Neocaridina Shrimp
Shrimp 101 – Its easy, but with a few rules
1. Tank should be nitrogen cycled
2. 2-4 KH and 6-10 GH are important parameters for shrimp- Educate yourself
3. Fish will eat shrimp if you let them
4. New shrimp need to be slow drip acclimated
5. Planaria exist and can kill your baby shrimps – No planaria works but also kills snails.
OK. Now that is settled, how do you start?
You get a 2.5 G or larger tank. Ideally 10G allows you to breed and accommodate 10 shrimps per gallon. That means, the general rule is you can potentially have 100 shrimp in a 10 G tank. Sweeeet!
Tank Set up
You will need the following things:
1. Substrate that contrasts the color of your shrimp: sand, gravel, pebbles etc
2. You will want plants, wood, decor or anything that helps them hide and host algae.
3. A sponge filter and pump
4. Shrimp sensitive treatment for the chlorine and chloramine (No copper or heavy metals)
5. Time to “cycle” so that there is no ammonia, nitrites and only small amounts of nitrates that will be absorbed by your plants.
6. KH/GH testing kit
7. Shrimp KH/GH minerals and acid regulator to bring KH level down.
Optional things: a light for plants and algae growth, Shrimp food, they mostly live off algae but they appreciate shrimp food, Acid producing leaves like Almond leaves or driftwood.
Which colors?
There are many colors but one thing you should know before you mix the rainbow of colors out there. When different colors breed, they become wild type or brown color much like paint. Is that a bad thing? Depends on how long you want to enjoy the rainbow of colors and if you enjoy watching nature evolve with all sorts of hybrid shrimps until you have brown or dominant “wild type”.
The colors can vary from various blues, green, yellow, orange, dark orange, red, dark red, black, split colors with white middles called “rili” or speckled special bred combos.
