10 gallon Sexy Shrimp "reef"

[andrewkw]

I haven't started a thread on nano reef in many years. First started with a 15g nano in 2005 here, also had a 2 gallon pico for 6 or 7 years and I kept sexy shrimp in there for some time. It was TOTM  way back in april 2011

Fast forward to today and I once again have sexy shrimp. A couple of weeks ago I purchased 11 and as of the other day I counted 11 so they are all still alive. I've setup a 10g tank for them and hope to try and raise some babies in the near future. After many years of living close to many great reef shops and weekly or bi weekly shopping trips, a year and a half ago I moved out to a rural area with no reef shops. I've found it boring for a number of reasons including the no reef shops so instead of looking for an ultra low maintenance project, I looked for something that was MORE labor intensive. I actually have lyretail damsels in my 112 gallon mixed reef that spawn regularly but catching them + getting rotifers shipped to me was not appealing, so I got some sexy shrimp shipped to me. Shipping here is mostly a disaster due to the remoteness, and very few places in Canada want to ship Air Canada cargo. Airport to airport is far safer than courier. Regardless I got these guys without incident.

Standard 10 gallon, one Korilia powerhead at 425gph, one red sea pico filter with a tablespoon or so of carbon. Half an inch of sugar sized sand, rinsed and clean less one cup seeded from my 90 gallon fowlr. Approximately 3lbs of liverock. This is not even a guestimate just a guess. I took 3 pieces from my frag tank and stuck them in. Minimalist look for once for me, but I may add more rock at a later time. This was actually acid washed live rock that has only been "live" about 4 months, but the glass is already covered in copepods and there are feather dusters growing on the back (tank has been setup exactly 14 days). In the few pieces of rock there were stomatellas, asterina starfish and more.

 

I just got a micmol aqua 300. Mostly because it was cheap and low profile. I currently have the tank on a shelf but it's not exactly level so eventually I'll move it over to a 2x4 stand or something similar and the low profile won't be as much of a concern. I never realized how much of a pain it is to have stuff above a tank. I see fresh water people with these racking systems all the time and after just one tank on a shelf I am rethinking how I want to arrange things.

 

Getting back to the light, it looks really good as far as appearance. It has lots of blue, a couple of uv and is advertised as full spectrum. It's only 24w so it remains to be seen if it can grow coral. I am likely to either do all mini carpet anemones, or all mini rock flowers. I've also thought about mixing them. In my 112 gallon I have 2 mini carpets and one rock flower but I suspect in a small tank this will be more problematic. Since I am in an isolated location I will probably have to get them all in one shot. I *may* add some corals in the mean time to test the light and liven up the tank.

 

11 sexy shrimp hardly seems enough, sometimes only 2 or 3 are visible, but usually there are at least 6-8 out. I feed them .5mm and 1mm pellets both they seem to take readily. Since they have no predators and the current on the sand strong enough to move the food on the sand this seems to work fine.

Here are the first pics :

 

 

 

Once I start seeing eggs I will start brine ship hatcheries and setup another tank for the babies ect.

[StephLionfish]

I adore your TOTM! I could say so much about it. Can't wait to see this one progress! 

[Cybernetic_Sasquatch]

Just curious, where might you be planning to get your rock flower anemones (if you are going to)?

[andrewkw]

On 2/22/2018 at 9:27 PM, Cybernetic_Sasquatch said:

Just curious, where might you be planning to get your rock flower anemones (if you are going to)?

Since I have no lfs I will have to get them on a trip or perhaps have them shipped when the weather warms up. Shipping here is problematic due to the lack of a major hub. This also means I probably have to get them all at once.

 

Probably going to add a test coral or 2 into the tank. The sexy shrimp may eat them but that's just another food source for them since I'll just add something that is overgrown in my other tanks. In my experience they are not 100% reef safe but as long as you are not keeping them in a pico with single polyps of corals they don't really do enough damage to be of any real concern. That being said I've never had more then 3 in the past.

[NanoRox]

love it.  I have 4 sexy shrimp in my mixed reef nano.  Love those guys...although they have limited  my fish options that is the price you pay I guess with sexies. 

[andrewkw]

Tank is doing really well considering how new it is. Live rock has really coloured up. This was of course live rock before I added it, it just wasn't under any direct light. Copepod population is exploding. The shrimp of course are doing well too. They seem more active now that there are corals in the tank. I did have a minor issue as 2 got sucked into the hob filter. They were both fine and all 11 are still doing well. I removed the filter since it was only running a couple spoonfuls of carbon anyway.

 

The corals added are just corals I had in my frag tank. Remember where I live now there is no lfs so it's either take from there or wait. I am taking a couple of trips later this month so I do hope to pick up at least a few flower anemones. The toadstool is the only coral that hasn't opened up. I believe it's starting to shed so it may take a while. I put a kenya tree frag in mainly because I have about 50 frags of it. It just grows like crazy in my main display. The blue sponge I've had for years but it never really grows much. It has encrusted to the rock (I did glue it too) so hopefully that's a good sign. Below are some new pics.

