# Starting a new shrimp tank and acclimating the shrimp?



## k1ng (May 23, 2012)

Over time I have bought quite a few different shrimp and not always am I succesful with acclimating them to there new aqurium. I would also like to now how would you cycle a tank and consider it cycled enough so that when you recieve your new shrimp there wont be a high fatality rate as I have had shrimp die on me for no reasons. I would like to know this and take it into consideration for next time because I am always wanting to expand my collection and may have some higher end (to me) shrimp coming in.


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## chinamon (Jun 16, 2012)

cycling is a process that shouldn't be rushed. let nature take its course. your tank water needs to have some ammonia in it (0.25ppm or greater) before the bacteria will develop and convert it to nitrite (and another bacteria to convert that to nitrate). once the ammonia level drops to 0 and nitrite drops to 0 then it is fully cycled. if your tank starts with 0 ammonia and continues to be 0 then it will never cycle (or take many months to do so).

i let my 30 gallon cycle for 2.5 months and just started putting shrimp in it last week. i put about 60 CRS and 6 amano without a single casualty.

my 20 gallon tank took about 3 weeks to cycle (i dont know why it was so much quicker) and i put 5 amano, 20 CBS and 15 blue velvet without any casualties.


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## RCode (Dec 12, 2010)

what kind of shrimp are you looking to get?

I let my tanks run for about a month without water changes, usually fill half tap, half RO. And start adding plants and lights after 2 weeks. 

After the month, I do a 20% water change, mineralize the water in the tank to about 150-200. 

Wait a day or two then I will usually throw in a few guppies to help build up some bacteria and keep the cycle going. Usually add one at a time, and watch them to make sure they are okay. If they look unusual, I will then test the water, pull them out. I usually let them stay for about a month. 

Then do a small water change. Let the tank sit for another week running, testing every couple days to make sure everything is okay, then add my shrimp.

A lot depends on the substrate you use as well. Some require a longer cycle, the cycle I use is for my Netlea and Akadama tanks.


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## chinamon (Jun 16, 2012)

RCode said:


> what kind of shrimp are you looking to get?
> 
> I let my tanks run for about a month without water changes, usually fill half tap, half RO. And start adding plants and lights after 2 weeks.
> 
> ...


wow. thats a lot of work for netlea and akadama!

my 30gal is netlea and my 20gal is akadama. all i did was start with treated tap water and just leave it with all my filters running. i put plants and lights right from the beginning. when its done cycling i change all the water to remineralized RO to ~130ppm.


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## k1ng (May 23, 2012)

I have just gotten some purple zebra stripe shrimp and some blue pearl and there was some deaths. I needed a new tank for them as I was going to breed them and put them in the new tank seperated with there water and some new water. The tank is a 10g, some floating plants, new shrimp and a day old now. I am looking for a spong filter but my LFS doesnt have any. I am also looking to grow and might be getting some bees, a pair of CPO, and some sakura red shrimp. Obviously I want to learn my lesson before going on to higher grade shrimp where a death could cost quite a bit.


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## RCode (Dec 12, 2010)

Not really a lot of work... 2 x 20% water changes. I want the cycle to build up good and let some algae start. I don't like changing all the water because I feel like there is good food starting to grow in it. Tanks with a lower ph tend to have a harder time developing bacteria, both good and bad.

A week after I added this girl in, she was berried.


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## RCode (Dec 12, 2010)

k1ng said:


> I have just gotten some purple zebra stripe shrimp and some blue pearl and there was some deaths. I needed a new tank for them as I was going to breed them and put them in the new tank seperated with there water and some new water. The tank is a 10g, some floating plants, new shrimp and a day old now. I am looking for a spong filter but my LFS doesnt have any. I am also looking to grow and might be getting some bees, a pair of CPO, and some sakura red shrimp. Obviously I want to learn my lesson before going on to higher grade shrimp where a death could cost quite a bit.


Pick one thing at a time and do your research. Watch some videos of others tanks and pay attention to which ones have babies and what they are doing.

Purple Zebras require brackish, or
I could be mistaken. Start with your blue pearls and be patient.

Also check out www.dx.com for cheap filters. Free shipping....


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## k1ng (May 23, 2012)

I know most of the stuff but needed to get them in there own tank and was looking for different ways I could do it. I am able to get 2-4 more 10g's and I willcycle them this time and see what happens. Also what do you recommend for filtration as the sponge filters dont get rid of the extra food or poop and other filters will suck the babies up?


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## chinamon (Jun 16, 2012)

RCode said:


> Also check out www.dx.com for cheap filters. Free shipping....


they are cheap for almost everything else but not sponge filters.

they are selling a dual sponge filter (like the ones that AI sells) for $5.20 and ebay has the same thing for $2.13... both offer free shipping from hong kong 

im using the ebay ones and they work great


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## chinamon (Jun 16, 2012)

k1ng said:


> I know most of the stuff but needed to get them in there own tank and was looking for different ways I could do it. I am able to get 2-4 more 10g's and I willcycle them this time and see what happens. Also what do you recommend for filtration as the sponge filters dont get rid of the extra food or poop and other filters will suck the babies up?


for a 10gal i would recommend an Aquaclear 20 and an air-driven sponge filter.


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## k1ng (May 23, 2012)

I have an air pump in tere right now. Do you think they will survive in the new tank?


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## RCode (Dec 12, 2010)

I'll check it out. =) I usually buy a bunch of stuff from there, so its always easy. But next time I stock up! 


As for filtration.... the more the better. Right now I just use 2 sponge air driven, with a aqua clear 20 filed with small media on the side regular filter, and it sucks threw a big sponge filter. I would like to upgrade that filtration in the future. I was actually thinking of adding a moving bed filter in the tank, when I can get some time to build one.

