Questions for the Experts!

[allisonnorberg]

Hi, my boyfriend and I are really interested in these shrimp but we have a few questions before we buy!

Firstly, since we know we can only keep those 2 plants you sell on your site in the tank with the shrimp, we were wondering if there are any other things we can or cannot put in the tank with them. For instance, are there an substrates that don't mesh with the shrimp? Any types of rocks or seashells or anything like that? We were thinking of boiling some river rocks and putting those in, and I also have some seashells I collected from the beach. Are all of these okay for these shrimp?

Also, we were thinking of getting 20 shrimp to start in a 10 gallon tank. Is this too many, or do you recommend starting with 10? I read in the forums someone had success starting with 10, but we want to order some more just in case. But again, wanted to know what you recommend.

Also, do you have a formula or any exact measurements for how to make the saltwater for them? I read that we use the directions according to the reef water package, but just cut in half or a quarter. But I want to know exact formulas for making the water if you have it. Just want to make sure we prepare the water correctly for our new shrimp so we can minimize mistakes!

Thanks and sorry this was long! Hope to hear from you all soon.

Best, Allison

[planisphaerium]

Welcome to the hobby!

As far as I know, pretty much any substrate is fine to use with these shrimp. Just make sure you clean it thoroughly (without soap). I've seen some cautions against boiling rocks as well, since it could be potentially hazardous. Do so at your own risk. A thorough cleaning should generally suffice depending on the condition of the rock.

20 shrimp is not even too much for a 1-gallon tank! You should be more than fine with 10 gallons. You can have hundreds thriving in a tank that large.

There's not an exact formula but halving the recommendations on reef/marine salt has worked well for me in the past. I use a refractometer just to be sure and the salinity has always been spot on using this method.

Hope this helps. Don't hesitate if you have any additional questions. This community is very helpful!

[allisonnorberg]

Thanks for your reply! I like the idea of a refractometer, thanks for mentioning that.

[Varanus]

Aside from the amount of salt, the only other thing important about preparing the distilled water is to make sure most/all of the salt gets dissolved before you put it in the tank (it becomes harder to get it to dissolve at that point).

And you can put most objects/decorations in the tank that you do with other aquarium animals. About all you should avoid are wooden decorations, as well as soil/plant growing substrates. Supershrimp don't like either of those.

[allisonnorberg]

Aside from the amount of salt, the only other thing important about preparing the distilled water is to make sure most/all of the salt gets dissolved before you put it in the tank (it becomes harder to get it to dissolve at that point).

And you can put most objects/decorations in the tank that you do with other aquarium animals. About all you should avoid are wooden decorations, as well as soil/plant growing substrates. Supershrimp don't like either of those.

Good to know, thanks

[Nellyville41]

Pretty much what everybody said. I have a one gallon at work with 10 initially. I have one mature female that reproduced and now I have 10 little ones. I have a 3 gallon one at home with 21 initially. I have 2 mothers who reproduced and I have 17 new babies and 13 juviniles. So hope that gives you and idea. A 10 gallon is huge so you can start off small and them bloom over time. I would say at least 20 in your case. I could of started off with more but I wanted to have my population grow on its own. Also my snails at home doubled their population as well from 10 to 20

[mike.d]

I started with a 10 gallon too. I bought 50 from another site. When I took a picture and counted the shrimp in my tank I had about 65. They all went in at once and I've had no issues.

One problem with starting a 10 gallon with so few shrimp is that you'll get a lot of algae, depending on your lighting. Mine got so bad I couldn't see into the tank at all. Some nerite snails fixed that.

There are sites that mention salt measurements by weight and volume per gallon of water. This site says 1 cup of salt per 5 gallons.
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... ter.37085/

I used a kitchen scale. I bought a 10-gallon pack of reef salt. I divided the weight on the box by 2 (to get brackish water). Then I divided that by 10 to get the weight of salt per gallon. I got out my kitchen scale and measured out the salt for each gallon of water (distilled, bought from the grocery store). In the end my tank only took about 8 gallons.

[allisonnorberg]

I started with a 10 gallon too. I bought 50 from another site. When I took a picture and counted the shrimp in my tank I had about 65. They all went in at once and I've had no issues.

One problem with starting a 10 gallon with so few shrimp is that you'll get a lot of algae, depending on your lighting. Mine got so bad I couldn't see into the tank at all. Some nerite snails fixed that.

There are sites that mention salt measurements by weight and volume per gallon of water. This site says 1 cup of salt per 5 gallons.
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... ter.37085/

I used a kitchen scale. I bought a 10-gallon pack of reef salt. I divided the weight on the box by 2 (to get brackish water). Then I divided that by 10 to get the weight of salt per gallon. I got out my kitchen scale and measured out the salt for each gallon of water (distilled, bought from the grocery store). In the end my tank only took about 8 gallons.

You put Nerite snails in your brackish tank?

[Varanus]

You put Nerite snails in your brackish tank?

Nerites are among the animals that can live in brackish water as well as freshwater (though their young cannot survive in freshwater).

[AnotherKevin]

For salt water, I used 50% the salinity of seawater, and my shrimp are thriving. (I used actual seawater, mixed with an equal quantity of distilled water.)

Your collected sea shells should be great.

