# Low maintenance shrimp tank?



## MOLOTO

I may end up doing a simple 5 gallon shrimp tank in the future, so I was wondering if there are any shrimp species that will thrive in water straight from the tap (in terms of hardness and ph, without the chlorine of course!). Higher ph shrimps would be ok as well, as long as I don't have to mess with the water hardness.

Thanks


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## Rastapus

Technically any shrimp should not be kept without adjusting the hardness. They all require mineral content to thrive. Due to this I would not recommend any shrimp under tap water conditions.


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## stonedaquarium

PFRS, yellow,s snowballs, rilis blue pearls or any neocardina species would thrive with basic water parameters. just have a little bit of hardness (Gh of 4) and you would have babies in no time.  just add a about 3 ml of african cichlid conditioner and you should be fine. with water hardness...


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## MOLOTO

Thanks for the quick replies  So i assume the tap water around here comes out fairly soft? I don't use African cichlid conditioners any more, would baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) work just as well? That stuff works great for pH, but I'm not quite sure about gH.


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## Rastapus

MOLOTO said:


> Thanks for the quick replies  So i assume the tap water around here comes out fairly soft? I don't use African cichlid conditioners any more, would baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) work just as well? That stuff works great for pH, but I'm not quite sure about gH.


Baking soda is not very water soluble but it will raise KH, GH is mainly minerals and needs to be added separately with the use of Replenish or similar product.


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## MOLOTO

Ok, thanks. Is it true that Epsom salt may work as well?


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## Rastapus

MOLOTO said:


> Ok, thanks. Is it true that Epsom salt may work as well?


Epsom salt is strictly Magnesium Sulfate so you lose out on the other minerals, how shrimp will react to that I am unsure of. Honestly buffers are not expensive though and very concentrated as most provinces dont need to use one, just us have it bad that way out here in BC. Maybe consider looking into a mineral additive instead.


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## MOLOTO

Alright, sounds good will keep that in mind. Thanks for the help, Grant!


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## sunshine_1965

I have a tank of PFRS RCS YELLOWS & GHOST shrimp and I do nothing special to there water. I keep it fresh like normal but do not add anything to my tap water. They continue to have babies. The way I see it if it not broken then do not fix it. Good luck with your shrimp venture it has been enjoyable to me.


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## fuzzysocks

MOLOTO said:


> So i assume the tap water around here comes out fairly soft?


Thanks to our wet climate, we get our water here from the local watersheds, and the result is that the tap water here is very soft, at around 1 degree GH when I test it. Places that get their water from underground aquifers are more likely to have a high GH because the water has had time to leach minerals (mostly calcium and magnesium) from the surrounding rock.

I'm with Stonedaquarium on this one. I have red cherries and blue pearls that are thriving on neglect. I keep a bit of lace/holey rock in the tank to keep up the hardness, and it works pretty well. I do my water changes after I do dishes so that there's less chance of copper being in the water, throw in a little conditioner, and that's it. I also do only 20% changes at a time to keep the water parameters from swinging too much, though I might be being overly cautious there.


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## arash53

If you really want low maintenance go for 10 gallon, 5 gallon is kinda hard to keep all the parameter stable .
just my 2 cents


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## MOLOTO

Yeah, I was thinking a 10 gallon would be better since I can have more shrimp and plants in there


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## stonedaquarium

a 5 gal is not bad..to keep stable... i have about 60 or 70 CRS in my 5 gal... and the TDS remains stable... but to be on the safe side i would recommend about 40 MAX CRS in a 5 gal... in terms of neocardina species i have seen some tanks with about 100 shrimps in a 5 gal... JMHO....

If you really want to go low maintenance have enough room to keep shrimps and plants just go for a 20 gal instead...


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## MOLOTO

I would love to get a 20 gallon going, but a 10 is all I can work with for now. While I was cleaning out my cabinets today I found a bottle of API Electro-Right that claims to "add essential electrolytes and trace elements to demonized water." Would this bring my GH to where it needs to be?


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## MOLOTO

Turns out I will need my 10 gallon for another project. If I were to use the 5 gallon instead, about how many shrimp would I be able to have? Will 5 shrimp be enough to get a breeding colony going? Also, would I be able to have a couple of shrimplet-safe Boraras brigittae in there as well, or would it be too crowded?


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## fuzzysocks

I'm having trouble doing a census thanks to the heavy-ish planting, but I'd guess I have around 20 red cherry and blue pearl shrimps in my five gallon. The population seems to do a good job of regulating itself, though you might want to get the opinion of someone with more experience than myself.

If you're picky about the quality of your shrimp, five might not be enough to sustain a breeding colony. I've found with blue pearls that casual/unintentional inbreeding leads to either off-white or red streaked offspring in a short amount of time. If you don't care overly much about the quality of the offspring, five would be fine so long as you're sure you have both genders in the mix.


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## MOLOTO

From my understanding, most of the Cherry/Yellow/Snowball shrimps came from the same source when the strain was first created, so finding shrimps that are genetically different may be tough. How many shrimp safe Boraras brigittae can I put in there with the shrimps?


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## MOLOTO

One more question for you guys. While I was cleaning out my cabinets today I found a bottle of API Electro-Right that claims to "add essential electrolytes and trace elements to demonized water." Would this bring my GH to where it needs to be?


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## stonedaquarium

MOLOTO said:


> Turns out I will need my 10 gallon for another project. If I were to use the 5 gallon instead, about how many shrimp would I be able to have? Will 5 shrimp be enough to get a breeding colony going? Also, would I be able to have a couple of shrimplet-safe Boraras brigittae in there as well, or would it be too crowded?


10-20 would be a good number to start a colony. and maybe have 5 mosquito rasboras that should be enough to start with... you would not want to over crowd your tank


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## marko

Hey if your worried about hardness why not just go with some soil like ada or fluval stratum these are great ways to stabilize you tank and the shrimp love to eat the dirt taking minerals and such from it.On the down side it will take at least a month to stabilize before you can add shrimp,on the up side you will be able to put plants in and will never have problems with hardness etc I would suggest to use prime water conditioner.I followed this for my ten gallon and have never looked back in my ten gallon I added ten cherry's ten blue pearls and a year later have had lost of mixed shrimp babies and the few plants I put in have completely taken over the tank as the soil is a great growing medium .good luck.


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## MOLOTO

Last weekend I managed to find a group of "low maintenance" Crystal Red Shrimp that have thrived and bred in water straight out of the tap with no additives (dechlorinated, of course). So far, they appear to be enjoying their new home grazing on the algae on my Anubias. Any suggestions on shrimp species that will contrast the CRS? I think the yellow shrimp might be a good choice, what do you guys think? I prefer to avoid the clear shrimp like the Amanos and even the Blue Pearl, since I am mostly looking for solid colors.


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## gklaw

Patrick/Brandon:

If and when you have some to share, will trade you a bulb for them


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## MOLOTO

Alright Gordon, sounds good! I'll let you know when we have some available :bigsmile:


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## kid4life

i use crushed coral substrate. never had to adjust the water, my bulbs and RCs breed like mad in my 47 gal. i test the water regularly, but its always quite constant.

does anybody know if CRS come from the same genepool as RCs? if they are not, i wouldn't mind trading you a handful of RCs for one or two CRSs lol.


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## MOLOTO

CRS are from a different genus than the RC, so I'm pretty sure the gene pool is different. I'll let you know once I get some juveniles growing out.


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