Stef & Darkcobra's Maiden Shrimp Voyage

[Darkcobra]

We haven't had much luck keeping shrimp in our main planted tanks in the past.  This is our first concerned effort to set up a shrimp-only tank, and hopefully, see them survive and multiply.

 

Disclaimer:  May contain extreme paranoia, reckless abandon, and traces of nuts.

 

 

Preparation

 

We started stuffing our heads with info the instant we knew we were getting shrimp.

 

A little more than a week ago, we set up two new tanks, a 2.5G and a 5G.  We weren't sure at this point which would be the shrimp tank.

 

The 2.5G received gravel, and an Aquaclear 20 HOB cycled for three weeks on an established 10G (which had another filter).  The 5G received Flourite Black, and was to be cycled from scratch using the included Whisper filter, which I tried to seed by adding some bacteria washed from another filter's media.  Both were filled with water from another tank, planted, and filled with hardy fish.

 

And this is where things started to go very wrong.

 

Two days later, it was apparent that neither filter was cutting it.  Seeding the Whisper by this method had at least partially taken, as nitrite was present; but its flow rate was pathetic and ammonia was rising fast.  And the Aquaclear wasn't doing much better, apparently being prevented from cycling properly by the other bio and plant filtration in the tank it was taken from.  Hmm.

 

By this point, we'd at least decided that the 2.5G would be the shrimp tank.  We made a quick run to the LFS for a bottle of Tetra SafeStart, which contains nitrospira that Diana from TPT recommends.  Plus a bag of Flourite Black, to replace the gravel in the shrimp tank.  Also five ghost shrimp (I'll get back to those).

 

The Aquaclear was switched over the 5G, working in tandem with the Whisper against the worse of the two ammonia problems.

 

A Red Sea Nano HOB was pulled from storage for the 2.5G.  In cleaning and testing, I found the o-ring providing the seal between motor and housing had become brittle and was leaking.  Dang.  I searched my plumbing supplies and found a very close replacement.  It too leaked.  Double dang.  LFS is already closed, and no other filter I had will fit.  I tried wrapping the groove the o-ring seats in with a single layer of teflon tape.  That did the trick.  Whew!

 

Substrate was switched to Flourite Black in the 2.5G.  All filters were loaded with as much cycled ceramic biomedia from an existing tank as would fit in addition to the normal floss/sponge, and both tanks were dosed with SafeStart.

 

Now for those ghost shrimp.  Stef had hit on the idea as using them as "coalmine canaries" to see if they survived in the DIY remineralized water I'd been planning to make.  So I mixed up a gallon of that from distilled water.  CaSO4 and MgSO4 in a 3:1 ratio providing 6dGH, baking soda providing 2dKH, and K2SO4 providing 5ppm K.  The shrimp were pseudo-drip acclimated to it, and they went in an unfiltered nano with the new water and some plants.

 

The next day, the 5G had totally completed its cycle.  Wow.  But in the 2.5G, ammonia was still rising, with just a hint of nitrite.  And in the test nano, four of the five ghost shrimp were dead.  Sure, they're not particularly hardy, but I get better results than that in my main tanks.  The lone survivor was transferred to the 5G, where he is still alive and healthy.

 

I resorted to water changes in the 2.5G to keep the ammonia down to reasonable (but measurable) levels, and waited.  The nitrite-to-nitrate bacteria rapidly caught up, and nitrites were never seen again.  But the ammonia-to-nitrate bacteria just weren't growing fast enough, ammonia was still increasing.  I added an aerator and a heater set to 78°F.  Which helped a little, but not much.  As of the night before the shrimp were to come in, ammonia was only holding level.  And there was still the issue of my possibly lethal remineralized water, which I wasn't sure what to do about...

 

 

Shrimp Day

 

...came too soon.

 

We were up late the night before, stressing.  The doorbell didn't wake us.  At noon we checked the tracking number, to find the shrimp had been delivered... at 8:30am.

 

And there on the porch was a box.  Thank goodness the weather wasn't too cold!

 

I opened it to find it well-lined with foam.  A heat pack, still a bit warm after three days.  Foam divider.  Plenty of cellulose insulation.  Newspaper wrapping.  A Kordon breather bag.  Containing 10+ orange sakuras, all alive!  Plus some java moss, and one molted shell.  I forgot to check temps with an IR thermometer, but it felt close to 70°F.  Thank you, [soothing Shrimp]!

 

 

Last Minute Decisions

 

Alright, the shrimp are here, so now I have to make a quick decision about this remineralized water!  I felt perhaps it was too clean, pure, and controlled.  I decided to use a 3:1 mix of remineralized, and water from an existing high-tech planted tank, for the shrimp tank.

