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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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#2 ·
If that's Myriophyllum mattogrossense then I guessed wrong on the other thread. I did find some of that alive in my tank after all. It should grow pretty well for you in low tech from what I understand. Makes sure it doesn't get shaded though. That was one reason I semi-dislike it. I often had leaf tips floating around the tank.
 
#3 ·
Thanks for that tip! The myrio might be a bit temperamental, but I don't mind giving it some room. I actually had to snip off a lot of the ends because they looked rather brown and dead. I guess the seller let it get shaded. I really like those little leaves, tho, so I'm going to try my hardest to keep these little guys alive!
 
#4 ·
I think you should be fine. The leaves came off fairly regularly, but the majority of the plant grew super quick for me. It was only when my CO2 was down for a month that I thought it died. It actually shaded itself at that point. I found it alive and floating directly under the light. So that's at least since around the beginning of the year that it hasn't been planted. That seems hardy to me.
 
#6 ·
Update!

The shrimps are in the tank! I saw no spikes in ammonia or nitrite and I see a slight nitrate level! The plants and filter are doing their jobs. So last night before lights out I plopped the shrimp in their forever home. Because the tank is so low to the ground I have trouble getting up close shots of the shrimp like I did in my 29 gal. So you'll have to play find the shrimp :p



Found two!!

 
#9 ·
Shrimps! It's great to see this all come together. :3
 
#10 ·
So Cory reminded me that I should do a photo update on my shrimp tank since I didn't last week. I get down there to start taking pictures because my plants are looking good and see something TINY and white zip from plant to plant. My mind goes "wut?" and I get out my magnifying glass... It is a NEWBORN baby shrimp. I look down at the mother and see two more pop out of her! These things are like IMPOSSIBLY tiny.

BUT I actually got a picture of two! Accidentally! But they are there. There are two in this picture. One is directly below the mother. To give you some scale, the mother is about 2.5 cm long.



And! In other happy news I found three juvvie shrimp in the 29 gal that somehow survived the gourami and the tetra (I can see how they are related to piranha now). One of them caught my eye as it tried to run from the gourami and I later discovered the other two in the java moss. I caught them as soon I as I saw them and dropped them in with the other shrimps. Here is one of them on the rotala.



Here is a full tank shot. You actually can see some shrimps here. The myrio is doing the best and I've seen a ton of new growth with it (after a lot of the old growth died off). And I accidentally sucked up my riccia mat last water change, so I have to grow a new one.



And then the proud mama! Sorry it's so dark... it was actually darker before I played with the image a bit.

 
#17 ·
So this is roughly 4 days after the baby shrimp hatched, and I already see color in some of them! Some of these guys are going to be gorgeous! Many of them are really active. I can see them dart around the tank and over the substrate.

The female is so dark red that I can't tell if she is berried or had a saddle. Although I saw a molt, so I'm pretty sure she will get berried soon again (not that I'm complaining).

I don't have any full tank picture to share right now because not much has changed. But I did manage to snag an awesome shot of two adult males and one of the juvvies I pulled from the 29 gal eating. Well the two males are more squabbling over food than eating in this one.





I think these are the best pictures I've ever taken of anything in my tanks. Flabbergasted that I was able to get it. I am so proud of them I put them on my Flickr! And I've never done that with any of my other aquarium pictures.
 
#22 ·
So I know I said I was going to update this with weekly plant growth, but it's really not that fast. I do see growth, tho. Slow but steady. Unfortunately I've had some shrimp die off, but I think it was from old age. These guys were pretty big when I got them. At least my babies are doing fine and showing color already!



Because I'm down to so few adult shrimp right now (and I only have one confirmed female) I'm ordering some more shrimps. But just like my tetra in my 29, they won't be here until next week. The seller ships all orders on Tuesdays to avoid lots of trips to the post office.
 
#27 ·
The population is small enough that they can find food on their own right now, but about once a week I give them 1/4 of an algae tablet (Omega One). When the new guys come in later this week, I'll up it to twice a week. As the population grows, I will have to feed more. Red cherries are really not fussy when it comes to food.
 
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