making a shrimp reef tank!

Swanwillow

Swanwillow

goby girl
Okay, so as the title says, I'm making a shrimp reef tank. What it more or less amounts to is shrimp, zoanthids, different LPS, an anemone, LR, and the smallest gobies.

So, I need ideas and web sites. Ideas on whats compatible, and sites I can order said shrimp from.

The list I have so far 75 gallon tank, 20 gallon ref/sump-have yet to get a skimmer, looking at an octopus (skimmer, not the cephelopod-although that would be cool too!), or just getting cheato going real good maybe since its kinda low bioload for a 75 gallon tank..

sorry, I'm a rambler.

I'll start with fish; if you know of some really neat little gobies, post and site please! These are from liveaquaria and themarinecenter I'll have a wait for them to come instock...

4 clown gobies. 2 green, 2 probably yellow
4 trimma gobies (possibly cana)
if I can find a pair of nematodes.. count me in. Otherwise, just a single shrimp type goby.
MAYBE 2 firefish-depends on if they'd eat my shrimp.
Thats about enough fish. Gobies only, although I think I'll miss a free-swimming fish, so firefish would be ideal if they won't eat the small tiny shrimp.

SHRIMP LIST

The part you've all been waiting for, right?

sexy shrimp. DEFINITELY 3 of them.
Harlequin-pair, I'll have to set up a starfish tank too, and cut out arms for them. Ick, but COOL
fire shrimp

I need more ideas for shrimp. I even thought that a small mantis 'shrimp' would look fun in the mix, but he'd probably eat something I don't want him to.
Any ideas? suggestions?
 
oh, I should list-shrimp I've already thought of and crossed off the list-

Saron shrimp-predatory and nocturnal.
Camel shrimp-predatory and nasty
coral banded shrimp-something tells me they'd eat other shrimp too



bumblebee shrimp-harlequin shrimp and these may compete when I drop in legs. I worry about that.
same with an anemone shrimp-compete with sexy shrimp?

Oh, I forgot-a candy stripped pistol shrimp
and lava shrimp from Hawaii would be fun too. Opaeula sp.
 
You'd have a ton of trouble finding opae ula (scientific name Halocaridina rubra BTW). They are near impossible to get at decent prices and only one place I've found sells them (some places sell them in kits too) and that is oceanriders.

What about cleaner and pep shrimps?

I don't think there'd be a problem with anenome shrimp and sexy shrimp.

Any mantis you get will most likely chow down on any shrimp they can find (shrimp are a favorite diet of mantises). You may be able to find a mantis so lazy from being fed frozen food that it won't even look at shrimp, but thats really a time bomb waiting to happen. Mantises are best kept in a small species tank (many are small enough to be kept in 10 gallons and are corals safe BTW)

SW ghost shrimp might be a good idea. They are good cleaners and algae eaters.

Dan
 
the mantis comment was an -I wish, but no-

Yes, the Opaeula are WAY overpriced, but I'd do it to have a few in the tank, and I think I may beable to find people that have dedicated tanks to them. If I have to buy one of those silly eco-spheres for a few shrimp, so be it.

I'm going for odd out of the ordinary shrimp. Cleaners and peps don't 'do it' for me ;)
 
From my experience with my 24 nano...the green gobies can be bullies. I had green, yellow, and black gobies in together and the green ones had attitude. They would periodically chase and harass the smaller guys around the tank. I doubt you'd have any trouble in a tank that big, but I'm just letting you know what I've seen...

Other cool gobies to look into are Hector's, Rainfords, and some of the cool shrimp gobies. I have a Yashia White Ray with a Tiger pistol in the above mentioned nano and there are no issues with the sexy shrimp or the bully green goby. I highly recommend the pairing of the shrimp and gobies - they are super cool to watch. However, keep corals off the sand. Mine are constantly disappearing as the shrimp decides he needs a new tunnel blocker.

A cool place to check out gobies (and shrimp for the matter) is www.saltwaterfish.com. They don't always have stuff in stock, but put it on your wishlist. When you get the email that they have the critters in, it's like Christmas!
 
the goby/shrimp pair is the candy stripped pistol shrimp with the nematodes.. I like the more delicate look of that species. Although I REALLY want one of those orange fire looking ones! I'm hoping that the way I set up my rocks will help keep the sand away from the LPS on the sandbed-I'm hoping that blocking off 1.5-1.8 feet of the tank and building a barrier-the 1.5 part a DSB, around 4 inches, the barrier being aroun 6 inches, and the other side a shallow sand bed. The barrier created using foam, epoxy, LR, and eggcrate. It'll also be part of the base for my rock pillar using LR and something for a pillar-either PVC or rods, maybe even zip-ties and eggcrate.