 

I remineralized two more gallons, each separately.  For each gallon, I added 0.5g of CaSO4, and 0.3g of MgSO4; providing Ca:Mg in a 2.5:1 ratio, and 6dGH.  Baking soda was omitted, as the other tank water had 8dKH, which would provide needed sodium and 2dKH of carbonate to the final blend.  Potassium was also omitted for the same reason.

 

The other tank water does have a "lot" of trace elements, of which copper is a particular concern.  Diluting it should bring it well within safe ranges, but just in case, I decided to add 0.1g of tricalcium citrate to the remineralized water.  This add another 0.7dGH from Ca, and the citrate may help detoxify any heavy metals.

 

Iodine is controversial, but after seeing a popular commercial shrimp mineral product proudly proclaiming "now with iodine!", I decided to use a tiny amount; 0.1 drop of Kent Marine Iodine per gallon.  (Dosed by creating a parent solution of 2.25 tsp. distilled water, 0.25 tsp. iodine, and adding one drop to each gallon.)

 

At this point I tested each gallon, 145 and 155 TDS.  Verifying my measurements were reasonably consistent, despite the small quantities.  pH was off the top of the scale, but with no real buffering capacity.  I added a tiny bit of citric acid, about as much material as found on the tip of a paper match head.  That sent pH off the bottom of the scale.  Which will help keep bacteria from growing in the water while stored, and comes into play in another way soon.

 

 

Chinese Water Torture

 

Now I was ready to open the bag with the shrimp.  They were placed into a glass container, and the water tested.  Ammonia 0.25ppm, pH 6.4, TDS 360.

 

I've heard of a normal amount of Prime killing shrimp, so I chose not to add it.  Instead, I chose to dilute the ammonia away, while being careful not to raise the pH to the point where ammonia becomes toxic.  So I started a slow drip acclimation with the remineralized water only, which would not raise pH.  And the citric acid would help make sure that even if there was some CO2 accumulated in the breather bag which starts offgassing, the pH would still remain low.  I marked the original water level with a dry erase marker.

 

Finally, I get a breather after this mad dash, and I took a picture of the carnage:

 

 

Stef was... afraid.  She didn't want to know what I was doing.  She was trying hard to ignore the mad science, shooting it only sideways worried glances when she passed.

 

The only thing she asked during this entire time is whether I was being careful not to draw out any of the tinier shrimp with a test pipette.  I said, "no, I'm not sucking up shrimpettes with a pipette".  Then smiled.  See if you can say "shrimpette with a pipette" without smiling.

 

Ok, so now for the tank.  Which still had an ammonia problem, as of bedtime the night before.  Performed another test, and for the first time, found it had dropped slightly.  And still no nitrites.  It was deemed to be adequate for the shrimp, since they would present a much smaller bioload than the fish.  The heater was removed.  A sponge prefilter was added, I wasn't sure if the shrimpettes would fit through the slots in the intake, but better safe than sorry.  The fish and snails were removed and a 100% water change was performed, using the new blend.  Dried banana leaves were added.  Two nerites were separately pseudo-drip acclimated to be put back in later.

 

For the shrimp, each time the water level doubled, I removed water back down to the original level, and retested pH.  After two hours, I'd diluted the ammonia by 4X.  pH was starting to drop very slightly due to the citric acid.  I started adding some of the water from the other tank to the drip source, slowly bringing it up to the final 3:1 ratio as time went on.

 

Drip... Drip.. Drip..... Drip.

 

DRIP.

 

drip drip drip drip drip drip aaaaand...

 

 

Done!

 

After 10 hours, I was fairly sure the shrimp were now at the exact parameters of the tank they were going into.  They and the snails were added.  Without incident.  The shrimp seemed happy, and immediately started picking their new environment clean.  And after watching them for a while, we crashed off to bed.

 

As of today, lights aren't on yet.  Hard to see all the shrimp, they do get lost in a planted environment.  But they still seem to be doing well.  Knock on wood.  We'll get some pictures soon.

[Merth]

Congrats and welcome to the world of shrimpies When you are ready to start getting rid of some let me know and we can do a swap

[Soothing Shrimp]

Congrats and welcome to the world of shrimpies When you are ready to start getting rid of some let me know and we can do a swap

 

Love it when hobbyists are friendly to each other.

 

WOW!  Talk about an adventure!  Puts my using SS to shame. LOL  Good to hear your shrimp are doing well so far.

[Merth]

LOL Well Bryce as you know once you start with one you just cant stop I started with cherries,now have yellows, blues, chocolates (maybe ) and trying to keep Bees so orange will fit right in

[mosspearl]

Congrats on your new shrimp! Welcome to the madness!

[Darkcobra]

Thanks everyone!

 

[Merth], would love to swap eventually.  Besides, I haven't seen you in a while!  And still want to get some of that awesome floater mix too.

