Sand type for planted shrimp (and other related questions)

[Joey2619]

What kind of sand should I use for my freshwater 5.5g, which will be planted with shrimp. I was told to use sand because the shrimp like to filter through the sand and whatnot. How many pounds would I need for a 5.5g?

 

[GlitcH]

I use pool filter sand in my 20G .......it's cheap and holds plants well.

I personally don't think that sand grain size makes much difference to the shrimp.

 

[Joey2619]

I was thinking about using a sand mixture with small sediment and slightly ashy. What do you think about this?

 

[GlitcH]

I was thinking about using a sand mixture with small sediment and slightly ashy. What do you think about this?

Ashy in color?..........I think aside from the grain being small enough to hold plants well and maybe substrate with nutrients preadded for the plants, it's just personal preference.
If I do another shrimp tank I would go with dark substrate.......prolly black cuz I think that the shrimps color stand out better against the black.

 

[Joey2619]

Not in color, its got some ashy substance in it. Like volcanic ash.

How will I provide nutrients to the plants?

 

[GlitcH]

dunno.........but it sounds like it would cloud the water to me.

 

[Joey2619]

We're using it in our marine tanks here at school, do you have to treat pool sand?

 

[GlitcH]

We're using it in our marine tanks here at school, do you have to treat pool sand?

I didn't.......I used it on two tanks so far with very good results.

 

[Joey2619]

1. How do I provide nutrients to the plants?
2. Im thinking about doing a DIY co2 system, how do I keep the yeast cooking?
3. In a 5.5 what kind of lighting can I be using? I have one of those t8 bulbs or something right now, it produced 8 watts, is there a better bulb in can throw in my hood?
4. How many shrimp can I be looking at? I like the glass, amano and cherry shrimp.
5. Assuming the lighting is correct, what kind of plants can I also be looking at, Im definitely looking at some Java Moss. Id like to grow alot of the plants to put in my other tanks.

 

[Purrbox]

The shrimp really shouldn't care what substrate you have as long as it doesn't have any harmful chemicals or adversely affect the chemistry. You will want to make sure that it isn't too fine or have sharp edges. Overly fine sand will compact sufficating the plant's roots, and sharp edges can cut the roots.

There are two methods of providing nutrients for plants, substrate fertilization (root tabs and specialty substrates) and water column fertilization (liquid or dry ferts - Traces, Nitrates, Phosphates, and Potassium). For a shrimp tank most people recommend that you stick to a low light setup with minimal to no fertilization. Since shrimp are very sensitive to water parameters this can avoid a lot of problems. This isn't to say that you can't to a high light tank, it's just not recommended.

With only 8 watts over a 5.5 gallon you are looking at an extremely low light tank. You'll be lucky to get the low light plants light Java Moss to grow. If you upgrade to 18 watts CF light you would have a much better chance with the plants and wouldn't need to worry about much in the way of fertilization including CO2.

You could easily have 50-75 (inlcuding babies and juveniles) shrimp in your tank if you decided to go with the Cherry Red Shrimp. For breeding Cherry Red Shrimp, 12 is a good number to start out with. Significantly less if you go with the Amanos as they are twice as big and you would be unlikely to get them to breed (unless you are willing to mess with SW growout tanks). I'm not familiar with the Glass Shrimp.

 

[Joey2619]

Im not looking to breed, so I should be looking at glass possibly?

 

[Zezmo]

Cherry shrimps tend to breed or die.... no inbetween on them.

I have a 29 gallon shrimp tank and I used Carib Sea cichlid sand mixed 50/50 with tahitian moon sand. The Cichlid sand has crushed coral to leach some nice calcium into the water. and teh tahitian moon is nice and dark to bring out the shrimps colors.

http://www.carib-sea.com/pages/products/fresh/africancichlid.html
http://www.carib-sea.com/pages/products/fresh/freshsub.html

 

[Purrbox]

Since you aren't going to be trying to breed the shrimp, I'd probably go for the Amanos. They're usually a bit easier to get ahold of and longer lived too.

If you prefer the look of the glass shrimp, you could give them a try too. It may be a bit more difficult to determine their exact needs as this could be just another common name for ghost shrimp which refers to a larger number of varieties of shrimp with varying needs.

 

[fish_4_all]

Ghosts and glass shrimp are the same. Glass shrimp is actually the true name from what I have found. As for the shrimp, glass shrimp would do well thye just porefer to have hiding places to have their babies, well release tehm and hatch them anyway. They have been grown by many and breed profusely if the conditions are right. You could alsways feed them off to other fish if you have them when the population gets too big.