I had a green clown goby live through, well, believe it or not, but a mantis tank, then a dwarf lionfish tank, then my 55 reef tank, then the death of my tank last time I had one running. Long time ago, I liked the bugger. I'm up for different types of gobies, thats why I'm asking!

I was thinking of a hector's, but am afraid that it would dine upon the smaller shrimp-some of them don't reach a half inch at maturity, like the red lava shrimp, and the anemone shrimp.
 
The bumble bee and harlequin wont bother each other, the bumble bee is tiny compared, and even though the books say they eat starfish feet, I've never seen them with stars. I have seen many, and kept them, I live in S. FL where they are common. Mine only come out at night and the biggest female I've seen is 1/2 inch, I feed them bits of frozen mysis and other small dried foods.

I also keep harlequins, and collected them as well, the problem I see with your (and others) feeding only 1 leg at a time is that mine eat a full star every 7-10 days and even though thay can live (and many people have great success with this amount of food) in tanks with much less, in the wild I've never seen them without a star. IMO having food more often is more natural then a leg a week or a star a month. Also for most stars to regrow the leg takes a lot of food and good conditions to keep the star from getting an infection and dying.

I keep these shrimp with a pair of ghost shrimp, Stenopus pyrsonatus and the atlantic scarlet cleaner, Lysmata garbhami, as well as some sexy shrimp with no problems. As you can see, I like shrimp also, they are one of my favorite aquarium animals so good luck I hope this helped.
 
Since your planning on an anemone in the tank I'd suggest an anemone shrimp. They're tiny but cool. I have one but no anemone so it lives in one of my xenias.
 
Just for information here is what I found on a site that sells Halocaridina rubra. Obviously, they aren't for a standard SW reef tank.

"These shrimp are endemic to Hawaii where they inhabit underground lava tubes where rain water mixes with the ocean water into open anchailne ponds creating a very unique environmnet with low sailinity (16 ppt) and varying temperatures (65F to 75F). Here they feed at night on the bacteria and fungus that grows on the lava walls and rock crevices that are exposed to light during the day.


Ocean Rider aquafarms these shrimp in our own anchialine pond. At home you can house up to 100 shrimp in 5 gallon tank with a sponge filter, very little light, gravel substrate, and sea lettuce for habitat. You can feed them small amounts of Shrimpgro, being careful not to overfeed. Or you can cultivate your own fungus and bacteria on the tank walls and floor for them to graze on. Be sure you use a hydrometer to check the specific gravity which should be 1.0114. Water temperature can range from 60F â€"œ 75F, Ammonia and Nitrites must be kept at 0, Nitrates should be less then 10ppm PH 8.2 â€"œ 8.4"
 
H. rubra can live from fresh to full strength saltwater (and above) for their full 20+ year life span, but they will only breed in brackish water. Just clarifying for anyone who is wondering.

Dan
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11558817#post11558817 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by chrisstie
Aren't they the shrimp in the ecospheres?
Click to expand...

Yes, but the ecospheres are rather cruel. check This out for info. Maybe we should get back on topic....

Dan
 
its still on topic-its about shrimp! LOL.

See, I am VERY far away from a beach. I was told that they can do a star leg every 2 days-not once a week in any way shape or form. I figured with 6 or more stars going in a dedicated tank, I might beable to keep up with them in rotation. If I can find a cheap dealer of starfish, I wouldn't be opposed to getting many and feeding out a starfish when they kill one. I'm also a bit worried about a starfish dieing while they are only halfway though it, and it rotting out in the tank.

How long are your bumblebee's living without starfish? I wonder if we're looking at the same types?
 
I have bumble bee shrimp for more then a year, don't know the life span, but they seem to be doing well. As far as I know the species (Gnathophyllum amaricanum) lives circumtropical so it's the same no matter where they came from, but others may know different. There are more then one sp in the genus as well, at least 2 in HI, G. americanum and G. precipuum, and maybe others in indo pacific. As I've said, I've never seen them with echinoderms, (but this does not mean they don't eat them) and I feed mine all sorts of frozen and dried foods.
 
If your getting small shrimp like sexy, anemone and peppermint shirmp, a pistol shrimp will probably eat those, not to mention the noise that they make. I also heard they can burrow alot, making rock structures collapse.
 
The coral banded shrimp would probably go after the other shrimp, but there are a couple of related species that are much smaller. One is the golden coral banded shrimp, and the other is a blue bodied coral banded shrimp (Stenopus tenuirostris).

Both of these are somewhat uncommon, but I do see them occassional in the LFSs (the golden one more often).

I have the blue one, along with a harlequin shrimp and an anemone shrimp, and have no problems.
 
I don't see why a pistol would eat the smaller shrimp-the sexy would probably stay in the rocks with whatever they are hosting in/on, I'd worry a bit about the harlies and the bumblebee types,

Peps and coral bandeds are NOT on the list.
 
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