5 gallon neo snack tank

I have had shrimp before; ghost, neo and tiger (Amano, flower and vampire too).

I have a saltwater leaf fish that refuses to eat anything other than live shrimp, ghost shrimp.
This is turning into an expensive meal, he gets fed 2 shrimp every Mon/Wed/Fri.
Expensive because at the chain store they are $0.79/ea however they have a high mortality rate...I buy 16+ the day after the store gets it in (otherwise they sell out) but still loose 2-4 overnight and 1 or more daily. He refuses to eat them dead. So it's time to do something a bit easier on the budget. I want to breed some neocardina snacks for Chestnut the leaf-fish.

I have one 5.5 gallon left from my wild betta tanks and I am strongly considering setting it up with some relatively cheap mixed neos. I basically have everything I need to set this tank up since I am a hoarder of fish supplies (be honest...you are one too, right?) and have set up/broken down over a hundred tanks so far in my life.

Right now I have:

• 5.5 gallon tank
• Bag of Petco eco complete knock off substrate.
• Azoo mignon HOB filter (sponge filters are the best for shrimp but I got rid of them when I sold my diaphragm air pump) and I will add a sponge intake cover.
• Lots of sponge and ceramic media, not that the Azoo takes much at all.
• Seeded media in the form of a sponge from my 6 gallon UNS tank that has an Azoo mignon on it.
• Heaters and lights galore...
• Don't have a lid, but have a piece of acrylic I cut for my UNS 6 gallon that should work temporarily.
• Some assorted DW and possibly a piece of cholla wood.
• Some small/petite variety anubius plants in my 125 gallon to transfer over.
• Some suswassertang in a 10 gallon
• Almond and oak leaves for shrimp buffet.
• Lake Michigan tap water and tons of Safe to condition it, lol.

I honestly can't think of anything else besides the shrimp...and I found a seller that has 50 mixed for a little over $70 with free shipping. Oh and I will try BacterAE as a microbacteria booster and food as recommended in many videos I have seen on YouTube.

Possibly going to set the tank up Monday and let it run for a few weeks before adding shrimp. Need a good biofilm and possibly some (yuk) algae growth so the shrimp are right at home when I get them.

Hopefully 50 will give me a great start breeding for future food. If I could get 50 on one color for this price I would since it would be nice as a display tank, but it is what it is and shrimp are still pricey as all heck.
Stuff, stuff and yet more stuff...I have 2 other large bins on a shelf as well as a box of lights, a box of heaters and air pumps and a box of leaves.


Directly above and to the left is the susswassertang, above that is coffeefolia, and above that you can just barely see small leaves for the nano petite and above that is a nano anubius.

Boy nothing beats the fun of setting up a tank...even if it is mainly for snacks.

I’m setting up a 5.5 gallon jar as a nano, and I have a picture in my mind… a few small pieces of spider wood, some Amazon frog bit, I’m going to root a couple Hoya vines, and grow them out into the room… I have some extra rounded small river gravel, and a couple Marimo algae balls, on the bottom, and a little Christmas moss on m the spider wood…

I was thinking about Marimo balls but with the whole zebra mussels infection I think a couple years ago now, I'm hesitant to get them again.

If you want to use oak leaves, boil them before use, because they really take forever before becoming consumable.

Boiled they make biofilm a lot faster.

Thanks for the tip.
The tank will be empty for about a month so there will be ample time for algae and biofilm to grow and leaves to soften up when the shrimp are added. You want an established tank before adding anything especially shrimp.

If you get a 50 pack of mixed shrimps, you have good chance having babies in the first weeks. And also would have a good starter genetic diversity.

Well it's done...patience is a virtue I don't have, lol. The wood and cholla are floating but it's OK, there is more than enough time for it to get waterlogged. I got bit/pinched half a dozen times trying to get the anubius out of the 125. My Oscars and eels got fed yesterday and my hand in water usually means worms so I can't blame them since I basically trained them. The Oscars have teeth now and can break skin, so have to be a bit careful

Anyway here it is.


Here's Chestnut all excited to see me

You can produce hundreds of shrimps per months in there.

When you are producing shrimps for food, consider having the least decor you can, put a good density of the tallest smooth leaves plants you can, without decor.

This way nothing obstructs the movement of your net when harvesting. just swipe trough the leaves to collect without abrupt interruption caused by wood of other hard things. And prevent stress from having problems to catch them.

It can also be done bare bottom but I don't like it when they start stacking too much. Maximum vertical support is very good to disperse the colony in the volume at hand, They don't like to be forced to swim all the time and like to have some intimacy everyday.

I had sea horses 30 years ago, same problem, and less aggressive eaters… I raised Mollys , as the babies took longer to go into salt shock… they bred in brackish water… so they stayed active for a while, once n the salt water…

How long do the shrimp stay active in the salt water???

Magnum Man said:

I had sea horses 30 years ago, same problem, and less aggressive eaters… I raised Mollys , as the babies took longer to go into salt shock… they bred in brackish water… so they stayed active for a while, once n the salt water…

How long do the shrimp stay active in the salt water???

Click to expand...

Chestnut almost immediately eats the ghost shrimp, occasionally one slips past but is caught within a minute. I am sure the reaction will be faster with a colored neo. Also I feed one a a time to make sure it's eaten. I have nassarius snails in the tank and some other cleanup crew to handle any leftovers and they occasionally feasted on the dead ghost shrimp that Chestnut turns his nose at, fussy boy.

BTW sorry about the state of the tank, like my 38 SW tank...these are still processing through the "ugly algae/diatoms" stage. Hopefully a couple months will have it run it's course. Clean the algae off the glass to have it reappear almost over night.

Poor shwimps,...

I never thought about neocaridina shrimps as food... They are so gracious and playful spirited creatures.

But they multiply and multiply, Selling them or giving them to start new tanks or as food becomes an obligation in a 5 gallons.

When you check for Bacter AE, The same maker has a product called "Shrimp Baby". Sprinkle a little and Even if you have hundreds of shrimps foraging, they all stop at once and everybody start stuffing their mouth. this food is so potent that you can kill them with it.

But in large number they need a lot of food, The bigger they are the more difficult it becomes for them to find food and they simply die if you cant provide... The ideal breeding tank can provide a constant flow of nutrients. And also be able to remove excess digested or not.

Besides that a real good Edible calcium supplement can be used to the point of also maintaining dissolved carbonates in the water.

And never have to do a single water changes... Well... Once you can deal with all that Nitrates building in...