River rocks are probably fine... unless they contain copper deposits or some other harmful metal. I am not a geologist, so I'd consider this a slight gamble. It's probably fine, but metal poisoning might be a risk here.

Honestly, I wouldn't bother boiling the rocks, if you decide to use them. My main concern here would be contaminants like pesticides, motor oil, or other pollution, so I'd just soak them in tap water overnight, then rinse thoroughly with distilled water to remove any chlorine.

[mike.d]

You put Nerite snails in your brackish tank?

Yep. I have one tiger nerite and two zebras in there. If you go this route just be aware that they lay eggs everywhere. They are great algae eaters and don't breed in freshwater or brackish. But I did see a post on another forum that the eggs will hatch if you put whatever they're attached to in a full saltwater environment. I also added 12 MTS snails. About 6 months later I have too many MTS to count.

For salt water, I used 50% the salinity of seawater, and my shrimp are thriving. (I used actual seawater, mixed with an equal quantity of distilled water.)

I live by the ocean but I was afraid to do this. Did you boil the seawater to remove any bacteria and baby critters? I'd seen videos of people who used raw seawater and ended up with 3-foot millipedes in their tank. But that was a full saltwater tank, not brackish. How long has your tank been set up?

[Kval1015]

WELCOME!

So I was in a similar situation and super excited to start a shrimp tank.
I will tell you my story, in no way to deter your plans, but just so you can hear about my experience I had a rough start with a larger tank due to some contamination and the tank not having a proper lid - I was able to save some shrimp from this tank and they are now doing well with some more friends in a small tank.

I spent a lot of time researching for a tank that had a proper lid, as we have two little curious hairless cats that drink water out of anything that is uncovered. I found a large 10-gallon tank that I thought would be sufficient and I proceeded to purchase my shrimp, snails and decorations, however the lid on top did still have a tiny hole and wasn't as flush as I had hoped. I decided to press on anyway. I used arganite crush coral gravel substrate and set-up the tank with brackish water to cycle with decorations. Things cycled well and we made a purchase of 15 shrimp to start. The algae growth was out of control even with reduced lighting time and when things had been going well for a few months I purchased a bunch more shrimp. However, unfortunately, a few weeks after the additional shrimp purchase something funky happened with our tank. It started to smell and shrimps started dying off. We were able to rescue 7 at 4:00 AM one morning and they lived in a small Pyrex bowl for about 2 months while I started a smaller tank - thanks to the members on this forum!

I then purchased a 0.5 gallon FULLY closed apothecary jar from Amazon. I again used the arganite crushed coral gravel and also some glass marbles I had left over from some crafts just to give some color to the substrate. I purchased 2 small lava rocks and used two small plastic decorations from the previous tank. We transported the 7 survivors once the tank was fully cycled. It's been several months, and I just purchased some snails and additional shrimp to reign in the algae growth and all my shrimp are happy, healthy, red and active with lots of molts floating around!

I personally loved both tanks, but it seems that without the flush lid that some sort of chemical got into our larger tank and started killing off our shrimp. It was a horrifying experience. My plan now is to get the smaller tank thriving and to move up in size but I likely won't use another fish tank for the issues we had with the lid and chemical pollution (I think it was an air freshener or pledge that might have been used to clean something near the tank). Personal preference, start whatever tank you're interested in, but keep in mind any small amount of contamination can wreck havoc on the little guys and your tank. Not the best of stories but it does have a happy ending!

Oh and I purchased everything from Mustafa, he's the best My issues were solely related to the environment in our home.

[AnotherKevin]

Mike.d, I bought seawater from a local aquarium shop. Buying that water was easier than mixing my own; I'm incredibly lazy. They get their water from out on the Monterey Bay, where there isn't much water pollution, and I think they filter it to some extent.

It definitely had life in it (I used the same water in a small saltwater tank, and it grew tubeworms and little swimming plankton), so mixing it with distilled water to create brackish water almost certainly resulted in a "die off" and ammonia spike, but I gave it plenty of time to cycle before introducing shrimp. (First, I added macro algae, then the shrimp a few weeks later; no snails.)

This was a year and a half ago.

[mike.d]

Thanks for the reply AnotherKevin. I appreciate it.

Filtered seawater from an aquarium shop sounds like a nice way to go. (I'm in the lazy boat myself.)

[crittersni]

I want to share a big mistake I made so that you don't do the same.

I went "cheap" with aquarium supplies from a 99c store the first time. I believe that the plastic leached into the water (which became cloudy), and most of my tank died before I pulled several out that had survived.

I started over and bought quality aquarium supplies from PetSmart and Petco. I had no problem after that.

When my shrimp survived 2 weeks in the new tank, I ordered more from Mustafa in February of this year. I had my first babies on 6/2/18.

In both cases I had gone to a local reef and reptile store. I bought brackish water from them at 1.010 salinity. They mixed it for me and showed me how to use the refractometer I'd bought on Amazon. I keep a supply on hand in case I have a tank emergency and/or water exchanges (haven't done that yet)..

My tank has thrived. I currently have a bunch of adults including a newly berried shrimp, several saddled shrimp, tiny shrimp from the 6/2 hatch, tinier shrimp from multiple hatches at the end of June through the beginning of July, and some larvae from a hatch a few days ago (plus a Nerite snail).

I wish you at least the same success.