Loving this site and forum. I've had an ecosphere with one shrimp now for 10-12 years; he now seems very close to the end, which I'm incredibly sad about. In researching replacements, I'm glad to have found this site!
I'm going to get a half gallon anchor hocking glass jar, and ordering the following from this site:
- microalgae
- mossball
- substrate
- calcium rocks
- salt
- handful of black lava rocks
- one large basalt rock
Will also get some artificial plants from a pet store. Does that seem sufficient? Any particularly beautiful set-ups you've seen that you can share and recommend?
Almost exactly my setup, so you should do quite well! My only suggestion - don't overcrowd it. Go easy on the fake plants as you're going to have lots of rocks and whatnot in there for hiding spaces and decoration. You want the shrimp to be the highlight. Your macroalgae, if it winds up anything like mine did, is going to quickly take off and fill a good chunk of tank. It was suggested I reduce mine by about 75-90% (!!) and it's barely been a year! You might not even need or want extra decoration after a few months.
Get it set up as soon as you can to let it settle, and put your poor ecosphere shrimp in there to give him/her a good retirement. There have been plenty of other threads here about how to open those things and get your shrimp out of jail.
Here's an album showing the history of my Opae Ula jar so you can compare to what you're getting and see how it could progress:
Thanks so much! Super helpful. Yes, I'm not getting my hopes too high that my little shrimp will last long enough to transfer, but will absolutely try to if he does!
I'd get at least a gallon tank. Something that small seems a bit cruel, and a one-gallon tank doesn't take up much more space than a half gallon. Also, it's not as sensitive as a smaller tank. Two gallons is even better.
Also, give your shrimp plenty of places to hide out. They feel comfortable that way and tend to breed more, in my experience. I have a lot of lava rocks piled up in my tank so they have lots of nooks and crannies to explore.
Just providing an update now that my snails and shrimp have arrived and are doing well! Shrimpies are swimming around like crazy (they seem to have agreed on going in one direction around the tank!); snails are situated on the plants, burrowed in the substrate, and doing a great job keeping the walls clean. I don't visibly see any algae growth (though the moss and macroalgae seem to be doing fine). Should I just try feeding the tank with a spirulina tank in a couple weeks, or is there any specific sign I should look for that I need to add food?