Look them up on youtube... very interesting stuff if you look up the original development of K1 media.

In my 10, have another 20g HOB filter filled with media, hooked up to 2 sponge filters, under gravel filter as well. These are by no means ideal filters, but they will work for the time being.  I'd like to hook up canister filters, but space is an issue.


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## k1ng (May 23, 2012)

I see you like to try and over filter your tanks when ever possible but you cover the intakes right so that no babies get sucked up? If I add water from an already established tank will they be ok and survive?


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## RCode (Dec 12, 2010)

From everything I've read, you can never over filter. And yup, use sponge filter. I took apart an air filter and hooked it up the HOB.

















If you are putting any Neo(cherry, blue pearls, etc) I'd think you would be fine using half of your tank water and some tap/RO mix.

Make sure to treat your tap water before putting it in the tank. 
Even shaking/squeeze out an old filter in the tank. If it clouds up the water, that is good.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

One thing you can try if you need to cycle a tank faster is to see if you can find someone with a nicely matured filter and get them to give you either a piece of the media.. like a bit of floss or a piece of sponge or a bit of the ceramic stuff, OR ask them to rinse out the filter media in tank water and then use those rinsings in your tank. Either way you get a big boost of the bacteria you need to cycle and it will speed things up considerably. Using plants in a new tank will also help speed it up a bit, but nothing like as much as used mature filter media or rinsings from a mature filter. I've cycled a 30 G tank in two weeks this way.


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## k1ng (May 23, 2012)

I do have a filter that would be perfect as it has been running for a long time. Now what you are recommending is take the sponge and squish it (getting all the crap out of it) in the tank water (clean) so it will become dirty and hold a bunch of benaficial bacteria? If I do squish the sponge to get some good bacteria in the clean water do I leave it or do I clean it up within a couple of days?


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## chinamon (Jun 16, 2012)

k1ng said:


> I do have a filter that would be perfect as it has been running for a long time. Now what you are recommending is take the sponge and squish it (getting all the crap out of it) in the tank water (clean) so it will become dirty and hold a bunch of benaficial bacteria? If I do squish the sponge to get some good bacteria in the clean water do I leave it or do I clean it up within a couple of days?


just hold the mature filter above your new tank (do not submerge it in the new tank water) and squeeze it. the tank water will get cloudy but will clear up as everything gets sucked up by the filter so you dont need to do anything else.


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## max88 (Aug 6, 2009)

May I ask where you got the sponge filter? And for how much?



RCode said:


> From everything I've read, you can never over filter. And yup, use sponge filter. I took apart an air filter and hooked it up the HOB.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## k1ng (May 23, 2012)

It was all in another post. He got it from ebay for a couple dollars.


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## max88 (Aug 6, 2009)

I went to www.ebay.ca, searched for "Aquarium sponge filter", and got hundreds of results. Thanks.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I just got a big box full of sponge filters.. don't even know how many yet, some are large, not sure what all sizes but I'll be selling some of them, don't need them all.

And yes, I did mean you can squeeze out the mature filter right into the tank, but I'd do it over a large fine mesh net too, which will catch all the larger particles. They tend to end up on the bottom, so it's helpful to strain them out. Or you can take a bowl of water from your tank, squeeze out the filter really well in that, then pour that rinse water through a net into the tank or into the filter. Regardless of how you do it, it will make the water cloudy for awhile, until the filter clears it up.

While you can also simply squeeze the sponge into the filter directly, I find it difficult to get the squeezings to land IN the filter. I tried it that way once, but a fair bit ended up in the tank anyway. Plus, you will get a lot more out of the sponge squeezing and rinsing it in water than you will just squeezing it like a rag. Takes a bit of rinsing to get most of the dirt out of a sponge, and it's the dirt that carries the bacteria with it. My usual method is to use the bowl or some other container and then pour the rinsings into the tank through a net and let the filter do it's job to clear it up.


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## k1ng (May 23, 2012)

thanks for the advice I realized I had a small filter in another tank, so Im using it and I think its got good bacteria as its been running in in a cycled tank for awhile but will deffinatley be using yours and others advice for my next tank. Need to make some money so I have to sell some baby super red BN plecos to get the tanks, filters, and other shrimp.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

It's always something, isn't it ? If it's been in a cycled tank for that long it should have plenty of goodies to share. 
When I got back into fish tanks early this year, Scotmando helped me out by giving me a generous bagful of truly horrible looking gunk out of a filter that hadn't been cleaned for awhile.. I was having trouble getting my tank to cycle, and those squeezings of his dropped the nitrites to zero in less than 48 hours, which probably saved the two fish I'd mistakenly put in there. Back when I last kept fish, the nitrogen cycle was unknown, it's been a real learning experience over the past seven months or so. He even gave me another helping of filter squeezings when I discovered I had pregnant shrimp and had to get a tank ready for them in a huge rush, and my own filters were not quite mature enough to work for this trick. Cycled a 5G tank overnight, pretty much. It's a very effective technique and many keep a spare sponge in a tank all the time so as to have one available in case they need to start a tank fast. So long as it's kept in a working tank the bacteria will live, even if the sponge isn't hooked up to air or a pump.


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## RCode (Dec 12, 2010)

Sorry didn't get a chance to reply, was busy for the last few days.

I just squeeze or swish it around the tank, or if it uses the same filter, or it's just floss, I just place it in the filter. I bought a box of ceramic media, and let it a separate bag so I can remote it and throw it in another tank to help it get started. I really believe that they add to the capacity of your filter, and make it work more efficiently. It is all a balance in the end, and it is what works for you.

I got my filters from dealextreme, but ebay has same ones.... cheaper.


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