dgphelps

I had hydra in my tank when I first started it. They appeared around the end of the month cycle. As soon as I got my tank all setup and added fish and shrimp they mostly vanished. Now, several months later, they are all gone. I did not dose anything to get rid of them.

milalic

Fish will eat them. Many of us keep shrimp in their own tank without fish. So we see a lot of weird/ugly critters in our tanks that others do not see that often when they have fish.

milalic

This has been a very good reading...hopefully more and more people will contribute to this thread.

MatPat

Unfortunately, the fish will also eat the shrimp and as a result, usually are not a good pest eliminator. I am still finding very small Endler fry in one of my shrimp tanks even thought the adults were removed months ago. Someone said Endlers/livebearers would eat the planaria. They might if you keep them hungry but the shrimp need to eat too.

milalic

So what happened with those shrimp keepers out there? anyone else?

PlantsAndMe

I'm back in the hobby after a year of no planted tanks and shrimps. I got a few cherries today.

1. what things you try out and worked and which did not?
HOB filter does not work too well with me. The shrimps LOVE sponge filter since it cleans the tank and contains food and stuff for the shrimps to snack on. Pellets didn't work out for me either but boiled spinach sure did the trick since my shrimps LOVES them.

2. what was your first shrimp? Why did you choose that one?
Cherry because a LFS sold them and they were known to be quite hardy. (I don't count ghost shrimp hahahaha)

3. what advice would you give new comers to the shrimp keeping hobby?
Moss. Get any moss you can, java or whatever. Shrimps love the moss and in no time you'll see baby shrimps. Start out small, 5-10 is fine. Use sponge filter, feed them boiled spinach, and add moss and you're ready to have a shrimp farm

southerndesert

#1 - Early on I tried keeping Shrimp in water parameters not ideal for breeding and their health...ie: CRS in PH 7.2 to 7.4

Result? Bad color, inactivity, slow breeding and low survival rate of young.

Shrimp can be forced to "survive" in less than ideal parameters, but you will also get less than ideal results. Study your selected species and set up the tank for that species paying attention to proper parameters!

#2 - First shrimp was Ghost Shrimp...found internet shrimp sites...RCS next. Now have 22 tanks, rack, and 14 species. Sure is fun and very interesting. Involved in experiments and breeding projects now.

#3 - Patience Patience Patience, don't get in a hurry and be sure to have a fully matured tank for your new shrimp not just a bio film barren 2 week old cycled tank! 1 to 3 months is best with lots of brown algae etc. growing on all surfaces.

Great thread...Bill

dgphelps

Just wanted to update, I have been feeding my tank (fish and shrimp) a rotating cycle of Hikari micro pellets, Hikari Algae wafers, a live bearer flake food with freeze dried worms, and occasional bits of vegetable matter like boiled spinach, carrots, etc. The shrimp love it all.

Today I picked up some Hikari crab cuisine. I put a few pellets in and they went nuts. I had a horde of shrimp swarm the area the pellets sank to. Then my otos joined in the feast. It was quite fun to watch.

Both my RCS and CRS loved it.

I also tried a fruit tree leaf that had been soaking in old tank water for a few days. They pick at it, but don't swarm it. The snails seem to like it a lot though.

Hope that helps folks who are looking for different foods to alternate with.

Oh, I also add some cooked or boiled and crushed eggshells to my tank once or twice a month with a water change. Basically I either dry and crush hard boiled egg shells in a mortar, or if we make omelets I cook the shells on a cookie pan for a while and then crush them. I have a pretty stable GH of 6 and have never lost any shrimp during molting.

jackh

i had a couple rcs shrimp in my last set up, but they died when we had to set off a flea bomb in our house...

my new 20g setup contains 15 rcs and 3 amanos. the amanos are a lot more aggresive eaters and will swim up to the surface and grab fish flakes. the rcs just go around filtering through stuff but eat fish food that they find on the bottom. i had some java moss growing back from its roots on a peice of wood and they are on it a lot. they like moss.

Brilliant

Great.

1. Keeping shrimp in a small tank never worked out for me. It is hard to keep solid parameters with lower volume of water. Some shrimp are delicate and need rock solid parameter.
2. Cherry shrimp. They are cheap and cool.
3. Start out with a mature low tech tank. Keep up on maintenance. Do not keep fish in the tank no matter what the size if your looking to breed shrimp.