Looking for inspiration for my future nano shrimp tank

[bettaballistic]

Hey guys I've been planning a shrimp tank for quite some time and I finally purchased the tank! I got an edgeless 3 gallon Cube. My plan is to fill it with high grade patterned cherry shrimp, going to start out with some low grade first just to be safe.

But anyway I want to make this tank look perfect, so give me inspiration! Show me your Nano shrimp tanks! High or low Tech I'm open for whatever, going heavily planted wanting more of a natural aesthetic. But I want to see everything, this is an Aquascape tank above everything else. I want to get the chance to practice all the complicated plant techniques, on a smaller scale with less risk. Planning on doing an active plant substrate with a sand cap no lid and red root floaters. But everything else is totally up in the air I want to see what you guys have created

[bettaballistic]

An example of kind of what I'm going for, although I have no idea how to get there 🙃. But I shall learn!

 

And my low tech 55 that's as close to this as I have been able to get so far

[andieb]

Hi! How exciting!! 

Aesthetics are not exactly my strong suit, so maybe I'll leave the inspiration pics to others who are more skilled in that department. But I have some experience with lower-tech planted tanks (i.e. no CO2), so I thought I'd share a couple considerations I had in case it helps! 

1. I've always regretted it when I used more than one substrate because the plant substrate mixes with the sand or comes up to the surface. Now, I only use sand (or any inert substrate) and I pick plants that primarily absorb nutrients from the water rather than through their roots and just dose with liquid fertilizer. This way a plant substrate isn't necessary. Also some plant substrates will cause pH to drop severely, and then the pH jumps way back up when you water change (if your tap water is ~7.0ish). It's more challenging to keep parameters steady in a smaller tank, and those swings could cause shrimp fatalities. I personally prefer inert substrates like sand or gravel because I find they make it easier to keep pH, KH and GH steady. 

2. If you have success with your low grade cherry shrimp - i.e. they form a healthy little colony - then when it comes time to add your high grade shrimps what will you do with the low grade ones? If you add the high grade ones to the low grade, when they interbreed your colony will end up being more variable in grade than the high grade group would otherwise be. If you start with pre-cycled filter media, plant your plants, and then wait a few weeks, your tank should be stable enough that you could add 4 or 5 high grade shrimps. If they survive, they'll breed and you'll get lots more for free - if they don't survive, you only have a small sunk cost. I bought a plant once and found two tiny cherry shrimp babies in the bag - I put them in the tank and now I have hundreds and they all came from those two free babies! They are pretty bad quality tho, but cute. 

3. I LOVE red root floaters. They get out competed by basically everything tho so I'd suggest having them as your only floating plant and be super careful not to introduce duck weed into to your tank. Even one duck weed will be the beginning of the end. Also red root floaters also really appreciate liquid fertilizers. 

Hope that helps! Can't wait to see the result!!! Please share 🙂 

[nabokovfan87]

Not a nano tank but it that's a whole different conversation! (Everything is relative)

 

The tank is torn apart right now but that's the last shot I have. The first photo is from feeding this morning.

I have a journal if you want to follow along, link is in the signature. Very exciting to see everyone on the forums working on shrimp!

Are you thinking something like painted fire reds or what kind of shrimp?

For plants, in that size tank... Check this out. 🙂

 

 

I also love a setup like this for shrimp!

Wood is a must for me with them. 🙂

 

 

[Odd Duck]

This is my 3 gallon shrimp (and some snails), but not a cube.  It’s a handy all in one tank that’s been very easy to maintain.  I slipped up and let some snails get too mature so now I’m plucking and transferring out tiny snails.

The first pic is at start up, the second a couple months later, the third when the plants got too overgrown (happened faster than I expected with needle leaf Java fern) and the last after removing about half the Java fern.

 

[bettaballistic]

On 7/4/2023 at 9:36 PM, andieb said:

Hi! How exciting!! 

Aesthetics are not exactly my strong suit, so maybe I'll leave the inspiration pics to others who are more skilled in that department. But I have some experience with lower-tech planted tanks (i.e. no CO2), so I thought I'd share a couple considerations I had in case it helps! 

1. I've always regretted it when I used more than one substrate because the plant substrate mixes with the sand or comes up to the surface. Now, I only use sand (or any inert substrate) and I pick plants that primarily absorb nutrients from the water rather than through their roots and just dose with liquid fertilizer. This way a plant substrate isn't necessary. Also some plant substrates will cause pH to drop severely, and then the pH jumps way back up when you water change (if your tap water is ~7.0ish). It's more challenging to keep parameters steady in a smaller tank, and those swings could cause shrimp fatalities. I personally prefer inert substrates like sand or gravel because I find they make it easier to keep pH, KH and GH steady. 

2. If you have success with your low grade cherry shrimp - i.e. they form a healthy little colony - then when it comes time to add your high grade shrimps what will you do with the low grade ones? If you add the high grade ones to the low grade, when they interbreed your colony will end up being more variable in grade than the high grade group would otherwise be. If you start with pre-cycled filter media, plant your plants, and then wait a few weeks, your tank should be stable enough that you could add 4 or 5 high grade shrimps. If they survive, they'll breed and you'll get lots more for free - if they don't survive, you only have a small sunk cost. I bought a plant once and found two tiny cherry shrimp babies in the bag - I put them in the tank and now I have hundreds and they all came from those two free babies! They are pretty bad quality tho, but cute. 

3. I LOVE red root floaters. They get out competed by basically everything tho so I'd suggest having them as your only floating plant and be super careful not to introduce duck weed into to your tank. Even one duck weed will be the beginning of the end. Also red root floaters also really appreciate liquid fertilizers. 

Hope that helps! Can't wait to see the result!!! Please share 🙂 

I've definitely been thinking a lot about that substrate. I'm planning to have the tank set up for a couple months before I put any shrimp in. So I'm definitely planning on dealing with the parameter changes from an active substrate. Although I haven't made any real decisions yet, my goal is to have to supplement this tank as little as possible. But I do think this was my push to only get one kind.

And as far as the low-grade shrimp go I use that word too lightly, I mean ones without pattern. I haven't had a whole lot of success shrimp wise, so I was planning on starting out with one or two solid red shrimp before going to ones with patterns. I figure even if the fancy ones breed they're probably not all going to look like that. I can always take out the less interesting shrimp to uses as feeders.

And I'm definitely excited to have a red root floater only tank because yes in all of my other tanks they get out competed pretty quickly. I'm hoping that I can get it to bloom