hoping this will bring down the pH enough for the shrimp. I also added a feeding dish. The shrimp deaths appear to have stopped since I upped the feeding (knock on wood), so maybe it was a problem of the tank not being mature enough.





You can see the feed bowl on the far left corner. I'm waiting for my planting tweezers to come in. I tried to drop food in there tonight and missed. :/



A close up of the x-mas moss. I really hope it attaches and grows well.

You should be able to see some of the shrimps around the tank now. Those are the first and only batch that have hatched in this tank. I honestly don't think the eggs from the dead female hatched. I will try again with a different method. I think I see a saddled female, so I'm really hoping for some eggs with this pH drop.
 
#45 ·
Thanks! The myrio is still in there, but took a hit when I had to keep the light off for a couple of days due to really warm temperatures a couple of weeks ago. I'm hoping it will bounce back because I really like it. And I kinda wish those warmer temps would come back. I'm wrapped up in a blanket right now. I moved the bacopa up to my betta tank. I just didn't like how thick the stems and leaves are. But it looks great in the betta tank.
 
#47 ·
So by this time I thought I would be reporting I have berried females. Not yet, but the three saddled females are eating well. I do have other good news to share, tho. My egg-hatching experiment was a success! Today I spotted four shrimplets that are too small to be from that first batch that hatched in the tank. The only option is for them to have come from those eggs I tried to hatch. They are so tiny and there are now so many hiding spots it's impossible to know how many I have, but I know I have at least five! I'm so excited!! This is the first batch that was fertilized and hatched in this tank!
 
#49 ·
So this is going to sound creepy, but I just saw my shrimps mate. I came upstairs to feed the goldfish and hopped down to check on the shrimps. I saw a large molt on the ground and found my saddled female hiding in the anubias next to glass. Next thing I know the males of the tank (didn't know I had so many mature ones) were all headed towards the anubias. One found her and bam. Pregnant. I couldn't believe what I was watching. She's now hiding away in the moss, hopefully laying eggs!

Just wanted to share this odd/happy/creep moment with you guys! :D
 
#50 ·
That mating resulted in a berried female! The first one I've had in months! I'm really hoping she carries them to term!







And! I see one of my other saddled females getting ready to molt! Maybe by this time tomorrow I'll have two berried females!



This isn't the one about to molt, but this is another female growing a saddle.
 
#52 ·
Just caught up with this thread, and I was wondering about how to lower your PH. Have you thoughts about making like a blackwater extract from oak/IAL and adding that to the tank?

I dunno if it would work or not, but it's something I've seen here and there in my aimless internet wanderings xD

Anyways, your shrimp are so cute! The tank is looking gorgeous :) Looks much bigger than 10 gallons.
 
#53 ·
Thanks, guys! I'm so happy with this newest development. I really thought I was going to watch a molt in action today, but that was not to happen. I expect to see another berried female in the next couple of days.

Jen, I've thought about making my own. The oak tree I have out back produce a really good blackwater, but I don't want the tannins in this tank. I have stems and want them to grow which they won't do well with the blackwater. Right now I feel like I have a good system going. I tested the pH and it was down to 7.5 today!
 
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