Burks

I want to do a 10g planted shrimp tank and have been researching how to do so. I know how to cycle a regular tank with and without fish so that's no problem. There have been two ways I've read it being done.

#1. Cycle the tank like you would with a regular planted fish tank. Plant the plants and then add hardy fish or just do a fishless cycle. Remove fish after tank is cycled, replace with shrimp.

#2. Plant the plants and add shrimp a few weeks later. The plants will do the biofiltration until the bacteria takes hold.

Which would be the best bet? The tank will be fairly well planted with fast growing WS, some moss, Nana, HC, etc. Just kind of sitting here scratching my head as to which is the preferred method here or if there is another way.

Edit: While we're on the subject. How do you keep the substrate clear of shrimp waste? I'd hate to gravel vac one up!

wiste

I would do #1 with some feeder guppies allowing 4 to 6 weeks and then remove the fish.

Establish a thick plant carpet.

Shrimp&Snails

I would go for a fishless cycle, adding a small pinch of fish food daily.

If you can get hold of some filter sponge from an established tank you can speed up or even avoid the cycling process. I filled up a 10g with 25% tank water and 75% treated water and added filter sponge from my established 10g and never had any rise in ammonia and nitrite. Your lfs will give you some sponge from one of their filters if you can't get it from anywhere else.

Grab some water testers to keep an eye on things.

Shrimp only need to be lightly fed and will scurry along the floor eating poo. Sand substrates are great because the poo stays on top rather than sinking into the gravel. When there's quite a bit of poo on the sand I use a turkey baster to remove it without any risk to my shrimplets.

Best of luck....I love setting up new tanks.

Neon Shrimp

You can go with a turkey baster like Shrimp&Snails does or you can put a net mess over the inlet of the gravel cleaner. Whatever works best for you. Please keep us updated with the outcome of you new tank .

Burks

The gravel I plan to you is rather fine. Pretty close to Eco-Complete, not like that "stone" gravel a lot of stores sell.

I like the used sponge idea along with the treated water. With a 14g hex and 10g tank, I have pleanty of water to spare.

Guess I'll do that and maybe do the guppy thing, or another hardy fish. My 14g looks bare with only 4 long fin zebra danios anyways!

Turkey baster - The MacGyver tool of trade for the aquarium owner. What can't it do?

PlantsAndMe

Whoa this may sound weird to you guys but I never cycled any of my tanks.... I simply add water and then the livestock. I did the same with my shrimps in the 10 gallon tank and nothing bad happen and no death occurred. Just my two cents

DataGuru

I just moved about half my cherry shrimp into a natural planted tank. No cycling or vacuuming needed.

erijnal

It's generally accepted that adding livestock to a moderately/heavily planted tank is safe. Plants will utilize ammonia and nitrite to get at some nitrogen.

raven_wilde

I believe this is true only to some extent... for shrimp and some small fish perhaps... but when there are larger fish involved, or large numbers of small fish, I don't think you can expect your plants to completly make up for a lack of an established filter... just my 2 cents.

Anyway, in your case Burks, I would just setup the tank, plant the plants, wait a few days for everything to settle, and then add your shrimp. I'm also in favor of 'seeding' new tanks with media from the filters of other tanks... I do this with every new one I set up and it always seems to help speed things along.

erijnal

Hey, yeah thanks for catching that raven_wilde. I should have added "Use common sense" with that post lol. By the way Burks, I advise you against using fish to cycle your shrimp tank unless you have a place for them to go after the tank is cycled. It'd suck hard for the fish to deal with the nitrite and ammonia only to be euthanized afterwards.

Also, seeding your tank as suggested by raven is a good precaution when starting any tank just in case your plants don't photosynthesize (due to a freak accident like your lights blowing out or something).