Help! building a 2.5gal aquarium

[somedudewithatank]

Hello, I am new to the forum because I would like to build a shrimp or snail aquarium.
I have supplies from the past that I hope to reuse, a 2.5 gallon tank, a filter, and a heater. Because the tank is so small I don’t think I could house fish in good conscious, so I like the idea of shrimp or snails. I found this link on shrimp helpful, but I don’t know if it applies to the supplies I have.
Because of my lifestyle, there are often 1-week periods I am gone so the little dude would need to be able to feed of off bacteria in the tank or I can buy a self-feeder.
TL;DR I am looking for help with what type of shrimp/snail will live well with the supplies/lifestyle I have.

 

[Mudminnow]

My younger brother has a 10 gallon with cherry shrimp and Malaysian trumpet snails. He rarely ever feeds that tank--like once a month. He has a bright light on there so algae and some plants grow. There must be 200+ shrimp in his tank, and it's been running this way for close to 2 years I believe.

Oh, welcome to Fishlore by the way.

 

[jpaquatics]

For shrimp I would recommend a group of 5 neocaridina shrimp and they would reproduce slowly. They also come in many different colors. However make sure your tank has been established for several months before adding them so that there plenty of biofilm for them. Also make sure you have completed your cycle. I would either recommend Ramshorn or Malaysian trumpet snails. However ramshorns breed quickly and may overpopulate if fed too much. I have two different auto feeders on two of my tanks. One is “warmtone” brand and is my favorite but I believe it’s been discontinued. I also have this feeder (https://www.amazon.com/Automatic-PR...d_rd_i=B0752G6TF4&psc=1&ref_=pd_bap_m_rp_1_sc) which also seems to work great. If they feed too much food you can modify the output with a piece of duct tape to control the amount.

 

[Flyfisha]

Hey a 2.5 gallon cherry shrimp tank is doable but it is possibly harder than a 5 gallon cherry shrimp tank?
The tank will need to have a colony of bacteria.
The tank will need a working nitrogen cycle.
Or to put it another way the tank will need to be cycled.

Building the colonies of bacteria in any tank is an important job that needs to be done before shrimp can be added.

 

[somedudewithatank]

My younger brother has a 10 gallon with cherry shrimp and Malaysian trumpet snails. He rarely ever feeds that tank--like once a month. He has a bright light on there so algae and some plants grow. There must be 200+ shrimp in his tank, and it's been running this way for close to 2 years I believe.

Oh, welcome to Fishlore by the way.

This is great advice, thank you! Since I am not interested in having a colony, would having one red cherry shrimp and one malaysian trumpet snail work? Or is that not smart?
I like the idea of live plants, I might invest in some water plants and a grow light.

 

[Jojo205]

This is great advice, thank you! Since I am not interested in having a colony, would having one of each work? Or is that not smart?
I like the idea of live plants, I might invest in some water plants and a grow light.

One of each what? If you’re getting one of each color of neocaridina (hopefully i spelled that right) shrimp they’ll just breed together and make brown.
I think shrimp have a fairly short life span- so if you don’t get shrimp to build up a small colony (a colony is just a group of shrimp- it doesn’t necessarily mean hundreds of shrimp) they’ll just die off.

Also, real plants are a must for shrimp, they graze off the biofilm and algae that grows on it as well as some decaying plant matter. If you feed the shrimp algae wafers and shrimp food they’ll survive without plants, but they definitely won’t thrive.

 

[somedudewithatank]

One of each what? If you’re getting one of each color of neocaridina (hopefully i spelled that right) shrimp they’ll just breed together and make brown.
I think shrimp have a fairly short life span- so if you don’t get shrimp to build up a small colony (a colony is just a group of shrimp- it doesn’t necessarily mean hundreds of shrimp) they’ll just die off.

Also, real plants are a must for shrimp, they graze off the biofilm and algae that grows on it as well as some decaying plant matter. If you feed the shrimp algae wafers and shrimp food they’ll survive without plants, but they definitely won’t thrive.

Okay that makes sense referring to the colony. I was thinking one red cherry shrimp (neocaridina) and one Malaysian trumpet snail, but I will get more I think. My worry is that they will over populate and I will have too many, but I am sure I can manage.
And yes after further research I will definitely have plants. I think those and algae wafers together will help them. I may also upgrade to a 5 gallon tank.

 

[Jojo205]

Okay that makes sense referring to the colony. I was thinking one red cherry shrimp (neocaridina) and one Malaysian trumpet snail, but I will get more I think. My worry is that they will over populate and I will have too many, but I am sure I can manage.
And yes after further research I will definitely have plants. I think those and algae wafers together will help them. I may also upgrade to a 5 gallon tank.

