Just wanted to give my two cents on bamboo shrimp. I have one in a 10-
gal and it's doing great. It is just a baby, though, and those puppies do get big. I've real fat honkers about 3 inches long and thicker than my thumb (my fingers are pretty skinny, though). Mine is a lovely tan color, almost like bamboo. But the big ones I've seen were actually a rich red-brown, some even solid red, and one dark blue!
When I got mine, he was only an inch or so and he had only one light stripe on his back. I've had him now for almost three months. Since then, he has molted and now has dark stripes on his sides! I was wondering why he didn't look like the pictures I had seen online.
I have a planted tank, too, and he does just fine. He is pretty shy and only comes out to feed at night. He'll crawl (he walks most of the time, but I've seen him swim once or twice) onto the highest point he can find and extend his little fan-hands and then wipe them across his mouth. It's really cute. Just like patryuji said, he hangs out right by the filter intake. I have heard that some people with diatom problems have seen these suckers leave a clear trail behind them as they feed. They must have had a lot of diatoms and a big shrimp.
I don't do anything extra for him, he functions as a truly biological filter in my tank. And like I said, he has grown and molted without any special care by me. By the way, he managed to molt just fine without iodine, but the water where I live is pretty hard, lots of calcium and minerals and whatnot.
I have been adding a tiny bit of it now to help him and my ghost shrimp out. It hasn't seemed to make a difference to him, but the ghost shrimp have more distinct dots/markings on their clear shells. Oh, and one of the ghost shrimp is now a momma, carrying around a bundle of eggs under her abdomen! I don't know if that had anything to do with the iodine, but it's supposed to be necessary for their shells, just like it is for live coral.
Anyway, so they're pretty easy to care for. They get along great with other shrimp and the fish, at least in my tank I haven't seen the slightest hint of a problem. But, yes, he will outgrow this tank eventually and I will have to get a bigger tank. Oh, darn,
another tank?
Gee, some of those Emoticons are weird. Have you all seen the one shooting the machine gun?