 

Getting pictures was tricky.  Hard to catch them in a good spot, and this is pushing our camera to its limits.  Shot about 30 pics, here are the two came out well.

 

One with most other lights blacked out, shrimp tank LEDs only:

 

 

And one with other lights on:

 

[mosspearl]

Looks like a beautiful tank!

[Darkcobra]

Question time.

 

We're using a Red Sea Nano filter.  Flow rate is set to max, but adjustable down to zero.  The sponge prefilter:

 

 

I'm guessing baby shrimp will be smaller than these pores!

 

Will the suction, diffused by the sponge, keep them from getting trapped or sucked in?  Do we need a finer sponge, or stocking over it?

 

We also have one of these air-driven filters, with finer pores:

 

 

Would it be better to get this cycling up instead?

[Soothing Shrimp]

I use the double sponge air driven in all my tanks for neos.  If I have to take a sponge off for any reason, any shrimp that get sucked into the holes in the plastic beneath just get carried up and out with the bubbles.  No casualties.

 

You could use a stainless steel prefilter on yours.  H4N sells them.  Better than a prefilter sponge because it doesn't clog so easily and shrimp safe.

 

Some people use one of the sponges from the double, slip it over the end as a prefilter and cable tie the other end shut.

 

Some people just use a small pore prefilter sponge.

 

Some people use pantyhose ties around the end as a prefilter.

[Merth]

Just my two cents, I use the doubles air driven on the tanks I have hobs. Hobs are prefiltered with the edge prefilter sponge. It is a total pain. The edge prefilter sponge clogs up way to fast and flow rate slows to a trickle within one day. My latest attempt is taking the double sponge removing the clear tube center, using the extension piece to connect direct to hob. Thus making a sponge filter/hob in one.

[Soothing Shrimp]

I've done that.  You know when to clean it as the sponge turns into hour glass shapes.

[Darkcobra]

I've done that.  You know when to clean it as the sponge turns into hour glass shapes.

 

Hah!  Kinda like how you know it's time to clean Magnum 350 filter floss, when it crushes the media basket it's wrapped around.

 

Plenty of good options here.  We'll figure out something within the next few days.

 

The shrimp still seem to be doing well, though we haven't spotted more than four at a time since putting them in the tank.  Stef's taking tons of pictures and getting a few really good ones, we'll prolly sort through soon and post the best few.

[Soothing Shrimp]

I really need to get a better camera.  It doesn't do too well shooting at close range.

[MABJ]

Subbed! I remember my first shrimp adventure. 

 

Good luck. I know it's hard to stop once you get started, but please accept my congratulations for testing and being so thorough. I wish you all the success in the world. 

[Art by Stef*]

Aw...Thank you(s)!

I can't wait until the holiday madness slows down so I can zone out with them more.

This time of year it seems you spread yourself thin to try to cover everything, and can't concentrate

too long on any one thing

-Stef* 

[Water7]

Your shrimp are beautiful and so is your tank! I hope they do very well for you!

[Darkcobra]

Thanks, Water7!

 

We did end up using the sponge from the air-driven filter as the HOB prefilter, it fit nicely.  We are seeing what appears to be some breeding activity, but no visible berries yet.  Have recently counted eight of the original ten (the other two might be hiding).  No corpses seen.  They are growing and successfully molting.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Awesome to hear they are doing well.

[OblongShrimp]

Those are some nice looking orange shrimp!  I need to get some of them at some point.  Those pictures turned out pretty well I think!

[Darkcobra]

Still grabbing plenty of pictures.  Most of them are pretty bad, hehe.  Here are the best of the best since last update.

 

The shrimp tank is the closer and smaller one:

 

 

Where Stef sits, she views the tank from the end, so she scaped it with this in mind.  Here's what she sees, and calls "The Grotto":

 

 

The shrimp learned quickly to associate Stef with food.  Most are already in The Grotto by the time she's dropped food in:

 

 

The snails head there too, but... it...... just.... takes..... them..... a...... little...... longer..... to..... reach..... the.... buffet:

 

 

The rest of the time, the shrimp are doing... shrimpy things.  Picking through the substrate is a favorite pasttime:

 

 

So is perching on leaves and pondering Fermat's Last Theorem:

 

 

And pretending to be The Man on the Silver Mountain:

 

 

[Soothing Shrimp]

So peaceful.

[GreenBliss]

Shrimp are beautiful! Love their color.

[Art by Stef*]

These two gals trotted out this morning looking for breakfast.

They brought their own eggs

 

 

 

-Stef*

[Soothing Shrimp]

Nice berries there, Stef!  Overloaded and beautiful!  You'll have a nice colony going in no time!

[OblongShrimp]

Sweet!  That is a lot of eggs they are holding!