Adding shrimp to new tank!

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Adding 32 shrimp from u/gotsnails to 7 gallon tank. This vid is from 3 weeks ago, they are all happy and doing well :)

126 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

u/gleutiful Oct 18 '24

Only partially. I did seed it with some water from my old tank. Then I left it for 2 weeks before ordering the shrimp since I was out of town and didn’t know how long they would take to ship. By the time I got them there was a good amount of diatom growth on the glass and rock, and the surface of the water was covered with biofilm.

1

u/-No-Percentage- Oct 18 '24

And how did you cycle your old tank? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

2

u/gleutiful Oct 18 '24

I had that tank for several years, which I seeded from a smaller tank for a betta fish. Basically put in old tank water and let it sit for a couple weeks. The brown algae will come in and go away and at that point it’s likely cycled but the only way to know is to check your water parameters (ammonia and nitrites at 0, with low nitrates). If you don’t have old tank water to start the cycle, it will take much longer but just drop some fish food in to break down into ammonia.

1

u/-No-Percentage- Nov 03 '24

So it's better to seed from freshwater to brackish rather than salt to brackish?

1

u/gleutiful Nov 04 '24

i don’t know whether it’s better to seed from fresh rather than salt, i did that simply because i had a freshwater tank and not a saltwater one. (though i could see reason why fresh could be better.. perhaps more of the undesirable freshwater bacteria or hitchhikers that get transferred would die off in the salinity of the brackish. just speculating.)

what i actually recommend is what gotsnails advises on this sub: don’t bother seeding or cycling at all for these shrimp. it’s unnecessary and introduces that risk of carrying anything harmful over.

1

u/-No-Percentage- Nov 04 '24

I want to set up the tank now and introduce the shrimp once I get a chance to visit the seller who is in a different country. That's why I was thinking of cycling and growing algae on the hardscape before, maybe even establishing the flora using ferts to ensure it's grown in in advance and doesn't struggle before the shrimp adjust and start breeding. I have both salt and freshwater tanks so I might add some material from both and keep a close eye on ammonia levels. I suspect it really depends on the species of bacteria that inhabits your tank, with changes most will die but a small percentage will adapt. I'm not really worried about hitchhikers as I've had my tanks for a few years and they tend to do better, the more biodiversity they have. That's why I want to cycle and give it time to mature.