Lava Rock to Open Water Ratio

[o.Ohill]

Hi - I'm just curious if anyone has guidance for the ratio of rocks to open water within the tank, especially a really small one? (Mine will be just 1 gallon)
I haven't set my tank up yet but was kind of thinking I would do a huge pile of them up against the side of the tank. But would the shrimp rather have more open water to swim around in, instead? And does this prevent snails from getting into the substrate underneath the rock pile? And... maybe this is a dumb question but... would placing a bunch of lava rocks in the tank decrease the amount of water that can be in it, too? I can't tell because the rocks are so porous, it seems like they wouldn't actually displace that much water, but I wasn't sure. I don't want to throw things off with the packet of salt I just ordered for a 1-gallon...
Thanks for your help!

[Ndrewtan]

Well you can premix the salt with water in a separate co trainer so your measurements won't be off.

For piling lots of lava rocks, I think one downside of having too many rocks is your shrimps will hide between them and you may never see them . Shrimps wil be happy, but you will have a tank of pet rocks...

[Harry]

Here is my one-gallon jar with about 3/4 inch of black sand on the bottom and some lava rock. I try to keep the front clear of rock. But the nerite snails tend to push the rock around at times. I hope this helps. And as posted previously, mix your water separately and then add it to the landscaped container.

[o.Ohill]

Okay, thanks everyone, appreciate it and now that i have the shrimp in there yes, they seem to like the big pile of rocks, and I don't mind them hiding. But, kind of realizing they like grazing on the sand which is mostly buried under rocks, so planning to uncover more of that soon.