Pico Cherry Shrimp Tank - Newbie's Tank

[uranium]

Hi all

A pleasure to be in this forum. Recently I have started a new shrimp pico tank. I have included java moss, java fern and marimo ball and the tank contains cherry shrimps and amano or yamato shrimps. The bulk of the shrimps were introduced just yesterday bought from Sea View at Seletar. Just a basic low tech setup with hanging filter and cheap 8w lights. At this stage, just want to do a budget setup and see how this pans out.

Today, when i checked, noticed one of the amano shrimps eating one of the cherry shrimps which appeared weak or dead. The rest of the shrimps appear just fine and are still foraging and doing their usual things. Even the other cherry shrimps started on the dead carcass after the amano was done with it. Perhaps the shrimp was weak to start with because it was newly introduced and could not cope. This has got me wondering: roughly how long does it take for newly added shrimp to acclimatize and get used to the tank? I am worried that more start dying and if I should do a partial water change.

Should I leave the carcass inside for the other shrimps as food? Or should I take it out to prevent ammonia buildup? Any advise would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Once everything is stabilized and the plants started covering the tank nicely, I can post photos if anyone is interested.

[KilliNewbie]

remove it ! always remove carcasses unless its molts from your shrimp. Pardon me if im wrong but carcasses if left can cause amnonia spike. ( Do correct me if im wrong)

[uranium]

Thanks for your response killinewbie. anyone else can chime in on this matter? at this time, the other shrimps are still eating the carcass. and it is getting smaller and smaller progressively. haha

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[thebaldingaquarist]

I acclimatize my shrimp before i add them into the tank using a drip method.

After that, within 4 days, i expect to see deaths. after then 3rd day, i will do a 10-30% water change. depending on how much LFS water was introduced.

If my tank is 100 litres and i introduced 10 litres(approx) i do a 30% water change.
if my tank is 100 litres and i intrdocued 1 litre, i do a 10% water change.

If the ratio of live shrimp to dead shrimp is 10:1, i leave the dead shrimp in there. other wise, take out to prevent ammonia buildup like you mentioned.

This is my practice above. Other Shrimp experts please advise.

My experience is only limited to cheap CRS, malayan and RCS..

[wongce]

Dear uranium,

you need to cycle your tank to build up BB colony.

Introduce shrimps after your tank is stable and cycled will minimize losses aka deaths... a lot of people skipped this step thinking there is a shortcut...well by all means... no one can stop you, and no one can save you if there is massive death too...

to me 1 -2 shrimp dead is normal, other shrimps will eat them, that's the beauty of keeping shrimps....however, its a totally different story if you encounter massive deaths...

You should read up more before you go further... check out my blog if you are free, should have sufficient information for you to keep your tank going

[uranium]

Thanks wongce. sometimes the excitement does get the better of you, as it did in this instance. another shrimp just appeared weak and then the bigger shrimps started grabbing hold of it.

I did a 20% water change hoping to stabilise it. These two shrimps were just put in yesterday so maybe they didn't acclimatise well. 2 out of 10 shrimps that were added.

any advice to stabilise the tank and prevent further loss of life considering that the bacteria might not be that well established yet? I want to try to stabilise the situation best I can.

plants and livestock are all inside already. what should I do now?

I did go through your blog. but limited budget. so can't execute some of the things. mine is a budget low tech setup. how would you do it if it was you though?

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