# lighting for shrimp tank



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Not sure what kind of lighting for a crs tank.

Moss grows in low light just fine, what about other plants that shrimp like?


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## Suen (Apr 26, 2010)

most ferns also take low light and very hardy


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

A lot of it is personal preference and how you want your tank look. If it's strictly a breeding tank, CFL lighting is more than enough. That's what I use for half of my tanks. The other half I use T5NO, I find T5HO too much light and can get out of control easily, especially for 12" deep tanks, but some people choose T5HO, it really depends on your design.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I guess the main question is what plants do shrimp like the most and what are the light requirements for each plant they like


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I am not sure that shrimp really have a plant preference, as such. They like hiding places, so anything that provides a hiding place will be appreciated.

They also, probably, like to feed on minute fauna as well as algae and dead things. With the exception of filter feeding Fan shrimp, all shrimp will eat any dead thing, including other shrimp. They are scavengers after all.

Though any surface in a tank is going to grow a layer of bio film, I find wood seems to get more attention from the shrimp I have, 
[ which are not Crystals, they're Neos, Fan shrimp, Ghosts] than rocks do, unless said rock is covered in algae. Algae covered rock gets feasted on 'til the algae is gone, then it's ignored. But the sponge filter gets more attention than any other single thing in the tank.

I've had issues lately with hair algae.. I stripped as much as I could and chopped it up very finely, then put in the shrimp breeder box. They ate it.. Snowballs, in this case. I'd have pureed the hair algae into paste if I'd been able to find my hand blender.. but even just chopped, they seemed to like it fine.

Anything with soft algae on it will be appreciated, so slow growers like anubias and ferns, which may grow algae in some tanks, are often seen in shrimp tanks. They are easy to grow, like moss, and don't need much light, feeding or attention, so if your main interest is in the shrimp, it make little sense to go nuts on a lot of plants that will take time and effort to maintain.However, if you like plants for themselves, almost anything your tank will grow, your shrimp will probably like too. They are not picky that way, so far as I can tell.

The only real issue I can even think of might be that if you were into some of the really high maintenance plants, the ones that must have C02 supplementation, a lot of high output light and plenty of fertilizer to prosper, as well as soft acidic water, some shrimp might not do as well in the conditions those plants require, as they would in a lower tech tank with lower tech plants. Cherry shrimp, for example, do fine in harder water, higher pH, aren't fussy on iight, don't seem to mind fertilizers, provided you don't overdose with them.

But those conditions would not work for the types of plants I mentioned. Crystal shrimp, on the other hand, need much lower pH, softer water, again, light for them is not much of an issue, so whatever light the plants need is ok. So some of those plants that need acidic soft water might do fine with Crystal shrimp. I'm no expert, and since I don't keep those kinds of plants or any of the more sensitive shrimp species, I have no first hand experience to relate. But the Neo species I've kept, along with the other species of shrimp I keep, certainly don't give a toot what plants I have in their tank. They really don't seem to care about anything other than finding food and hiding from anything bigger than they are.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

It also depends on the purpose of the tank. If it's show tank, you can have any plants you like, and as much as you like as long as you don't get stale area with good flow.

If it's a breeding tank, then my suggestion is as little plants as possible, as long as you can control NO3 to certain degree. It's just harder to catch shrimps with plants in the tank. Most Asian breeders have very little plants in their tanks. Keep it dead simple.


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