20 Gallon Shrimp Only Tank

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emmanuelchavez

Superstar Fish
#81
Feb 22, 2008
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#81
Just a thought at the moment... but I'm thinking of converting this into a saltwater tank in a few months.

Once my 100g finishes cycling, I'm going to move all the fish from the 29g in there... then all the shrimp into the 29g, leaving my 20g empty. I was considering doing another 'lush' planted tank for my betta, and finally tearing down the 5g, but I've been wanting a saltwater for a while.

I was thinking of something easy, simple anemones, and a clownfish or two, with a cleaning crew.

Thoughts? Should I try salt, or should I stick with planted? :confused:
 

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#82
Sep 2, 2008
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#82
planted.. so when you trim you can send the plants to me... I'm converting my 16 into a shrimp tank soon enough. Saltwater seems like a whole other ball park... I don't want to see you going to the dark side for good.
 

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emmanuelchavez

Superstar Fish
#83
Feb 22, 2008
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#83
Hahaha, have you forgotten I've got that big 100g tank with a couple hundred stems in there already? I'll always have plants to give, once my tank settles again.

I am a bit afraid of going to the dark side for good... but then again, I've been a bigger fan of planted tanks than salties. :p
 

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emmanuelchavez

Superstar Fish
#87
Feb 22, 2008
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#87
Lotus said:
Just FYI, anemones are anything but simple. They need excellent lighting, perfect water, and a mature (six months plus old) tank.
Click to expand...
I know anemones are quite complicated, what I meant to say was one of the easier anemones. That certainly would've been the last thing I put in, probably at the end of the year at the earliest.

I wanted to do a fowlr originally using my 29g, but figured since I already have the bulbs and light on my 20g, I could do sw with photosynthetic life forms. :rolleyes:

I really like (OK, kinda love) zoo's so maybe I'll stick with them if I decide to go to the salty side. I've got lots more research to do before I make my final decision.

I've got to take into consideration the possibility of me going out of state for grad school as well, and I'd have to take everything with me. I find moving planted tanks easier... hmm.... I'll sleep on it for a few hours before I have to wake back up to head back to school... :eek:
 

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emmanuelchavez

Superstar Fish
#88
Feb 22, 2008
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#88
I've decided! I'm going to convert this into a saltwater. First thing's first though, list of plans:


  1. The 100g tank has to finish cycling (1 month at most, I'm hoping... :confused: I'd really prefer no longer than a week though, but I'm just going to assume I had to start completely over and it's going to take a while)
  2. All fish in the 29g will go into the 100g once it's done cycling.
  3. I'm going to do a substrate switch on my 29g from play sand to amazonia soil, add some more lighting, add the paintball co2 system to it, and let it cycle and grow out plants. (1-2 months maybe?)
  4. Move all cherry shrimp into the 29gallon (and over the course of time, add microrasboras into the mix, I'm a bit bored with cherry shrimp, so I'm considering just letting them go and doing something else, but we'll see).
  5. Start the conversion from freshwater planted to saltwater in the 20g. I'll probably start this off around late april (before finals exams, as I will be busy with final exams in early/mid may, and then leaving to do field work in late may) with dead rock, and let it cycle while I'm away during the summer. I'm going to get a top for this to deal with evaporation, so my dad won't have to do too many top offs for me.
  6. If all checks out after I'm back from summer field work, add a cleaning crew... eventually fish.... and some corals or something...
What livestock I'll be keeping is all up in the air, until I feel that I've researched enough to know what I'm getting myself into.
 

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emmanuelchavez

Superstar Fish
#90
Feb 22, 2008
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#90
Lol, i could try sending you some when I send some vals. I need to get some kordon breather bags first though.

I have a friend I've been promising some shrimp to since the beginning of last semester, so he'll be getting a ton from me too. There's loads of shrimp! I saw them all attacking the pieces of algae wafers I dropped in there a couple of days ago. :eek:
 

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emmanuelchavez

Superstar Fish
#91
Feb 22, 2008
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#91
Modification to the plan.

I'm getting rid of the shrimp (well most, whatever I can catch), and I'm going to keep this planted. Switching substrates to aquasoil, and then putting my betta in here, and tearing down the 5g. I'll probably get a small school of rasboras.

I'm converting the 29g into saltwater. More details for that later.
 

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#92
Sep 2, 2008
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#92
sweet, I'm only trying to get a few to hang out in my 16 gallon so its not wasted...Once summer comes I'm going to hang to break it down so anything in the 16 will go in the 46... I would def try and use the larger tank for saltwater so its a bit more stable and I love the idea of putting the betta in a larger tank, they look so much cooler in more open spaces.
 

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emmanuelchavez

Superstar Fish
#95
Feb 22, 2008
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#95
emmanuelchavez said:
Click to expand...
I'm thinking of bringing this scape back sometime after the summer, using AquaSoil. First, I have to set my 29g back up in my new bedroom, now that my brother moved out :D, and move the shrimp over there. I still have this piece of DW.... and I did like this scape. I think I'll be using glosso instead of HC though, and I'll probably have some stems in the background. I'm slowly starting to phase out some of my more common stems, and some of the weeds. I'm really digging some of these rarer plants. :) More to come on this tank later this year. :rolleyes:
 

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emmanuelchavez

Superstar Fish
#96
Feb 22, 2008
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#96
I'm tearing this tank down today. I've put several traps for the shrimp. I'm planning on taking the first 100 I catch to the LFS for store credit. I'm going to get some olive nerite snails to spread out between my tanks. They've done an amazing job on some of the algae that showed up in my 29g. I'll probably set it back up sometime after the summer, when I get back home. I'm trying to minimize the number of tanks my dad has to take care of for me.
 

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emmanuelchavez

Superstar Fish
#97
Feb 22, 2008
1,370
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#97
I never really got around to tearing this down... There's no filtration/water movement, and I haven't done a water change, nor topped it off in months... but I threw in a bunch of the plants I took out of my 100g tank, and they decided to explode in growth here... allowing the 10 or so remaining cherry shrimp that were still in here to start growing in numbers again... I may just keep it around like so to repopulate my cherry shrimp stocks in my other tanks. Eventually it'll be torn down though.
 

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