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What You MUST Know Before Starting a Shrimp Tank ?
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Jun 8, 2023
If you are new to the world of shrimp keeping, you NEED to watch this video! Here I will share with you my 7 essential tips for keeping freshwater shrimp such as Red Cherry Shrimp. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? FREE copy of my new Neocaridina Shrimp eBook - https://fishkeepinganswers.com/shrimp-ebook/ When you are new to Red Cherry Shrimp keeping, there is so much information, and misinformation, that it can be hard to know which is which. I don't think Red Cherry Shrimp keepers need to worry about; 1: Water Temperature 2: Substrate 3: What to feed Red Cherry Shrimp 4: How many shrimp they should start with 5: Algae in the shrimp tank I have been keeping and breeding shrimp for the past few years, and, at the time of recording, I have spent the last two years making a sizable income each month from breeding shrimp.
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So yesterday I received a comment from a young lady who had just got her first shrimp
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and she wanted to know what tips could I share with her to make her a great shrimp keeper
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So I started writing a long detailed reply and then it dawned on me, why not I just made this
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in a video so everyone can enjoy it. So here are my seven tips for anyone starting out in
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shrimp keeping. Hello friends, welcome back to the channel. If you're new here
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my name is Richard and I'm a fish and shrimp breeder based in the UK. So, tip number one might surprise people, but it is be careful who you take advice from
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These days, in the age of the internet, everybody's an expert. Head to any Facebook page, any forum, you will find hundreds of people ready to share their opinion
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Just because someone has an opinion doesn't make them an expert, and that includes me
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All I'm doing here is sharing with you my experiences of shrimp keeping
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Doesn't mean I'm right, doesn't mean what I share will work for you
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I get comments from dozens of people who say, this is my setup. I've shared a picture
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on Facebook. I shared a picture on a forum. People are telling me it's wrong. People are telling
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me my shrimp are going to die. The only way you'll know if your shrimp are going to die, the
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only way you'll know your setup is wrong is if you try it and you fail with it. I've kept
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dozens of tanks over the years where people would say, you can't do that. I keep guppies with
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goldfish. The internet is littered with forum posts and Facebook comments where people saying, you
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can't do that. And you know what? Often you can. So if you're new to shrimp keeping
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and you're looking for advice, don't just listen to one person, do your research, speak
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to lots of different people, read lots of different forum posts, try and gauge an overall
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opinion before you decide the best way to proceed with your shrimp. Now tip number two
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I would share with new shrimp keep is always feed a variety of foods
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As we know, shrimp are essentially detrovers. Their job is to consume any uneaten fish food, any fish poop
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any plants which are dying and breaking down, they will happily consume those and they will survive
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But if you want your shrimp colony to thrive, if you want your half a dozen shrimp to become 60 shrimp
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you need to ensure you're feeding them a good balanced diet, a good variety of food
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Now often when we keep shrimp in a community tank with fish, the shrimp have to get what they get
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So providing you feed your fish a variety of food, your shrimp will naturally also get a variety
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But if you keep your shrimp in dedicated shrimp tanks, and we have shrimp breeding tubs down here then we can vary the food One day it might be rapashi gel food Another day maybe we drop in an algae wafer A couple of times a week we will try and give our
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shrimp frozen bloodworm or daphnear or mosquito larvae, whatever it might be
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By giving your shrimp a balanced diet, you give them a broad range of vitamins and minerals and nutrients
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to allow them to thrive. In the wild, these shrimp would eat other dead shrimp
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dead and decaying fish, a bug switch had fallen in the water, organic matter, plant leaves
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roots, fruit, nuts, seeds, anything that was breaking down, they would consume and that would
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give them a fabulous variety and give them essentially a complete balanced diet. If we want our
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shrimp colony to really thrive, we need to make sure we give them variety. Now tip number three
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which I know new shrimp keepers and new fish keepers also really worry about
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And that's algae. How many times have we seen fabulous setups on the internet
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fabulous aquascapes on YouTube, which don't have a speck of algae? And they set the standard that we often think we have to try and match
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But in reality, algae's not a problem at all. Algae is not only beneficial to your tank
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but provides a source of food for your shrimp. And again, going back to tip number two
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with the feeding a varied and balanced diet, shrimp love to eat algae and they love to eat the biofilm, the layer of bacteria and micro crustaceans
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that develop on the algae. So if you've just set up your tank and you've got some algae
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don't worry about it, don't stress in it. Of course you don't want your tank to be completely swamped
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by algae, you don't want to be a big green mess. But because you have some algae in your tank
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is not something you need to stress about. In this tank up the top here, I purposefully covered the
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the substrate in rocks because I wanted algae to develop. I cleaned the front glass but I don't clean the sides
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Front glass is clear, I can film through it, but the back and the sides are covered in algae. It's beneficial to the tank and it's beneficial to the shrimp
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If you've just set up your first tank or you've just got a tank that keeps getting algae
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don't stress on it. Don't think that makes you a failure. Try and work with the tank, carry out your water changes
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add some live plants, reduce your water changes, lighting if the algae is becoming a major issue but just because you have some
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algae doesn't mean you're failing and it doesn't mean your shrimp are going to
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be any of the worse for it in fact they'll probably be better so tip number
