Long overdue update

[hoddit]

Hello all, hope your shrimp are doing well!

When last I wrote I was in the process of setting up my 10 gallon cherry red shrimp tank. I purchased approximately 13 mixed age (mostly juvenile) cherry reds about a month ago. As of yesterday, I was able to count four new additions, and assume that there are more in the tank. Two other females have been carrying eggs for a while, so I expect/hope that there will be more new additions!

It seems like there are already numerous quality posts about successful new tank setups but I thought it woundn't hurt to add a few comments on mine that will hopefully help the other new shrimp keepers out there.

My final setup consists of:
Tank: 10 Gallon Lighting: Coralife 28W PowerCompact
Substrate: Eco-Complete (Black) Filter: Elite Sponge Filter
Plants: Hornwort, Najas Grass, Red Ludwigia (sp?), Java Fern, Java Moss, Corkscrew Val.
Misc.: One large piece of Malaysian driftwood, trumpet snails also inhabit the tank. No heater, T is consistent b/w 73-75.
Food: Hikari Crab Cuisine

I really like the lighting and filtration in this setup. Colors are vibrant and the plants are flourishing (w/o fertilization for obvious reasons). Also pleased with the Eco-Complete..this was my first experience with it and I love it.

I placed two trumpet snails in the tank before adding shrimp to make sure that I had some bacteria functionality. I also benefited by transferring some bacteria from my established fish tanks. Now however, I have an overpopulation of snails (the trumpets are OK, but I had some of the dratted refular ones that spawn like rabbits hitch a ride on one of my plants) which can only be remedied by manual removal during weekly cleaning.

My favorite thing is to take potted plants out of my fish tanks and place them in the shrimp tank. Typically these have a good deal of algae growth on the older leaves and I get a real kick out of seeing the cherries "swarm" the algae.

I also used 2 dried dwarf magnolia leaves after soaking them for 3 weeks. Obviously they have not produced a negative result and I feel that they look good as well.

I will attempt to take some pictures and if I get any that are worthwhile I will try and post them. Thanks to you all for your wonderful posts! What a terrific resource this site and this community have been!!

[Neonshrimp]

Happy to hear the good news about your tank. I can't wait to see pictures of it. The tank sounds great, I would however recommend that you add more leaves to provide more microorganisms for you shrimp

Thanks again for sharing