Tips & Advice

Before the shrimp enter their new environment at your home, the animals must go through an acclimatisation phase. This is the process of preparing them for changes in water temperature and chemical composition. Unpack the shrimp from the bag and pour them into a clean bowl or bucket with their transport water, making sure no shrimp remain on the walls of the bag.

Then use our Acclimatisation Kit or another drip device. Slowly pour water from the aquarium into the container with the shrimp. The entire process should take at least one hour, but preferably 2–3 hours. The amount of water added from the aquarium should be roughly equal to the amount of transport water. If you are sure that the parameters in my breeding facility are similar to those in your aquarium, the process can be shortened.

NOTE! If the water temperature in the bag is significantly different from your aquarium, wait a while before starting the acclimatisation.

There are many products on the market intended for shrimp. All of these will serve as a good basic food. My shrimp enjoy Komplett — small pellets that don't break apart too quickly in the water, and the pellet size allows many shrimp to eat at the same time. Feed in small doses every day so that the shrimp finish it within one hour max. If food remains after that, skip feeding the following day.

I also recommend varying our shrimp's diet with unprocessed/organic natural foods, such as nettle leaves, green peas, oak leaves, Catappa leaves, mulberry, broccoli, or alder cones, etc. Shrimp will also eat regular aquarium fish food.

The water in the aquarium must be biologically mature before introducing the animals. The maturing process can be described as the aquarium building a small ecosystem. Maintaining biological balance is a fundamental prerequisite for keeping living creatures in good condition. The newly set up tank has poor bacterial flora to regulate ammonia levels — we should wait about 3–4 weeks. During this time nitrifying bacteria multiply in sufficient quantities to convert harmful ammonia (mainly from waste from living organisms and dead plant matter) into nitrites and then nitrates available to plants.

We can use a few tricks to speed up the process: add bacteria or media to accelerate their reproduction in the form of ready-made preparations. I personally use Stability from Seachem, which works really well. You can also use an old filter from another tank and water from that tank (provided it is free from pests and diseases).

If you want to keep shrimp from the Caridina family, I suggest using an RO filter or buying ready-made osmosis water at a nearby pet store. You then add mineralising preparations (e.g. Salty Shrimp GH+) to the RO water along with the previously mentioned bacteria preparations.

Does this sound complicated? It only seems that way — it's all about routine. If you have questions I'm happy to answer them and guide you on our Facebook page!

Aquarium shrimp are animals that thrive in groups, so we can keep a larger number in a small aquarium. A tank of at least 20 litres will be suitable to start with. Before buying live animals we should provide them with the right conditions for a proper existence.

Depending on which species of shrimp we want to keep, we need to choose the right substrate. Caridina and Paracaridina shrimp do best on an active substrate/soil (e.g. Environment Soil) — I use that soil in all my Caridina tanks. Neocaridina and Babaulti, on the other hand, do not need soil and prefer quartz gravel that does not react with the water. However, these shrimp are easier to acclimatise to different environments and water parameters.