25L square aquarium /vivarium etc. need ideas!

TheSetMiner

I have a heater, a filter and all that stuff and have kept some tropical fish in the past but that was years ago.

I am looking to get the tank setup again in some shape or form and would like to hear your ideas. I am open to anything from tarantulas and stick insects to salamanders, frogs or even fish again! So let me know what would you suggest for my setup!

Thanks to anyone who replies!

CruelCoin

Hi,

Not much you can keep in a 25lt tank.

Dwarf Rasbora
Endlers
dario dario (needs live food)
Shrimp.

TheSetMiner

CruelCoin wrote: »

Hi,

Not much you can keep in a 25lt tank.

Dwarf Rasbora
Endlers
dario dario (needs live food)
Shrimp.

Thanks for getting back to me. I realize the tank isn't that big but it'd be nice to do something with it all the same.
I've kept danios in the past with success so I think I'd like to try something new like Shrimp!

I suppose you are referring to Red Cherry Shrimp. Have you any experience with them? Ideally they wouldn't be too hard to care for! I'll look them up now anywho!

Still open to any other suggestions, not necessarily aquatic!
Thanks

CruelCoin

Hi,

I'm keeping shrimp at the moment in a 55lt.

Approx:
100 red cherry
15 rili
10 yellow
5 orange
5 red crystal
2 white

I started with just a few of each, but as you can see, the red cherry have outbred them all!

Easy to keep, no special requirements. Perfect for beginners.

TheSetMiner

CruelCoin wrote: »

Hi,

I'm keeping shrimp at the moment in a 55lt.

Approx:
100 red cherry
15 rili
10 yellow
5 orange
5 red crystal
2 white

I started with just a few of each, but as you can see, the red cherry have outbred them all!

Easy to keep, no special requirements. Perfect for beginners.

Great to hear they are easy to keep. I think I am going to definitely get a few red cherry shrimp! Any ideas where I should get them? I saw someone selling them online claiming they would post them but I am struggling to see how that is in anyway feasable... What is your plan of action when they take over the tank? For a tank my size I guess they might outbreed it rather quickly..

I was also thinking about adding in a couple of snails as they seem even easier to keep and might be kinda cool, provided they don't infest the tank of course!

CruelCoin

TheSetMiner wrote: »

Great to hear they are easy to keep. I think I am going to definitely get a few red cherry shrimp! Any ideas where I should get them? I saw someone selling them online claiming they would post them but I am struggling to see how that is in anyway feasable... What is your plan of action when they take over the tank? For a tank my size I guess they might outbreed it rather quickly..

I was also thinking about adding in a couple of snails as they seem even easier to keep and might be kinda cool, provided they don't infest the tank of course!

Assassin snails if you're going that way. Good scavengers, and can take care of pest snails should you get them.

Plan of action is to sell some back to the shop, and to use the rest as live food for my other tanks.

TheSetMiner

CruelCoin wrote: »

Assassin snails if you're going that way. Good scavengers, and can take care of pest snails should you get them.

Plan of action is to sell some back to the shop, and to use the rest as live food for my other tanks.

Hmm.. sounds good. There is a donegal bloke on ebay selling them and posting them via An Post with apparent success. Might be another option for offloading them for a bit of cash! I reckon I will go with the shrimp, something like 5 or 10 initially and just see how it goes from there.

One question I have is what to feed them. Unfortunately, my tank will be relatively new so there will not be a whole lot of algae in there. Will they be able to feed solely on fish food flakes or should I be looking at blanching a cucumber or something similar?

sebcity

I have a 19l aquarium.
I planted it and added the smallest fish I could find and some shrimp!

I currently have a load of red cherry shrimp and 8 Neon Blue Axelrodi Rasboras, a homemade CO2 kit and the tank is flourishing.

Even though your tank is small, there is still a lot you can do with it!

CruelCoin

TheSetMiner wrote: »

Hmm.. sounds good. There is a donegal bloke on ebay selling them and posting them via An Post with apparent success. Might be another option for offloading them for a bit of cash! I reckon I will go with the shrimp, something like 5 or 10 initially and just see how it goes from there.

One question I have is what to feed them. Unfortunately, my tank will be relatively new so there will not be a whole lot of algae in there. Will they be able to feed solely on fish food flakes or should I be looking at blanching a cucumber or something similar?

As in all things, variety is the spice of life.

