New to shrimp, blue tiger shrimp need advice

[Scoobaman17]

Hello all I'm new here and new to shrimp. Please note I have not done freshwater anything in 7 years, I mainly work with reef aquariums.

I'm hooking my friend up with a saltwater 75 gallon system and in return he's setting me up with 15 blue tiger shrimp 3 of which are prego. I need some advice.
I'm bringing them home Sunday afternoon.

Here is what I got set up today. I have a 20 gallon aquapod with the attached back filtration. I used tap water with the conditioners to fill her up, added a little extra to be safe, then a nice small-medium grain black coated rock gravel nice thick layer 1 1/2 inches the front sloped up to 3-4 inches in the back. Is this adequate? Too thick? Etc advice?

I also have a nice root wood decor sitting in a bucket of water I'll be curing it by replacing the water twice daily until clear along with some rocks.

I also have a white power compact light across the top: This ok?

Food for the shrimp? Plants for the shrimp? ETC tell me anything I need to know. PH is 6.4 recommended right? Soft water as well? What to get is I need to raise or lower each?

Also I have shoved a nice pad of sponge filter behind the overflow as to keep babies and shrimp out. Also have a sock with activated carbon the water must pass through to get to the return pump. The shrimp will be the only thing in this tank to help with nothing eating the babies. as well as I have the flow of current not too strong but enough to circulate the water column in the tank.

Thank you all and sorry for the noob questions, but these are some pretty nice shrimp I'm getting in.

[Mustafa]

Congrats on your decision to get into freshwater shrimp. The most important thing I can tell you is that you should tell your friend to hold off on giving you the shrimp for now. A shrimp tank should be running (possibly with some snails in it) for at least a month..preferebly month and a half to two months before you should put any shrimp in. Otherwise you will see your shrimp die. The will either die rather quickly or they will look like they are doing ok until the tank "crashes" all of a sudden. Ammonia is one of the culprits...our test kits cannot measure the tiny amounts that are sufficient to sicken and eventually kill shrimp. All other information you can find by searching the forum. Tiger shrimp do not need acidic ph...in fact, alkaline is more stable in the long run..even if it's just slighly above 7.

[Scoobaman17]

No worries there, I'll keep the shrimp in the tank he's giving me in the water they are coming in. What type of snails work best for the tank and how many for this size? I know the snails will also reproduce so I shouldn't get too many right?

[Mustafa]

Trumpet snails are best. I'd start with 5 or so per 10 gallon.

[Scoobaman17]

Can I put pond plants in with the aquarium with the blue tiger shrimp? My local nursery has some floating water lettuce plants and I thought it would be cool for the shrimp to feed off the roots that suspend form the lettuce plant. Yes? No?

Also some more info the shrimp are doing great, 3 prego, a few babies now getting color found at least three babies that are blue and two that are regular and also counted a few more tiny babies so we'll be seeing how things turn out.