Marine Shrimp-only Tank Project

Most marine shrimp have similar requirements to marine fish. They can be somewhat more sensitive to unstable conditions, and are definitely more sensitive to metals such as copper. Someone will likely say something about a need for iodine in the water, but there is no experimental basis for this as far as I can tell.

The size of the tank depends on the species. A pair of sexy shrimp (Thor amboiensis) will do fine in a 5 gallon nano, or even smaller, as long as you're up to the task of keeping water conditions good in a tank that small. You could have a small group of peppermints (Lysmata wurdemani) or skunk cleaners (Lysmata amboiensis) in a 10 gallon quite comfortably.

They will breed in the tank, but the larvae of the species that are normally found in marine aquaria are planktonic. That means you need to keep them with gentle circulation and heavy feeding for a few months before they settle.

You might have a look at the sticky on setting up a marine tank at the top of the marine newbie forum to get you started with the fundamentals.

There's some general info about the common species at wetwebmedia here

for just shrimp, as long as theres no copper in the water it should be fine. I f you want to keep a reef, do a complete test of the tap water and post it here, somebody should be able to tell you if it's yae or nae for corals or not.

should be fine, although you might have some problems with the nitret, although it doe'snt have to be 0 and 10 should be fine. I say just set it up like this:

• penguin biowheel as main source of filtration, with possibly a protien skimmer down the line (how I started my reef).
• live rock as another source of filtration, you don't need a whole bunch, and you can use any other rock that dose'nt leach toxins into the water.
• lighting of your choice, but a 50/50 (actinic/daylight) lighting combo is best in my opinion.
• put up with algae, and get a lot of natural control for it (this may wreck the shrimp only idea)
• try a tank of at least 20g(about 80L) for water stability, this is something you need to have in any setup but it is more essential with saltwater, anything smaller will need almost daily testing from what I've read.
• have a deep layer of sand for denitrification, once you see the benifits of DSB, you won't want to be without it.
• come on... you gotta have a clownfish! (optional)
• water changes should be done once every month and you should change 25% of the water

you can do under 80L, just it will be more work on your part, also, if you get live rock, you can use aragonite sand as a substrate and life from the live rock will eventually colonize the substrate. I wanted to add this earlier, but had no time. This site has lots of info about reefkeeping and DIYstuff to go with it.