New Shrimp tank suggestions and feeding help please

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:19 pm

If you want baby shrimp you need to keep them either in a shrimp only tank or in a VERY heavily plantred tank. Just about any fish worth his salt will tank little shrimp given the chance.

Also keep in mind that bamboos and cherries need different water conditions to thrive, so while bamboos can survive in hard alkaline water, it is not the best for them. If you keep the cheries in acidic soft water suited for bamboos, you may not get babies at all.

Do yourself and the shrimp a favor. Spend $30 and set up another 10 gallon tank for the cherries and don't keep bamboos in a tank smaller than 20 gallons.

raptor83 · Post by **raptor83** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 6:19 pm

Thanks Badflash, you've always been very helpful answering all my questions

I'll set up a species tank then for these guys - I wouldnt want any of the babies to get eatan

raptor83 · Post by **raptor83** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:23 pm

I know this isnt strictly shrimp related, so I must apologise for that, but I could really do with some advice/help.

Based on the advice in this thread I just bought a bag of 'aquarium silica sand' from a pet shop to use in the tank mentioned previously. I decided I would replace the gravel with sand, and clean the tank out at the same time (keeping most of the old tank water for the bacteria) I washed the sand out as well as I could, and removed the fish and shrimp into a separate tank. Then I removed the gravel - replacing it with the silica sand, I filled the tank back up with the orginal water and put the fish and shrimp back in and to my horror all my fish started coming to the surface gasping for air and floating on their sides. I quickly moved them to another tank but they all soon died. They were only in the tank for a matter of minutes so I dont know what happened. My bamboo shrimp are still in there and seem happy as larry, eating away with no problems at all.

I dont understand what happened or what went wrong. I have looked closely at the sand and can see some small bubbles rising but I guessed that it must be from the sand settling (I have never used sand as a substrate before) There was still some small particles of sand floating around, but I had read that this would soon settle so wasnt worried by it.

Can anyone please tell me what happened? I really found this whole thing quite upsetting

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 5:35 pm

What did you clean the sand with?
Did you allow the water to clear before returning the fish to the water? The fine sand dust can choke a fish's gills.

raptor83 · Post by **raptor83** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 5:42 pm

I just cleaned the sand with regular tap water. I washed it repeatedly about five or six times, till the water ran as clear as I thought it could be, then I put it in the tank. I left it a few hours to settle and it looked pretty clear to me, although there might have been some fine particles left(?) I feel really terrible about it - I had no idea that this could happen

YuccaPatrol · Post by **YuccaPatrol** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 7:36 pm

I suspect that removing the gravel caused some toxic crud to be released into the water. I do know that it is possible for suphur gases and other toxins to just sit down in the gravel until they are disturbed and released.

I have not had it happen to me personally, but I have read on fish-forums that this can happen when the gravel/substrate is not vacuumed often enough (or never) or when someone decided to pull out some old UGF that has months/years of crud sitting underneath it. That is why I am somewhat religious about using the gravel vac.

With my new shrimp tank, I'm not going to be able to vacuum very often, but the shrimp do not produce the same volume of waste that fish do, so it will not likely be such a concern.

So, to bring this completely back to shrimp, how do folks go about using a gravel vac? I just don't see how I could do it without losing lots of baby shrimp. Maybe that won't be a big deal for me in the future when I have lots of shrimp, but it is still a concern, especially if I end up with valuable shrimp like CRS.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 7:39 pm

Did you use any sort of dechlorinator on the sand after washing it?

raptor83 · Post by **raptor83** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:54 am

I removed the gravel from the tank last - after the water had been taken out - so I dont think any 'toxic crud' could have been released, and it wouldnt have mattered if it had, as the fish were no longer in the tank at that point. I used Tetra AquaSafe on the sand, which is what I always use to condition the water. I think it must have been the small dust particles of sand that killed them all, as Badflash said. I had no idea that there could even be any of these 'dust particles' though. I washed the sand out well, and it was bagged as 'aquarium silica sand' - you would have thought that they would have at least graded it, or ateast pre-washed it well before bagging it

Heres a link to the exact silica sand I used, by the company who makes it - 'Pennine Industries Ltd'. I think i'll write them an email about this
http://www.pennine-prod.co.uk/6111.htm

Apologies again for going off the subject of shrimp - I am just really upset by this, as I feel like I killed them all. I know at the end of the day there 'only fish' but I still feel bad about it. The bamboos are doing just fine by the way...