Shrimp In General

[kindaconfused]

Hey, I'm planning on starting a shrimp tank when I get home, my tank is a 10-15 gallon. I will have the tank planted with real plants and it will be in the sun light a lot.

I have gravel in there right now, should I switch it to sand?

I'm planning on having different types of shrimp, what is the over all Ph and temp I should have in the tank?

I would like to breed them, how many of each should I have? (thinking of starting with cherry and ghost, hope they can't mix, can they?)

I'm really excited to start this shrimp tank, I am getting a little tried of my guppies, they don't breed, uck. It was awesome to hear that a tank with just shrimp can be done. If you have anymore hints or good advice that would help me keep these shrimp alive and breeding, that would be great.

Thank you very much for your help!

[Balloon Fish]

first off unless you want a huge algae farm the sunlight isn't gonna work, its like putting over 10wpg over a tank and then i doubt your gonna put co2 right?.... even if shrimp eat algae they aren't gonna be able to eat quick enough... second of all if you haven't planned on cylcing the tank i would plan on doing it, then start your researching on shrimp like what are poisonous to them (high nitrates, copper, mostly all chemicals), what they eat, what kinds of plants they like (marimo balls, moss, things they can pick food out of). There really isn't a right pH or a right temp but shrimp do like temps from 70 to 80 like normal fish would. If your water is soft i would suggest buying some cuttle bone to raise the calcium level in the tank so the shrimp can molt correctly or sometimes they can die. I would also suggest staying away from fertilizers with copper (seachem flourish, seachem flourish tabs) and staying away from foods like wardley algae wafers because they ahve copper in them. If your breeding them and dont want hybrids i would suggest to do more research. Places like petshrimp.com will tell you if they can interbreed like i know that tiger shrimp can breed with bee shrimp if i'm not mistaken. Some places to start would be petshrimp.com, shrimpnow.com, and most planted aquarium forums that have shrimp sections because shrimps are popular in planted tanks. Also do some research on nutrition and health of the shrimp because shrimp aren't the strongest things and excellent water quality is a must.

[kindaconfused]

yup, ive been doing a lot of research on those websites but i'm still hunting for some more. i mean, i got a lot of stuff but those questions were just to make sure or to get specific answers, you know? i'll keep searching in the mean time.

Do you think i should clean out all the algae in my tank or just keep the water the same, i have it perfect for my guppies and swordtails so the ph is perfect for them. i mean, i don't want to clean it, wait for it to get dirty again, then get shrimp if i can just put them in the cycled water i already have.

thanks.

[Balloon Fish]

oops lol i totally forgot about the questions you had ask :/.

I have gravel in there right now, should I switch it to sand?
-doesn't matter which but if you want plants sand isn't the best cause it can't hold down plants, either one should be fine though

I'm planning on having different types of shrimp, what is the over all Ph and temp I should have in the tank?
-a pH that isn't flucuating is good and for temp i would say nothing over 80 and nothing below 65 is probably a good range and same with the pH, a non-changing temp

I would like to breed them, how many of each should I have? (thinking of starting with cherry and ghost, hope they can't mix, can they?)
-cherrys and ghost do not mix, if you get the tiger shrimp or bee shrimps they might mix, check out petshrimp.com. I would say if your ordering online maybe 10 is a good number because then you would have a greater chance of having a few females and males (usualy the people dont tell you online) and also if some of them die there is a less possibibility that all of them die if you have more unless the temp is like super hot that day.

Cherry shrimp and ghost shrimp are both really easy to breed according to my research and some of my experience. Just last time i did a water change i saw a baby ghost shrimp swimming around on a dwarf sag leaf and i didn't even have to do anything special but i haven't found it since, hope it's still alive. If you are planning on breeding then you should have plenty of places to hide even if you dont have fish in the tank because i hear ghost shrimp are canibals and might eat their own children like livebearers do. Also i wouldn't worry too much about pH and i dont know why there is suddenly some pH worrying problem with everyone lol. Just make sure it is stable. I don't get what you meant on the last paragraph, do you mean you have a tank already set up with guppys and now you want to switch the guppies out with shrimp? if so that will work and should be fine. Oh and if you are breeding them a good filter choice would be a sponge filter if you can't get one and you have a HOB i would get some filter floss pad thing and cover the inlet so none of the baby shrimp get into it. As for the cleaning the tank, if the algae is mostly soft algae like fuzz algae, and brown algae then the shrimp should clean a little of it off also but if its something like green spot algae then i would just clean it cause the shrimp can't eat that. Have you decided what you are gonna feed your shrimp? i've been doing a lot of reasearch on that lately and i have decided to feed the following-
-Hikari Algae wafers
-Hikari Crab Cuisine
-Jake's Veggy food recipe on plantgeek.net in the article section
-spirula flakes
-omega one sinking pellets
some good things to feed that i don't have cause it ran out of money lol-
-vitachem added to jake's veggy food recipe
-cyclopeeze (i hear its really good for shrimp but i already ordered 50 bucks in stuff from drsfostersmith.com and really didnt wanna spend the last $9 but if i didnt buy so much stuff i woulda got that)
-things with calcium and iodine in them (spinach)
Thats just to give you an idea of what to feed and i dont know if you know but shrimp like a varried diet also and just cause its an algae eating shrimp doesn't mean it is only suppose to eat algae and they should have some form of protien and other nice stuff in their diet. (i didn't know this untill before i bought my first shrimp ) so just in case you didn't know...

[kindaconfused]

sorry it took me so long to reply, thank you!!! you make me a happy shrimp person