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four is something I've spoken about many times and that is choose shrimp that
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naturally fit your water now what do I mean by that typically there are two types of shrimp we buy a caradena shrimp and the near near shrimp Now on the face of it to the newcomer there isn much difference between the two
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But your caradena shrimp, like soft, acidic water, your neoccaradina shrimp prefer hard, alkaline water
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So before you get your shrimp, test your water. Find out is your water soft and acidic and perhaps has a low pH
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Is your water hard and has a high pH? choose shrimp to match. Yes, you can adjust the water, you can use RO water, you can add hardness
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to soft water. But if you're new to shrimp keeping, you've got enough on your plate already. You
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don't want to be battling your water parameters. Find out what your tap water is. Find out if you
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use well water, test it, find out what water you have, and then start with shrimp that are
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suitable for that water. Of course, further down the line, when you're more experienced, you can
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then decide you want to alter your water. You want to use R.O. water, whatever it might be. But when you're starting off, just choose shrimp that match your water
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You will find the transition into shrimp keeping much easier if you haven't got to battle your water parameters every single day
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Now before I move on to tip number five, some of you regular viewers may notice I've been reducing the number of breeding tubs I've got behind me here
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And I go into more detail in why I'm doing that in a video I've posted in the members area
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But I'm hoping in the coming weeks and months you're going to see some changes to
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behind me here which allows to do a lot more exciting things and for me to bring
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more shrimp to show and share with you. So on to tip number five and tip
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number five is just give your shrimp time. So many people come into this hobby
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they get their first tank they're full of excitement they've got shrimp in it and
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then someone will contact me and say Richard this is happening this is happening this is happening. So okay okay over what time period are we talking and they've only
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had the shrimp 24 or 40 hours and they've already they've had the shrimp they've
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carried out of water chains, they've fed them, they've changed that food, they're worried about this, they've added that
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Shrimp on the whole love stability and if we're constantly changing something in the tank
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we don't give time for that stability to develop, we don't give the tank time to
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find an equilibrium where it can it can bob along nicely. So whilst it can be a stressful time, a worrying time and an exciting time when you
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first add your shrimp, if you've got a new shrimp tank, one of the best things you can
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do is just leave it alone, give it time. Unless there's something blindingly obvious that's wrong, unless
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you test the water and you've got a massive ammonia spike for some reason, on the whole
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just give your shrimp time. The reality is apart from water changes, there's very little we can
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do to help our shrimp anyway. Unless the problem is blindingly obvious and you can, you know
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you taken octopus out or something then just leave them be and take time give your tank time to mature Give it time to find balance and stability If we constantly making changes we don allow that to happen And that in the long run can be detrimental to our shrimp colony
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So on to tip number six now, which I would say whether you are a shrimp or a fish keeper, is add live aquatic plants
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Live aquatic plants are a wonderful thing to add to freshwater tanks
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Not only do they make the tank look more natural, as the plants grow, they also absorb excess nutrients
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they absorb nitrates and ammonia from the water, meaning that the shrimp aquarium is a healthier, more stable environment
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for the shrimp to live in. I keep live aquatic plants in every single tank I have here
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even our breeding tubs have huge clumps of Java moss in them. Now, in this, in my 100 day breeding tank up here, for instance
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you can see there's a whole combobble. population of plants just floating, unfortunately I had a tank leak so I had to just
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chuck the plants in there. Even not planted, even just floating around, they
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are beneficial to the shrimp. They're absorbing nutrients, they're absorbing nitrates and
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ammonia out the water. Plus the leaves of the live aquatic plants are the
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perfect place for biofilm to develop and biofilm as mentioned previously is a
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wonderful food for shrimp. Shrimp's been their entire day pecking at the biofilm. They're not
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they're not eating the shrimp, they're not eating the plant leaves. It is the biofilm, the micro
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crustaceans living on the plant leaves that they enjoy. So I would say, add live aquatic
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plants to every single shrimp tank you have. Now tip number seven for new shrimp keepers
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and really for all shrimp keepers, is don't forget to take time to enjoy your shrimp. We put
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all this effort in, we worry about what foods, we worry about there's algae, we worry about
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whether we should do a water change. How often do we remember to actually sit and just enjoy our shrimp
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These fabulous little characters, they're constantly on the go, they're constantly doing something, they're chasing one another round, they're eating something, they're pecking at something
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If we're not going to take time to sit and enjoy them, then why do we bother having them
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in the first place? You know, I keep a stall right by mushroom tanks, I've got another one by the fish tanks
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That's to allow me at any time to just sit with a cup of tea, five minutes, ten minutes
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enjoy my hard work, enjoy the shrimp. It's the best part of the hobby. Now I made this
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video seven tips for new shrimp keepers. Truth be told it could have been 20
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tips for new shrimp keepers. New shrimp keepers often worry about making mistakes and
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if you want to make sure you avoid the most common mistake shrimp keepers make
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watch this video next. Thanks for watching
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