shrimp tank

[j-man the skater-man]

i am planning to move my 20 or so cherry shrimp to a 5 or 10 gallon tank i will be getting soon and i plan to plant the tank and use it as sort of a breeder colony but i was wondering how to cycle the tank the quickest and safest so i could move them into it soon.... also i am looking for a peaceful (oddball) fish that will stay kinda small that i could put in the tank with the cherries and maybe amanos a little later...

[Fishboy93]

Put 100% of aquarium water from a main tank= Instant cycle but you might wanna use Bio-Spira

[Scuba Kid]

the water doesnt contain much of the bacteria for the cycle. you could use some substrate from the original tank and that will help a lot.

[garfieldnfish]

Like Scuba said some substrate from your other tank would be a great way to seed the new tank. Shrimp have a very small bio load so it would not take long to have enough bacteria in your new tank to be sufficient. I would move half the shrimp in immediately and then add the rest a week later. If you get a 5 gal only a beta would be comfortable but some betas do not get along well with shrimp while others do fine. For a 10 gal you also only have a very small number of options if you want the tank as breeding tank for shrimp since most fish would ask you for tartar sauce to go with the baby shrimp. Once there is some algae in the tank you could add a couple of otos or if you have driftwood a clown pleco.

[j-man the skater-man]

how much substrate do i add? will it affect the main tank that much?

[garfieldnfish]

A couple of handfulls should do. The bacteria multiplies pretty quickly if already present. It will not affect your other tank since most of the bugs live in the filter anyway.

[j-man the skater-man]

ok i plan to get the 10 gallon kit from wally world (walmart) can i use the powerfilter that comes with it?? and it still be safe for the breeding shrimp & babies?

[j-man the skater-man]

also i was wondering would a cory be ok in a chrimp breeder tanK??? read that somewhere....

[MyraVan]

"A" cory is not right in any tank. You should have a bare min or 3 of schooling fish, which cories are. Perhaps 3 of the smaller cories would be OK.

[garfieldnfish]

A cory will not eat the adult shrimp but if you want this for a breeder tank, I would not get any cories.

[j-man the skater-man]

well then what would u recommend? other type of shrimp maybe?

[MyraVan]

I have a 10 gallon with cherry shrimps, 6 neon tetras, and a couple of apple snails. If you haven't tried apple snails before, I think one of them would be a great addition to your tank. Apple snails help create infusoria which, being so small, the cherry shrimps might eat (don't now this for sure though). At any rate they certainly won't harm your shrimps. If it's a planted tank, make sure you get the kind of apple snail that does not eat plants (these are sometimes called mystery snails).

The neon tetras don't serve any purpose in that tank, they just look pretty!

[j-man the skater-man]

wont the neon tetras try to eat/pick at and harm the baby shrimp??????
i might try the mystery snail idea thanks

[MyraVan]

I've only had the neon tetras about 1 month and a half, and the cherry shrimps a couple of weeks. I haven't seen any baby shrimps yet, but I think that there's a good chance that the shrimps will be able to breed successfully because:

* the tetras aren't bottom feeders -- they don't seem interested in anything on the floor of the tank

* the tank is densely planted, with more hiding places than you can imagine

* I have lots of little pest snails; the neons didn't eat their eggs or the baby snails

But I may turn out to be wrong, we'll see. Anyway, the tank isn't specifically a shrimp breeding tank, it's more of an interesting critters tank, with a good variety of living things in it, some of which came in as eggs on the plants.

[CroW]

Your best bet to get the tank cycled and running quickly is to put water in it from an established tank as well as some established substrate.. The substrate is very important since that's primarily where the cherries and amanos will feed. Also you can put the power filter from the new tank into your current tank and let it filter the good 'ole bacteria laden water.. With established water, an established filter and established (or nearly) substrate, you'll have a fully cycled tank up and running in very little time.

[wildtiger]

I really wouldn't go with a power filter for a shrimp tank, I think a sponge filter would work best, but that's just my .02 cents worth.

[j-man the skater-man]

ok a sponge filter but would a sponge on the intake nossle of the power filter work? and not screw the babies up?

[fishboy]

should be good