Starting Over: Shrimp Tank

[dskidmore]

My 75 gallon tank crashed. Given the mild summer we had, and my frustration with the tank, I had not installed my usual summer precautions, and then a heat wave hit.

To be honest, my maintenance had really slacked off as I was so frustrated and no amount of work was solving the problem. By the time I noticed there was a worse problem, all the fish and shrimp were dead, and the MTS were gathered at the surface of the water gasping for air.

I did some big water changes, but then decided that this would be a really good time to just trash the whole thing and start over.

So, all my driftwood and plants worth saving are in a bucket. There is a ton of mulm on top of the recently stirred up sand. This makes the water too cloudy to work with, so I'm thinking of siphoning it out.

I'm thinking of getting a mess of Red Cherry Shrimp as the primary occupants. I'll of course have my snails too, and I'm thinking after the tank matures a bit I might be able to do a filter feeding shrimp type too. (Not sure if I want to go for the common
Bamboo Shrimp or something more rare like the Giant African Filter Shrimp)


Crashed and neglected.

[Jchillin]

*Bows head*

I cannot begin to imagine your pain for that is one of the saddest pics to see in aquaria. The good sign is that you aren't giving it up.

That African shrimp looks more like a lobster/crayfish than a shrimp...almost scary. I like the idea of the cherry reds though, they look very nice contrasted against the greenery of a planted tank.

Good luck and keep the updates on your progress here.

[Algenco]

Man, it would take a lot of Cherries in a 75 just to be able to find one occasionally, but you could definatly end up with one huge colony

[dskidmore]

What a difference a day makes. Almost 36 hours later, plants are all extracted, cleaned, tank is cleaned, and everything heaped back up without ceremony in the corner. Will aquascape another day.

There's a huge cloud. I'm guessing 70% silt, 30% bacteria bloom. Either way time is the only real cure. (That and cleaning out the silt in the filter every day.) I went through the same thing on initial setup of this tank, as I did not rinse the sand properly. I'm not quite gung-ho enough about starting over to take out the substrate and rinse it. That can wait until I move out of this house an have to do that anyway....

I am thinking about ways to correct the level of the tank stand while there's no fish/shrimp to asphyxiate. Even with the tank drained I think the solution will involve extra lumber and a car jack to allow enough space to insert the wedges. That stand takes two of us to lift by itself, never mind the glass and sand.

Foiled by the post limit:

Originally Posted by Algenco

Man, it would take a lot of Cherries in a 75 just to be able to find one occasionally, but you could definatly end up with one huge colony

I'm thinking of just having a couple dozen for starters, and see if they'll breed in the tank. Reports say that if water conditions are good, they will. (Part of why I picked this species, doesn't need saltwater to breed.) I certainly didn't start with many snails, and I've got dense colonies in two tanks now. I also bred guppies in the past. (Guy who gave me my starters said they were guppies, but they looked a lot like Endler's Livebarers.)

Oh, and I thought I'd throw in a couple inspiration links:
GlitcH's Shrimp tank
Peyton's Hospital tank

I haven't been around lately, feel free to point me to other planted shrimp tanks done more recently.

Beginners' Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) at Petshrimp.com advises against mixing plants and shrimp, but I don't really like the high maintenance plants and can give up fertilizing and such if the shrimp can keep the algae down. I also don't think that my plants would completely deprive local micro fauna of all nutrients, as I've had plenty of excess nutrient problems, and back when I fed every day I had nematodes everywhere. I can always bump up feeding if the shrimp need it.

Foiled by the post limit again:
Currently studying this discussion.

[ingg]

I cannot begin to understand that advice about no plants with shrimp.

Every shrimp tank I've ever personally seen has tons of plants. I don't know that I'd do a full bore EI fertilizing setup with shrimp, but I do fertilize my tanks, and cherry shrimp thrive, in multiple planted tanks. I use premixed dry ferts, and I've dosed their tanks with Excel (not overdosing it, though, mind you), and they breed like crazy.

