How long until I can add some shrimp?

Hey guys.

I have a 5 gallon tank dedicated to cherry shrimp / maybe snails that is currently being cycled. I had a filter that came with the tank, but ended up replacing it with a box filter this morning. I put in filter media from my already cycled tank into the new tank 3-4 days ago. I tested the water and these were the results.

Ph: 7.6
Ammonia NH3: 0.25
Nitrite NO2: 0
Low Range Nitrate NO3: “Trace” ??

I also added Fritz-Zyme Turbo Start 700 to the tank after testing the water.

How long should I wait to get the shrimp (maybe cherry shrimp)? And I know it’s a small tank so it will be harder to keep the numbers consistent, so how would I do that?

 

I have some bad news for you. Cherries are biofilm grazers so you need to let your tank mature for 3 months before you can add them. You "can" add them sooner but 3 months is the benchmark to protect against losses. The minimum would be 1 month in my humble opinion

 

Shrimp needs plants- real ones that are well established and have bio-film growing on them. They are also very sensitive to nitrates so the tank needs to be very well cycled. I personally recommend a tank being set up for months, but maybe someone on here has more experience with shrimp only tanks. I have only worked with adding shrimp to established tanks that already have fish.

 

I have some bad news for you. Cherries are biofilm grazers so you need to let your tank mature for 3 months before you can add them. You "can" add them sooner but 3 months is the benchmark to protect against losses. The minimum would be 1 month in my humble opinion

Oh nooo, all of a sudden I don’t mind the normal cycling time Thank you for your reply!

Shrimp needs plants- real ones that are well established and have bio-film growing on them. They are also very sensitive to nitrates so the tank needs to be very well cycled. I personally recommend a tank being set up for months, but maybe someone on here has more experience with shrimp only tanks. I have only worked with adding shrimp to established tanks that already have fish.

I have a few plants in my tank! If I would add some plants from my establish tank (I’ve had it for 5 months) would that help with the biofilm situation?

 

That will help enormously