Feed blanched veg (courgette, lettuce, green peas), flake, pellets, etc. But if going for pellet or flake, choose foods labelled as being for herbivourous fish such as plecos.
I used to breed live food (brine shrimp) for a dario dario i had. One of the larger shrimp swam up, grabbed one of the brine shrimp and shredded it!
I mean it when i say they'll take anything.

Just pellet is fine for now though, no panic.

Selling them for cash to make a profit is extremely difficult for anything below wholesale mass production. At best you're looking for the sales to cover some of the costs of the hobby.

Some advice: Shrimp prefer slower water flow. Normally you're looking for your filter to filter all the tanks water 4/5 times per hour. e.g: 200lt p/hr for a 40lt tank.
But shrimp have a tiny bioload, so a slower filter with only 1xtank volume per hour is fine, and the shrimp prefer it.
Shrimp prefer subdued lighting. If you really want bright lighting, then provide plants/decor for them to hide in.
DO NOT OVERFEED! Just google "planaria" for an idea of what happens if you overfeed shrimp tanks. For your starting 10 shrimp, i mean it when i say a tiiiiiiny pinch of food per day. They'll graze algae for the rest, and they will never stop grazing....ever! Don't think they're hungry because they're grazing. It's just part of their behaviour.

COYW

I have a 30L at home in which I have 5 XL amano shrimp and 4 red cherry. The tank is four months old but I spend more time cleaning it than my 110L, which has barbs in it. Is this common enough with smaller tanks?

CruelCoin

COYW wrote: »

I have a 30L at home in which I have 5 XL amano shrimp and 4 red cherry. The tank is four months old but I spend more time cleaning it than my 110L, which has barbs in it. Is this common enough with smaller tanks?

Smaller tanks with their smaller water volumes are generally more difficult to manage.

There is an old wisdom: Buy the biggest tank you can afford.....It's not suggested for snooty reasons, but instead for ease of maintenance.

JanneG

COYW wrote: »

I have a 30L at home in which I have 5 XL amano shrimp and 4 red cherry. The tank is four months old but I spend more time cleaning it than my 110L, which has barbs in it. Is this common enough with smaller tanks?

I'd suggest getting a couple of Nerite snails. Minute bio load, but a huge hunger for algae. Quite interesting when you see them eating off the glass as you can even see their little mouth...

I have a 12 litre tank with red cherries and 3 Nerite snails and the only maintenance I do is to replace/top up water every other week.

TheSetMiner

Alright I'm going to do this. Now to get the tank setup again!
Anyone know how long I should be leaving the tank to settle before adding the shrimp? I hear they are relatively well able to adjust to new tanks.

CruelCoin

TheSetMiner wrote: »

Alright I'm going to do this. Now to get the tank setup again!
Anyone know how long I should be leaving the tank to settle before adding the shrimp? I hear they are relatively well able to adjust to new tanks.

Any time you hear "relatively" you should be doing a double take.

Cycle the tank, as you would any other tank.

I'm going to treat you as a newbie, appologies in advance.

Fish/inverts produce ammonia through faeces, etc.
Ammonia is toxic, highly so.
Bacteria in your filter convert this to nitrite (also highly toxic).
Other bacteria in your filter convert nitrite into nitrate. (nitrate is less toxic, as in you can have up to 60ppm(parts per millin) or so before it starts doing damage). Water changes are generally performed to keep nitrate below this 60ppm threshold.

Add food/household ammonia to the tank, untill you see readings of about 2ppm ammonia. keep adding food/ammonia untill you see nitrite rising.
Eventually you want to see 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrate, Xppm nitrate.
At this point (not before) the tank is cycled and good for add livestock.

Failure to cycle usually results in deaths/disease/etc. Cycling can take anywhere between a day to 6 weeks depending how you do it.

Find, read, and follow a cycling guide.

chopper6

Slightly OT but are there snails i can get to help clean algae from the sides of a pond?

CruelCoin

TheSetMiner wrote: »

Thanks for getting back to me. I realize the tank isn't that big but it'd be nice to do something with it all the same.
I've kept danios in the past with success so I think I'd like to try something new like Shrimp!

I suppose you are referring to Red Cherry Shrimp. Have you any experience with them? Ideally they wouldn't be too hard to care for! I'll look them up now anywho!

Still open to any other suggestions, not necessarily aquatic!
Thanks

Hey, sorry but i think you misread daRio as daNio.

Dario male: http://www.seriouslyfish.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/dario-dario-DSC_3764.JPG

These are also known as Scarlet Badis. Need live food, will starve otherwise. Max adult size is 1.5cm, and stunning little things.