Shrimp colony questions

[GreenGo]

(1) what's a good size tank for dwarf shrimp? I'd like to be able to sell decent quantities year round, but the shrimp I'm going to breed reproduces slower than most. I'm thinking a 20L to start, but am toying with the idea of upgrading to a 40B when I can afford a new one.

What's the benefits of the 40B, you might ask? It's able to house a larger quantity of the shrimp in question, which translates to more females and more babies. That translates to my goal of being able to have a large enough stock for a decent quantity being available year-round, but I dunno much about shrimp keeping yet (I'm currently in the research phase of my breeding project, which as mentioned will be announced within the next few weeks). So,

(2) is there a such thing as too large of an aquarium to house a colony of shrimps? Obviously, putting a dozen or so half inch shrimp in a 100 gal tank and expecting them to create a colony is unrealistic. I get that. But if I start with a 20L and when there's enough of them (say a couple hundred?) move them to a 40B that's established so there's biofilm and all, could that work?

Also, you may notice I have very little clue as to the stocking density of dwarf shrimp, so

(3) how many dwarf shrimp could fit in a 20L? I think this is by far the most important question on this list so far, since flooding the market with shrimps isn't "recommended" due to technical business things I've learned that I won't bore you with the details of. While I hardly agree with the logic of industry, it is something to keep in the back of my mind.

Thank you for any input you can give me. Hope you're as excited about this as I am!



P.S. more questions may be added as needed until I announce the next (though first realistically profitable) breeding project

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[Mebbid]

Honestly, i would set up multiple smaller tanks rather than one big one. 20 longs should work quite well for this as a surprisingly large number of shrimp can fit in a single tank.

Doing this you can keep multiple types of neocardinia such as reds, yellows, blues, and blacks which cant be mixed together. This wi allow you to be able to offer multiple color morphs and prevent flooding the market with a single type.


Keep a nice big sponge filter in each tank to help provide grazing area for the shrimp and some live plants would be nice for them as well. These can just be allowed to float around.

 

[Laeris]

I'm with Mebbid. There's a reason many breeders have shelves upon shelves of bare bottom or pH adjusting substrate tanks with simple sponge filters and java moss for breeding shrimp. It works.

It also saves room so you can add in or clear out tanks. Larger take up room. How many 2.5 tanks can you fit in the footprint of a 40b or 20l? I've seen counts on acceptable levels as high as 25 per gallon. That'd be 50+ in a 2.5, which is a lot of shrimp in one place.

Also consider if an accident happens to that one large aquarium. How much of your population was compromised? Splitting them up keeps you from losing everyone all at once. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying if the cons column is longer than the pros column, don't do it.

 

[TheresaM]

I agree with both of the above responses. If I was setting up for breeding/selling I'd go with a few 5 or 10g tank.

Shrimp do much better in established setups. I would suggest getting shrimp from at least 2 different sources.

 

[GreenGo]

Would it be alright to get shrimp from one source and then supplement from a different source, or would it be better to get them from both sources at the same time?

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[Laeris]

It depends on what you get. If you're satisfied with the quality, you can stay with one source. If it isn't quite what you were looking for, then see what you get elsewhere.

I love blue diamond aka sapphire shrimp. One supplier sold me blue with black specks as the dark blue I was looking for. :| They're pretty, but... I'm not averse to seeing how it plays out, but I'm trying again elsewhere.

 

[Bpophoto79]

I have over 60 rcs in a 5.5 gallon. That's a guess, they move too much to count. They are happy healthy and I have 4 berried females right now so with what I've seen you can have massive colonies in smaller tanks. Just be sure to set them up in well established tanks. I'm pretty sure mine have stripped all biofilm from the tank so I'm feeding almost daily. If I was setting up to breed I would use 10 gallon tanks with matten filters.

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[TheresaM]

I drop in a piece of IAL once a week and a new alder cone every other week to keep biofilm going.

 

[Bpophoto79]

I like it!

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