A few thoughts:
1. 26W of light over a 10g tank is not exactly "low light." I currently run two 10g planted shrimp tanks, each with a pair of 15W spiral CF bulbs (so just a tad more light than you will have) and I can definitely grow a lot of plants that are considered medium light plants. I've experimented with a lot of medium light plants--some grow fine, some grow but look sorta ugly, and some don't grow at all. But the ones that don't, probably it's more because of the lack of CO2 than the lack of light. So if you WANT to restrict yourself to only mosses, that's great--but don't feel you must be restricted only to those.
I understand it's not exactly low light but I don't know of any other means of getting less light without buying another fixture. And I'm quite sure that I could grow HC and glosso in the aquarium with the lights I have right now. I mearly chose to do a moss tank because I'm going for a low maintenance approach plus I just think they look cool.
2. If you are choosing only slow-growing mosses, you are going to need very, very minimal fertilization as there will be minimal growth to uptake fertilizers. And in a shrimp tank, the last thing you want are ferts building up in the water column--it WILL eventually lead to toxicity and a population crash. Might take a year, or two years, but some day you'll be back on these forums writing a post wondering why almost all your shrimp have died despite the fact that "my water parameters are all fine." And that will be the reason.
Aqreed there will be very minimal dosing in the tank only about once a week and about every month or so I'm goingnto go a week without dosin to help prevent a build up.
3. Obviously if you have some faster growing mosses in there, like java moss, then nutrient uptake will be greater so that adjusts the situation.
Agreed
4. You state at one point that the reason you are dosing ferts is because you are not using CO2. That is actually backwards. With CO2 addition you would have greater growth, and thus need MORE ferts, not less. In a tank without CO2, you will have slower growth, and so need LESS ferts. Unless you are considering a liquid carbon source (like Flourish Excel) a "fert," in which case yes you would need to dose in a little carbon in order to make up for the lack of CO2. But normally in the planted tank lingo, when someone is talking about "ferts" they are talking about things like nitrate, potassium, and phosphate--not CO2 or liquid carbon.
Oh no you misunderstood me. I said I was doing the non-co2 method which requires dosing. I certainly agree with you on co2 tanks need much more ferts than non-co2 but from my searches it seems every tank benefits from some ferts.
5. I would just urge a lot of caution. Freshwater shrimp, even the "hardier" species, are much more sensitive to water conditions than are tropical fish (even "sensitive" or "fragile" tropical fish). They need really, really clean water. I'm not optimistic that any aquarium where you are going to do "no water changes" has any hope of keeping shrimp alive in the long term. Sorry to be a "Negative Nellie" but as someone who has kept dwarf shrimp for many years, and who hangs out (at least online) with some of the most accomplished shrimpkeepers in the country, I feel at the very least I need to warn you. At the very least I'd suggest you get a TDS meter (handheld ones can be bought on Amazon.com for under $20) and monitor your TDS really, really carefully--as that is a good sign of whether toxins (that you
can't test for) are building up in the water. The ideal situation in a shrimp tank is to never dose any ferts of any kind, ever, and do frequent water changes to keep the water crystal clean. If you absolutely must dose any ferts at all, keep your dosing to a bare minimum. The way you do that is you start out dosing no ferts at all, and simply watch your plants. When plants have nutrient deficiencies, they will show symptoms of it. So rather than deciding in advance you are going to pour a bunch of gunk into your tank (half of which might be totally unnecessary), instead take the time to first observe your plant growth, and then only dose those things that are necessary, and only in the amounts necessary. (And btw, I'm not "anti-fert" in general...if you looked at the shelf above my tanks, you would see potassium nitrate, potassium sulfate, monopotassium phosphate, Flourish, Flourish Excel, you name it. But the way I dose in a planted
fish tank versus the way I dose in a planted
shrimp tank are
totally different.)
Well I know Tom Barr uses amano shrimp in his tank with this method, but I'll definitely look more into it.
6. Shrimp really like driftwood. I know you said it's expensive around where you are, but if you can afford it, your shrimp will really appreciate it. Another thing shrimp like, and that is cheap, is lava rock. As in, yes, the same stuff you put on the bottom of a gas grill. You can get a bag of it for cheap at Home Depot or any place like that, just give it a good rinse and pop it in your tank. After a few weeks, all of those little pockets & nooks & crannies of the rock will have all sorts of wonderful tasty biofilm growing in them, perfect for your shrimp to happily pick at. You can strew it on top of the substrate, or you can pile it into small mounds that the shrimp will climb all over it and even better, they can climb inside of it (which is cave-like) and have a safe place to molt. All three of my shrimp tanks have lava rock and the shrimps are crawling on it almost constantly.
Yeah I'm going to add something right now I'm looking for some slate, and I think I might go back to the fish store where I got my driftwood for my 55 gallon and also pick up some mts. Thinks for the tip on lava rock. I looked they also have some landscaping lava rock do you think this would be better?
Have fun and good luck with the tank!
