Beginner guide to getting started in the hobby?

[Jweiner]

I am very interested in getting started in the "shrimp" hobby and have read all of the FAQs as well as the introduction section but am still rather confused. Although these sections provide very helpful information on various specific issues, they do little to help guide a beginner as to the "process" of initially purchasing and setting up a shrimp habitat. Since there are so few sites on the Internet with information on keeping shrimp as a hobby, I was hoping to find more explicit information for newcomers. Does this information exist or does it need to be pieced together from multiple areas of this forum? For example, I'd love to see something like . . . . .

Purchase aquarium (Is a 2 - 5 gallon aquarium okay if I only want a few shrimp? Should the habitat be covered? Are there any aquarium kits that work well, e.g. Fluval Spec, etc.)
Fill aquarium with substrate followed by water, filter, heater, plants, light, etc. (What is the best substrate? Any water treatment? Recommendations for filter/heater? Best plants? What kind of lighting?)
Let tank run for ? amount of time before adding shrimp (What is the best way to cycle the habitat? Can I just use dechlorinator and start right up? if not, why not? Do I use a starter fish to cycle the habitat?)
Add shrimp (How many shrimp/gallon is acceptable? What is the best food to feed them? How often do I feed them? How often do I do water changes? How many hours of light/day?)

Etc.

I am sure there are other beginners out there like me who would be more likely to get going if the process of "getting going" was more clear.

[Mustafa]

Thanks for your feedback. As you probably already noticed the "How to keep dwarf shrimp -- An Introduction" article was kind of meant to serve that purpose. It's an old article and needs an update, of course. Back then it was meant for people who already knew how to set up a tank (either had experience with fish tanks, and/or read up about setting up tanks). There weren't too many complete beginners getting into the hobby in the early days. Most people had had kept fish before they started with shrimp.

In any case, I see the need for the type of step by step guide you're talking about and will put one up as soon as my schedule allows it. In the meantime, yes, you will have to do some research in the forum to find any information that may be missing in the articles. That's something that I would continue recommending to any beginner even after I put up a step by step guide, as such a guide could not possibly have all the information (not in great detail anyway) that has been discussed in the forum over the years.

[Jweiner]

Thank you so much.