Turns out it’s actually not a prawn shop.
Besides, it’s the world of shrimp, not prawns, that I’m preparing to dive into. I know, I know… not everyone will find my venture into shrimp-keeping as exciting as I do, but I don’t care – it’s my blog! Go ahead and call me shellfish!
Photo by Emilia Murray.
I want to make something clear before we continue. I am by no means an authority on shrimp, shrimp-keeping, or the aquarium hobby in general. Also, I’m not referring to the kind of shrimp you might buy at the grocery store – I’m talking about Neocaridina shrimp (you may know them as cherry shrimp), which grow to about 1.5″ and can be bred for various colors such as red, blue, and yellow. While I don’t recommend anyone learning from me, I do hope that readers can learn with me! Note: If you are someone with more experience in this area, I would love to hear your advice, tips, and comments!
Now that that’s out of the way, we can talk shrimp. Sort-of. We should start with the shrimp tank.
I like trying things. From brewing kombucha and beer, to gardening, to – a very brief and unsuccessful stint of – learning to play the dizi, to training to do the splits (also unsuccessful, but I got close!). Most recently, I was interested in aquascaping. If you don’t know what that is, I suggest taking a look at r/plantedtank on reddit to see some of the beautiful underwater landscapes people have created. Basically, it’s an aquarium in which plants and stones/wood (called “hardscape”) are made the primary focus. Below is what I had set up!
My 35 gallon planted tank.
To clarify, this was a work in progress, and I had hoped to eventually have the small plants in the substrate spread out to create a lush carpet. However, now that my goal for this tank is to make it shrimp habitable, rather than aesthetically pleasing, the carpet seems less important.
I have a lot more to share of what I’ve learned about proper tank size and parameters (temperature, pH, etc), but I’d like to keep these posts fairly short. In my next post, I’ll go more in depth about what I’m doing to get ready for the new inhabitants!
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