Help for new-ish shrimp enthusiast

[elementJ]

Hi all, let me start off by saying that I'm not completely *new*new to the shrimp keeping scene. I've had two batches of shrimp that I kept several years back that failed miserably, mostly because I wasn't all that interested in breeding them at the time.

Since moving and downsizing my fish room from about 70 plus tanks to 10 I've been more and more interested in having another go at keeping these little guys. They're pretty stinking cute! Anyways since the last two time I kept them resulted in mass casualties I figured I do my research this time and maybe have other help me along the way to avoid a repeat of those disasters.

So, that being said I already have a ten gallon tank, sponge filter and UP aqua sand on the way. What else do I need for a new to shrimp keeping "starter kit", going through all the journals and posts and what not there's a lot of stuff that seems to be added into shrimp tanks....

So what exactly are the essentials for setting up a successful tank?

Thanks in advanced everyone!

[zodiac]

what shrimp do you want to keep?

what you need depends on what shrimp it is.

that sand drops the ph below 7.0,so it's for a shrimp that likes a lower ph.

for cherry shrimp of different colors,you want an invert substrate.

 

first start with water.

to be successful,best chances is with using pure water (reverse osmosis or distilled) and add the minerals.

[chappy6107]

ditto on the water.  I use RO water and add minerals back to it.  You can use dechlorinated tap, but some people have horrible stuff in there local tap water.

I would suggest just holding on to that sand until later and getting some inert substrate as @zodiac mentioned.

start out with some neocaridina shrimp(color of your choosing)

 

so items needed:

tank

sponge filter

inert substrate

TDS meter

ro water

shrimp minerals (salty shrimp gh & kh, sl aqua blue wizard & kh, etc)

 

make sure its FULLY cycled.  shrimp don't do well with uncycled tanks.  Maybe add some moss or floater plants to help soak up any nitrates that arise.