My overgrown 40 gallon.

[ustabefast]

It's a year later now and the tank is less overgrown but the Pearlweed is still massive and the female cherry shrimp are always in the upper layer by the dozens.
I have Green Fire Tetras instead of White Clouds now as my schoolers.

 

[fishorama]

Well, it's different now, lol. But a lot of your light is being blocked by the wad'o'pearlweed (with dying low brown/tan centers).

I'm guessing you have 2 species of crypts, or just 2 areas of different lighting.

I still like the jungle-y look, but it's time for a rescape! Do you have any hardscape in there? I'm a fan of wood &/or rocks, & crypts of all kinds...& some bottom feeders...corys, dwarf loaches or shrimp. Do you have any of those?

 

[ustabefast]

I took this pic at 7:30pm under a 24/7 led light, so it's not a fair comparison, my bad.
The pearlweed does block the light some and the left side crypts (bronze wendtii) are greener because they are often blocked by the floating pearlweed, while the right side crypts are redder as the weed never migrates to that side of the tank.

 

[gyarados19]

Looking good though.

 

[FreshyFresh]

Gregg, it looks great! Sorry if I missed it, but what type of lighting is on this tank? Do the fish pick off the tiniest of shrimp fry? My tanks get over populated with RCS if I don't keep fish in with them that can eat some.

 

[ustabefast]

I'm sure the green fire tetras or cardinal tetras pick off many shrimp fry although I have not witnessed it.
I guess I may have somewhere between 60-100 shrimp in there at any time.
There are always many females hanging out in the pearlweed at all times.

I have a little 5.5 gallon with a huge mass of pearweed and the shrimp in that tank just explode in population. They do share the tank with a few chili rasboras but those fish do not touch shrimp fry . I constantly have to remove some to other tanks.

 

[fishorama]

Oh, I had the same "problem" with maculata rasboras & shrimp in a 10g. They almost looked the same; reddish & similar sized. I often thought the rasboras died out, then I'd see some very thin 1s & work on feeding them better...At least with your tetras they look different, lol. A few small "feeder" shrimp are ok in my tanks...I just last month or so introduced some RCS into my 55g "riverish" tank...but I have never seen them. I'm hoping for their survival but I'm not too worried. I have a colony of black worms in there too, for several years now. If fish eat them, it's not many. It works for me.