24 Gallon rimless - Shrimp Tank Build Thread - Pics added (Heavily)

Well, I found this and convinced the wife!

Funny enough, after we got it we stopped by Aquarium Coop (her first time there, my second) and she fell in love with a rectangular shallow rimless tank there, so, that's probably the next thing we'll get.. I was thinking that tank could be a great intro to C02 and I could learn a lot for how to add to my other tanks.


Anyway, picked up a Ray II, some plants, and sand at Aquarium Coop. Then grabbed some Floramax substrate at Petsmart and headed home. Heater, Sponge filter, air pump, and thermometer are on the way.

Water leak test in the bathroom, didn't want to test it out right next to my TV in the living room..
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All setup and ready to add to it
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Plans on this are a heavily planted tank with shrimp, some Corys, and a small school of Galaxy Rasboras/Celestial Pearl Danios or possibly something else that stays really small. I want to keep the tank fairly low-tech, clean and simple. I do plan on putting a piece or two of Manzanita Driftwood and a moss bed down.

Any opinions, thoughts, suggestions are welcome! I'm a total shrimp newbie, and have been reading as much as I can about them..

I just picked up my 1st little shrimps also a couple of weeks ago so I'm just learning about them also.

I'm excited to see your project unfold. I believe there are number of great shrimpers on this site so I'm sure lots of input will come your way. Keep us posted and keep the pics coming. Great start with that tank so far...love the size and the light looks awesome.

cichlid-gal wrote:I just picked up my 1st little shrimps also a couple of weeks ago so I'm just learning about them also.  

I'm excited to see your project unfold.  I believe there are number of great shrimpers on this site so I'm sure lots of input will come your way.  Keep us posted and keep the pics coming.  Great start with that tank so far...love the size and the light looks awesome.

Thank you!! I'm super excited about the shrimp. It's going to be a neat little tank!! Love your setups, i've been following all your threads haha.

Very nice poffman, love the rimless look. I only have good things to say about Finnex. I've spent the last few months converting all my tanks to Finnex LED fixtures. These fixtures are super bright, if you run into algae issues you may have to get some floating plants to block some light until the plants in the tank mature and can absorb all the light nutrients.

Keep us updated

fishNAbowl wrote:Very nice poffman, love the rimless look. I only have good things to say about Finnex. I've spent the last few months converting all my tanks to Finnex LED fixtures. These fixtures are super bright, if you run into algae issues you may have to get some floating plants to block some light until the plants in the tank mature and can absorb all the light nutrients.

Keep us updated

Good to know! I'll keep this thread updated with progress!

I love these cubes so much, keep the pictures coming! I'm a little torn on using sponge filters on it though... with all that surface area, evaporation is crazy! Without a sponge filter, I have to replace about a half gallon of water a week at 74F. With a sponge filter bubbling, I was replacing 2 gallons of water a week at 73F!!! Mileage may vary of course, My house gets to stay fairly dry which may be making it worse.

MRTom wrote:I love these cubes so much, keep the pictures coming! I'm a little torn on using sponge filters on it though... with all that surface area, evaporation is crazy! Without a sponge filter, I have to replace about a half gallon of water a week at 74F. With a sponge filter bubbling, I was replacing 2 gallons of water a week at 73F!!! Mileage may vary of course, My house gets to stay fairly dry which may be making it worse.

All of my tanks lose a TON of water, my house has oil heat and is really really really well insulated, so I'm used to adding water to everything... I have a big bowl I prime water in then top off the tanks.. I'll definitely make some observations and report back about that with the rimless open design i'm sure i'll lose even more!

Picked up a ton of shrimp yesterday from Binbin9 - wow, they are just so cool. We chatted for a while and I picked up some plants from him too, there's about 70 shrimp in the tank, mainly fire red's but some blue pearls and blue bees..! A few large pregnant females and lots of teeny tiny babies.. Going to Aquascape a little differently and experiment with different sponge filter placement.. Comments/Suggestions are encouraged!

If anyone is interested in seeing a particular picture in a larger size I do have bigger ones.. I scaled these down.

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Your tank is looking great!

In your place I would pull the blue pearls out, however. They can hybridize with the Taiwan Reds / RCS and end up giving you less-than-attractively-colored shrimp.

pbmax wrote:Your tank is looking great!

In your place I would pull the blue pearls out, however.  They can hybridize with the Taiwan Reds / RCS and end up giving you less-than-attractively-colored shrimp.

Interesting, I'll have to read some more about this! They are Fire Red, Blue Bees, and Blue pearls.. no RCS in there

Thanks for the heads up!

RCS and taiwan reds are the same species - Neocaridina Heteropoda.

Blue pearls are Neocaridina Palmata / cf. zhangjiajiensis (depending on who you talk to) and have been known to hybridize with N. Heteropoda.

The blue bees are fine.  Some folks say they'll hybridize with caridina cantonensis (CRS / CBS), but I haven't read anything definitive about that.

pbmax wrote:RCS and taiwan reds are the same species - Neocaridina Heteropoda.

Blue pearls are Neocaridina Palmata / cf. zhangjiajiensis (depending on who you talk to) and have been known to hybridize with N. Heteropoda.

The blue bees are fine.  Some folks say they'll hybridize with caridina cantonensis (CRS / CBS), but I haven't read anything definitive about that.

Thanks for the info!! I'll probably get another small rimless (I know.. i'm addicted..) and move the blues over in the next few weeks.. Tax return does come in tomorrow    

New tanks are a lot of fun! Especially shrimp tanks.

pbmax wrote:New tanks are a lot of fun!  Especially shrimp tanks.

The shrimp are certainly super entertaining to watch.. We have a community 60 gallon with Glofish, Rasboras, Green Tiger Barbs, 3 plecos, about 10 cories.. then Betta tank with neon green rasboras and lampeyes, and now the shrimp tank.. I think a small blue shrimp tank would be cool too hahaha.. it could go right next to the Betta tank!! Man, we're out of control. I love it.

Ooooooooooooh, shrimpies!! Very cool, poffman!! I can't wait to see progression pictures of the plants filling in!

Love the look of the tank!

I never meant to keep shrimp, but a couple hitched a ride into my pleco tank on some plants I bought and exploded in population. They are definitely fun to watch scurrying around the tank, getting into everything.

We've been having a great time with them.. They're fun to watch for extended periods of time haha. My daugther likes to talk to them. Berried Blue Bee shot from last night:

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Betty wrote:Love the look of the tank!

I never meant to keep shrimp, but a couple hitched a ride into my pleco tank on some plants I bought and exploded in population.  They are definitely fun to watch scurrying around the tank, getting into everything.

Thank you!!! I'll keep posting pics you're lucky!!!

New pics They were having a little shrimp meeting last night hahaha, they were all surrounding "Hercules" the one we moved from our Betta tank. This morning business as usual

I had some green water for a bit, I think it's from some moss I got. Dialed the light back and it's all clear now.

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 - I really like the pictures of the berried shrimp above. Looking good!