Changing substrate

[Jadub]

Hi everyone. I started a shrimp tank a month ago with my empty 10 gallon cycled tank. Unfortunately I didn't think about changing the ugly colored gravel before adding all my red cherry shrimp. I really want to switch to a black sand so they stand out more. Is it possible to just put the sand on top of the gravel? I think it might be hard and stressful to the shrimp to remove them all. There is only about 15-20 I think in there now but not sure because there has been some breeding recently and there might be a few unnoticeable little guys in there. Any ideas or help?


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[Saekalive]

U would defiantly try and remove the shrimp. It would be ,ore stressful for them to be covered by sand then be netted out. Idk what the best way to remove them but a lot of people on here keep shrimp, so there might be someone who can help

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[emilygupps]

We had the same problem and tried capping the gravel with sand and every water change the sand and gravel got more mixed up. We ended up catching all the shrimp and fish and saving %50 of the tank water in buckets and just scooping the old substrate out and adding fresh black sand. When it settled we put the old water we saved back in and then added all the fish and some prime and filled the tank back up. The cherry shrimp did fine.

Use a big-ish net and take all the decor our and just do a few quick swoops. You'll get them pretty easily.


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