 

 

Additionally here is a video of the tank as of now. I've always shot occasional videos but they were just videos no talking ect. I started actually making youtube videos this year and will document this tank in both photo and video form.

 

 

[pj86]

@andrewkw Great to see you back, I remember your reef back in 2011. Time goes by so quickly. Will follow along.

[andrewkw]

13 hours ago, pj86 said:

@andrewkw Great to see you back, I remember your reef back in 2011. Time goes by so quickly. Will follow along.

Thanks Paul, your own pico was very inspiring to me. I actually just went back to some of my even older posts from 2005. Silly things like me asking how long corals live, and starting the initial fill of my 15 gallon nano reef with tap water. Unfortunately I used photobucket back then so now most of the images are broke like so many great build threads over the years.

I was looking at some of my old posts and saw this from that 15 gallon nano

 

"12/29/05

Purchased 16+ lbs of Haiti live rock

total $92.00"

 

It's been a long long time since I've seen Haitian lettuce rock and not just because I live out in the country these days...

[pj86]

So true. The hobby is changing quite quickly. I'm trying to focus on species specifics, being able to self-sustain. I really like how your tank is going to be species-specific. Can't wait to see what you do with it.

[andrewkw]

Here's the nano today. I added a couple of flower anemones. After floating around for a night they both find nice spots. I was originally planning on buying more but found too much other stuff to buy in a rare fish shopping trip. Unfortunately the weekly trips to the lfs are over for now for me and I only have the opportunity to buy fish and coral a few times a year.

 

 

The only issue with the tank is the toadstool only opens once a week. All the other corals are doing well and this random micmol led light does seem capable of supporting corals at least softies anyway.

I mentioned I had originally planned on getting more flower anemones, I did of course find some real nice pieces for my other tanks, but I also found a fish I have wanted for many years. This yellow scopas tang! While he currently is in a 10g (qt) tank he will not be going in with the sexies. He's destined to be my centerpiece fish in my main reef. The funny thing is in the past when I've seen them my wife was very opposed to me spending $200 for a fish that looks like a $30 fish. Now with everything going on in Hawaii the price of yellow tangs has risen making these guys more comparable to the common fish they resemble. That being said this one is not a very bright yellow and his fins look orange. You can tell right away he's a scopas. Sorry to get OT but this is my own thread. I will shoot another video of the tank soon, and hopefully soon I will start to see some egg carrying. I did just recently do a head count and can confirm all 11 sexy shrimp are still alive and well.

 

 

 

[Playapixie]

I love it.  I adore the sexies.  I’ve always stocked my 34 gallon around what won’t eat them.  I like them in big groups (5 is great,) and they mostly hang out in my mini-maxi anemone garden (though sometimes they explore, and sometimes it looks like they’re having a party everywhere.). It would be way easier to stock my tank (it’s big enough to hold some more interesting fish) but I won’t buy sexy shrimp eaters.  Good luck with this.  Keep us posted.  :-)

[ajmckay]

Nice tank!  I like the idea of a bunch of sexy shrimp in a 10g.  I have 1 in a 2.6g - should probably get more at some point  

 

I also like the simplicity of this tank.  

 

Looking forward to how it progresses!

 

On a side note...  The rock on the right looks like a headless, one boobed person either sitting on a toilet, or maybe about to sumo wrestle/karate fight.  Lol.

[andrewkw]

Figured I'd update this thread but really not much is going on.
I lost one sexy shrimp and one died. 9/11 are still alive. I've only seen one with eggs this whole time. Admittedly I don't watch the tank for long periods of time but I do check on it at least a couple of times a day. I believe there are 5 males and 4 females left.

 

I have a second 10 gallon tank ready to go should I get some more eggs. It has to happen eventually but when I kept sexy shrimp in the past I seemed to recall them almost always having eggs. Perhaps these guys were just much younger then my previous ones.

I got a pretty bad flatworm infestation I seem to have under control via manual removal. Flatworms must have came from one of the 2 flower anemones as they are the only thing I added straight to this tank. One of which has since died but the other is looking great. I didn't think it was a good idea to dose flatworm exit in this minimally filtered tank. I would prefer to have a tiny hob running carbon and or gfo but the sexy shrimp get sucked into it so I don't bother. Tank is still operating with just 3 items. One powerhead, one heater, one light.

Cheapo amazon light has kept soft corals alive without issue. Other then form factor I'm not sure why you'd buy this over a black box but for this application I am happy with it.

 

Debating adding another piece of rock just to add some more of those pink palys. The sexy shrimp ate some other ones but seem to leave these ones alone. The other corals appear unharmed by them. This tank doesn't have a lot of filtration so algae is a bit of an issue. You'll also note the back and even the sides are not scraped. Normally I'm really against this approach I think the glass should be cleaned. In this case I figure better algae is growing on the glass then the rocks / sand. Also there is a ton of micro fauna everything from mysids to copepods to amphipods as well as micro bristle stars ect. Since there is so little rock they mostly exist on the glass itself.