Heck, my planted tank club has one guy who literally cannot kill the cherries, he wants them out of a 200+ gallon tank and can't get rid of them. It is fully planted, fertilized, High light and CO2, and he pulls them out by the hundreds.

[dskidmore]

Originally Posted by ingg

I cannot begin to understand that advice about no plants with shrimp.

I think the person writing the advice does so as a shrimp breeder rather than as a planted tank owner. You can probably more densely stock the shrimp and have them breed faster if your nitrogen cycle is controlled by bacteria instead of plants, and there's more nutritents in the water for other micro faunna.

I'm looking in the discussion forums there, and apparently the customers don't agree with the no-plant philosophy either.

Originally Posted by ingg

Heck, my planted tank club has one guy who literally cannot kill the cherries, he wants them out of a 200+ gallon tank and can't get rid of them. It is fully planted, fertilized, High light and CO2, and he pulls them out by the hundreds.

Why does he want to get rid of them?

If you live in the northeast, I'd be interested in a bulk purchase in the near future. (Place in NYC will sell them for $2 a piece, the cheapest commercial source I've found. I think I'll need a couple dozen to start with.) Probably will take a couple weeks to stabilize my tank, then I'll post in the classified section here.

[Purrbox]

I don't think that shrimp are nearly as sensitive to fertilizers as many people claim that are, at least when it comes to Cherry Red Shrimp which have been called the cockroaches of the shrimp world. Obviously it's a good idea not to significantly overdose your tank with fertilizers since they are more sensitive that most fish, but as long as dosing is kept within reason they should thrive in spite of it.

You'll be able to house hundreds of Cherry Red Shrimp in that tank. That would be quite the sight to see. Good luck!

[ingg]

Club mate is trying to get rid of them because it is a very pure 'scape tank - entered into competitions and such.

If you don't feed cherries enough, or if they lack algae to eat, they turn to softer plants -and that drives him to want to get rid of them.

[dskidmore]

Originally Posted by ingg

If you don't feed cherries enough, or if they lack algae to eat, they turn to softer plants

Shouldn't be a problem in my tank! It mostly crashed because I was fed up with a presistant hair algae problem and not taking care of it properly.

Speaking of which, despite my unpowered tank at work having beaten my strain of thread algae, increasing the circulation may be the easier solution for the 75 gallon's problem. (Even after the big cleanout, I had quarter sized clumps of the stuff on the sand a few hours later.)

I'm thinking of doing a custom filter? My ghost shrimp loved hanging out on the sponge filter in my QT. I'm thinking of making this a feature of the aquarium, and put several sponges horizontally, half-burried in the sand, near the front where you can see the shrimp picking away at them, with the pipes going back under the sand and joining up to a central pump with spraybar. The sponges wouldn't come out for cleaning, but rather I'd vaccum them like an undergravel filter.

Several people have commented that I'd never see the shrimp unless I had a ton of them. When I had ghost shrimp, I only had a dozen or so, and freqently saw 1 or two come out of hiding. My driftwood was placed more prominantly than my plants, so you could frequently see them scurrying over it. Will the cherry reds be much diffrent in behavior patterns?

Update:

Water has cleared (will cloud up more as I replant) Beginning to replant the back and midground, leaving foreground until I get the DIY Sponge Filter built, as it will actually be part of the foreground display. (Can always change my mind and dig it up later, but will be a pain to install later.)

[dskidmore]

*sigh*

How long to nitrate test kits last? I seem to recall having this problem before, and massively overdoing my fertilization trying to bring my nitrates up. This nitrate test kit is about 18 months old.

Test results:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0

I'm pretty sure there's some nitrogen compounds in there somewhere, as the algae is growing again. I'll add a mess of fish food tonight and re-do the test tomorrow.

Working on planting and filter tonight. Not much to see yet: