Opae Ula coming today - critical setup questions

[shrimpy101]

Hello everyone!
My son ordered an Orange Supershrimp (Opae Ula, Halocaridina rubra) that is arriving later today. We are playing catchup on getting the tank setup *properly* but we have options. We'd like advice on the best approach given our status. Here's the deal:

- We have NOT done a tank cycle on the ultimate home for the shrimp. It is a 1.7 gal. new tank, with new distilled water. We know this is not what the shrimp wants. We know it should be cycled (my son is 8 and he is learning how to properly research - life lesson here).

- However, we DO have a 10 gal. freshwater tank that is very cycled. It has tap water, where the water has always sat for 3+ days before adding to the tank. It has one plant (I don't know what it is) and zero fish, zero creatures of any kind. It is just a plant tank and has been like this for over 6 weeks. The last creature was a tadpole. It thrived and was released.

Here is the uncycled 1.7 gal. tank:

Here is the 10 gal. tank:

We have plenty of marine salt (Coralife Marine Salt for nano-reef aquarium), a salt hygrometer and a very worried (and sorry) 8-year-old that we might straight up kill his new pet.

My brain tells me we have these options:
1) Salt the 10 gal. tank. Maybe the plan lives, or not, no big deal in the end. Unplug the tank filter. Let the 1.7 gal. properly cycle. Move the shrimp to the new home after properly cycling new tank.
2) Put cycled water (and substrate pebbles) from 10 gal. cycled tank into new tank. Put shrimp in new tank that has cycled water and rocks only.
3) Put shrimp in new/uncycled 1.7 gal. tank (I'm thinking not ideal, but we're new to shrimp!)
4) Keep shrimp in delivery container until 1.7 gal tank cycles
5) Something else if anyone has a good idea!

We do have an API test kit if we need to measure any concentrations in any of the waters. Using conditioned tap water in the 10 gal. tank seems OK to me, but I also read to NOT use tap water for shrimp. Note that the last time we added tap water to the cycled 10 gal tank was weeks ago. Maybe a month ago - it's been a while, with filter running. There's a lot of 'delicious' algae in the 10 gal tank, but it's not a crazy amount as you can see.

Thank you so much in advance. We hope to one day be able to return the favor and help another newcomer - once we have a thriving shrimp home!
-Adam and Max

[kuanyu1993]

I'd set up a new tank with fresh distilled water, make sure everything is rinsed or contain brackish plant/algae only.

If the tank and water you currently have, is not a brackish water tank.
When those plant die because of salt, ammonia will spike.

2) Put cycled water (and substrate pebbles) from 10 gal. cycled tank into new tank. Put shrimp in new tank that has cycled water and rocks only.
:Maybe after fresh water is salted and cycled.

3) Put shrimp in new/uncycled 1.7 gal. tank (I'm thinking not ideal, but we're new to shrimp!)
:Although, not widely accepted a good idea. Stand a chance.
If the tank is not over crowded. "As long as no food introduced", these shrimps are tough and they produce very little waste.
Bacteria should slowly catch up and cycle the tank.

4) Keep shrimp in delivery container until 1.7 gal tank cycles
:Safest option!

[shrimpy101]

Hi Kyany1993,

Thank you for the advice! We decided the best course of action when you don't know what to do was do nothing. So we basically did Option 4, which is leave the shrimp in the water it came in. I rinsed out a small, clean, food container and put some substrate from the cycled freshwater tank. Took an SG reading and it looks perfect at 0.012 (no surprise it would come in ideal salinity).

We'll add distilled water as needed to keep the salinity in a good zone until the small tank does cycle. I had no idea how small this shrimp would be! Even the small container it's in now must seem plenty big for it! My son is happy and doting on this little guy!

Thank you so much for the insight and thoughts. So very appreciated!!
-Adam

[kuanyu1993]

Sounds good.

btw, people often leave a pile of rock or some decorations. In order to create spaces and tunnels for them to hide in.

happy shrimp keeping.

[Fishkeeper]

I know this post is rather old, but did you say you ordered an orange shrimp, as in one? Opae are best kept in groups, so if that's the case, you'd want to add more if you haven't already.