 

 

[andrewkw]

I've almost entirely eliminated the flatworms the hard way (manual removal) the thing about this is you HAVE TO do it every single day. For a couple of weeks it was a must to remove 50+ a day. Now if I can get 20 I am happy and I really have to search for those 20. To be determined if I need to eliminate every single one but I have seen the odd flatworm in other tanks yet this is the only way ever to get infested.

Added a bunch more softies and a couple of big snails. The long term goal is still to raise sexy shrimp babies. I've only seen eggs twice and figured by now they'd be on some sort of schedule. Oh well it's looking more like a reef. I have another tank and brine shrimp eggs ready for when they do actually start having eggs.

[Indiana Reefin]

Really cool build so far! I am wanting to get 8 sexy shrimp for my maxi mini and RFA dominant tank. 

[Christopher Marks]

On 7/26/2018 at 10:29 AM, andrewkw said:

I've almost entirely eliminated the flatworms the hard way (manual removal) the thing about this is you HAVE TO do it every single day. For a couple of weeks it was a must to remove 50+ a day. Now if I can get 20 I am happy and I really have to search for those 20. To be determined if I need to eliminate every single one but I have seen the odd flatworm in other tanks yet this is the only way ever to get infested.

Impressive determination! Slow and steady. 

 

How is the RFA doing these days? All settled in and stable?

[andrewkw]

20 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Impressive determination! Slow and steady. 

 

How is the RFA doing these days? All settled in and stable?

I just don't want to use flatworm exit in this tank if this was a big tank sure, but there is so little filtration.

The flower anemone is doing great. I bought 2 one wasted away pretty quick but the other one is happy and doesn't move. I've only had about 50% success rate with these guys. I think I've only ever bought 4. I still have the first one in my main display back when these anemones were new to the hobby and this one. I think I've only ever tried one other one. Eventually I'll get more but it's such a pain to get stuff here and when I finally do get to a reef shop my priorities always are my main display reef not the sexy shrimp tank in the spare room. I am really enjoying this tank though. I'll probably add some more softies and get all the algae on the glass cleaned by the 2 giant snails over the next month or so.

[andrewkw]

Some updated pictures :

I no longer remove flatworms daily. There are still some and if I see a few together I grab them but I'm not counting them out. I'm okay with a few here or there, if it gets noticeable again I will be on top of it. I am however getting some bubble algae outbreaks. I've never tested the po4/no3 in this tank. The water usually comes from my frag tank which has no algae issues. That water comes from my main display where I do test no3/po4/mg/alk/ca weekly. Of course I do feed the sexy shrimp tank a lot and there is very little filtration in it. Some nuisance algae is bound to be there from time to time, but that's fine. This isn't really my "show tank" but I am still trying to make it look good as I watch the sexy shrimp dance about..

 

[andrewkw]

Some new pics after a couple of days of rearranging and adding frags then a couple more waiting for the water to clear.

 

 

[Christopher Marks]

Your nano reef is really coming along nicely @andrewkw, lovely composition with the layout. I love the herd of sexy shrimp. The gorgonian is a nice addition too, it looks to be feeding well and happy! Good work cutting back the flatworms, all that effort paid off!

28 minutes ago, andrewkw said:

I love this shot, they're such characters.

[andrewkw]

Thanks, the gorg is my largest coral. I snipped just a sliver for this tank. If I turn off the flow in my main display it will stick out of the water.

[andrewkw]

Tank is really filling in. I hope not too much as I plan on throwing some more corals in. Everything less the flower anemone is just overflow corals from my other tanks. I have a lot of frags that are just taking up space in my frag tank (I'm out in the middle of no where and only have 1-2 people to trade frags with). So they might as well go in a display tank. Initially this tank was very minimalist but now it's on the verge of hopefully good clutter.

Macro algae is growing which hopefully will help a bit with other algae issues. I don't test the water because I use water change water from my main display or frag tank to feed this tank. With soft corals only there shouldn't be any trace element demand and since the volume is only 10g if things are getting dirty I can just change 50% of the water or more.

One sexy shrimp jumped. I suppose I should look into a cover, but I think it was just an isolated thing. I have had them for 8 months now and it's the first jumper. When I update the thread next time it should be even more filled in.

 

[skyscraper2290]

I love this tank! I would love to get some sexy shrimp for my tank. 

[andrewkw]

This tank continues to do well. Corals are growing. Shrimp seem happy and macro algae has exploded. I'm not even really sure the type. The sexy shrimp came with a tiny bit to hang onto in the bag. I've just let it grow crazy in the tank. I do have a couple of issues. Flatworms just won't die. I gave up manually removing them, let the population explode. Removed them again. I've since treated with flatworm exit 3 times and a few still seem to be kicking around. Also the flower anemone moved to the back of the tank. Finally the shrimp have eaten most of the gorgonian but seem to be leaving all the other corals alone. This tank is still exclusively soft corals but I might one day stick an LPS or 2 in. I'm just trying to maintain a softy theme for no reason other then to have a theme.

Here's how things are looking as of the first of December.

 

 

 

[sam_the_reefer]

Macro looks like some type of Ulva. I'm jealous of your Xenia island, and it looks like you have them pulsing.