MatPat

1) As previously mentioned, definitely use a sponge filter if you plant to breed them. If you don't want to breed them, any filter will do. Do not keep them with fish of any size if you want to breed them, the babies will get eaten sooner or later.

2) Cherries and Amanos were the first shrimp I kept because they were about all that was available 5 years ago

3) Make sure you tank is cycled (or full of plants to deal with the waste produced) and read up on the shrimp you would like to keep before you purchase them. Don't mix Neocaridina species or Caridina species (except for Amanos) as they will probably cross breed.

If you can, get your shrimp from hobbyists (as well as your plants and fish) because they are generally healthier. Buy them small since they only live for about 3 years. Buying smaller shrimp will allow you to enjoy them longer.

Shrimp only tanks can have pests that are detrimental to your baby shrimp population. Hydra and Planaria are especially deadly to baby shrimp. Since ridding my tanks of these two pests I have had a much greater quantity of baby shrimp. If you need to eliminate either of these pests from your shrimp tanks, you can read up on how I used fenbendazole to get rid of these pests here.

Brendan Redler

Has anyone had success putting shrimp in a new tank? Just curious.

overboard

I put mine into a tank that had only been set up for two weeks, and three weeks later they are doing fine. It is moderately planted, and it is the only new tank that I have ever had that never had the nitrites spike. I have no idea what kind of shrimp they are, but they seem pretty tough.

MatPat

I have had success putting shrimp in a new tank. I set up every new tank just like this one

I do a water change on some other tanks (or clean out some filters) and siphon as much mulm as I can into a 5g bucket. For a sponge filter or any other sponge type media (prefilters, etc), squeeze the sponge(s) in the mulm water several times to get it loaded with mulm and bacteria. Put the sponge in the tank and fill with dechlorinated water.

If you are using a HOB filter, put any non sponge media in the bucket before you start siphoning the mulm into the bucket and let it collect some mulm. Then put it in your filter. When I used to use HOB filters on my shrimp tanks, I would add some of this mulm water to the new tank and let the filter media filter it out of the tank. It can be pretty cloudy depending on how much mulm you add but it should clear out overnight. In doing this, the filter media gets a nice coating of mulm and bacteria and gets off to a nice start. It's worked with every new tank, fish or shrimp, that I have set up.

If you can, try to keep extra sponges or media ready for new tank set ups. It helps if you use the same type of filters/media on all of your tanks. This way, you always have a filter you can rob of some "cycled" media. Oh yeah, plants are a big help in keeping ammonia levels low, but of course since you are here, you probably already knew that

Turtl3boy21

This has been very helpful to me! Thanks all.

I am planning on starting a 10 gallon tank with yellow shrimp.

Is there a fish i can put in the tank that will eat the hydra? Do otos eat them?

yum

Oh no! I have planaria and was hoping they were harmless since I have so many shrimp spawning in my tank. I will just suck them out with my turkey baster as I find them. I can't suck the gravel during water changes b/c I have Schultz Aqua soil and it's so light it would get sucked out.

EEK!

MatPat

I tried the manual removal technique with airline tubing for several months without success. I even went to so far as to do complete gravel vacs of each tank in the hopes of ridding my tanks of this pest. Finally, I came across this article and decided to medicate my tanks with flubendazole after reading the next to last paragraph. Unfortunately, flubendazole is very difficult to find and the search led me to fenbendazole. That article seemed to sum up, at least for me, why I was having plenty of berried females and very low amounts of baby shrimp.

modster

does anyone have clear pictures of Hydra and Planaria? I don't think i have ever had them before. I just want to make sure i can identify them when they come .

Shurik

Here is planaria. Ewww!... I do have this thing in my shrimp tank, I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuwDJ-eZOMc&NR=1

OK, I need to find flubendazole now.
What is full scientific name of Hydra? (I still need flubendazole any way)

MatPat

Shurik,

The flubendazole is about impossible to find now. Try looking for fenbendazole instead. That is what I used and it works very well. It is commonly sold as "Dog Dewormer" and should be available at any store that sells dog products. The smallest package I could find was a 4 gram package with four 1gm packets in it. A dosage of 0.1gm per 10 gallons is sufficient to kill both Hydra and Planaria and didn't harm any shrimp (babies or adults) in my tanks