A single cherry shrimp has almost no bioload, same with the MTS, so the cycle will likely be very unstable. Youll likely never see either of them in the tank. That is, until the mts starts reproducing, when your tank will be overrun with them lol (they reproduce asexually). Cherry shrimp breed prolifically too if their conditions are right- but you do definitely need more than one. Your tank wont over populate too quickly, it would take several months. If they breed a LOT, you can sell excess shrimp to your lfs or on the BSTF forum here and make a small profit

Just fyi, shrimp need a well established tank (3+ months old AFTER it cycles, so closer to 5+ months) in order to have biofilm to eat. Also check your water’s hardness and ph and adjust it accordingly to suit the shrimp. I noticed your aquarium details say you don’t know the Nitrogen Cycle, so I would definitely read up on that before getting ANY fish or invert for your tank. Here’s the link to a great article on the cycle and how to do it: Aquarium Nitrogen Cycle

Hope this helps!

 

[Sofiafish17]

With such a small tank you could probably buy a used bacteria seeded filter and plants that were in a tank with fish to jump start the cycle and biofilm growth. This will take your time down from 5+ months to possible even just 1. Neocaridina shrimp aren’t exactly social, but I don’t think one would be happy living by itself.
BTW the highlighted words turn into links to articles in this website about that thing. So words like cycle , or shrimp tank , or Malaysian trumpet snails will take you to info about them if you click on the word

EDIT** I have no idea why the links aren’t showing up for the words I mentioned but the blue underlined ones are linked. They can be seen in other peoples posts.

 

[somedudewithatank]

A single cherry shrimp has almost no bioload, same with the MTS, so the cycle will likely be very unstable. Youll likely never see either of them in the tank. That is, until the mts starts reproducing, when your tank will be overrun with them lol (they reproduce asexually). Cherry shrimp breed prolifically too if their conditions are right- but you do definitely need more than one. Your tank wont over populate too quickly, it would take several months. If they breed a LOT, you can sell excess shrimp to your lfs or on the BSTF forum here and make a small profit

Just fyi, shrimp need a well established tank (3+ months old AFTER it cycles, so closer to 5+ months) in order to have biofilm to eat. Also check your water’s hardness and ph and adjust it accordingly to suit the shrimp. I noticed your aquarium details say you don’t know the Nitrogen Cycle, so I would definitely read up on that before getting ANY fish or invert for your tank. Here’s the link to a great article on the cycle and how to do it: Aquarium Nitrogen Cycle

Hope this helps!

Everything you’ve been saying is super helpful! I decided on upgrading to a 10 gallon tank and I’ve done some more research on cycling. I will make sure to set it up for SEVERAL months before introducing the shrimp (and maybe MTS).
I am setting up the tank today, and will be visiting my local fish specific store to get the proper substrate, plants, and testing kit (among other things). Thank you for the help kind stranger!

 

[Sofiafish17]

If you go with a 10 gallon shrimp and snail tank you can also add some small fish! This will also prevent you from having to manually add ammonia every day to keep the cycle going before it is established enough to add shrimp. About your feeding and being away, they make automatic feeders that dispense a set amount of food eat day. You can just mix the ratio of fish food types you want and it will feed the fish for you. PLEASE don’t use those vacation feeding blocks. They don’t help, the fish eat as much as they can when it releases and overeat, and it also just adds more ammonia to the tank. Ammonia is food for the beneficial bacteria but is deadly to fish. Fish suggestions for a tank that small are pretty limited, but there are still some. You won’t really want any other algae or detritus eaters in the tank because that would be too much competition for the same food, so that rules out types of cories, Oto cats, and khuli loaches. A betta would be great in that size but they may eat the shrimp babies depending on the personality of the individual fish. That can be bad if you are looking for the shrimp to multiply, but good if you want to get a few shrimp and not have many more. You need live plants which also give them a place to hide so the betta won’t eat all the babies. You should also feed a little less pellets and frozen food if your betta is eating the shrimp babies. If you don’t like the betta idea, a school of some smaller type of tetra would be great. Neon tetras are super hardy fish and they move a lot and are very fun to watch. Other kinds of tetras for that tank are ruby tetras, ember tetras, or green neon tetras. I hope this helps!

 

[Jojo205]

If you get a more gentle betta it may still eat shrimp babies BUT it'll help keep the shrimp population under control! Just make sure there are plenty of hiding spots for the adult shrimp and so thta a few baby shrimp can survive

 

[Sofiafish17]

Yes, and there isn’t really a way of telling which betta would eat shrimp before you buy them, usually their personality in the store is different than what they really are because they are all amped up and stresse, or tired from people tapping the cup all day etc.