# Any success keeping shrimp in a vase?



## RWaters (Nov 12, 2003)

Just for kicks, on January 4th I set up a small cylindrical vase on my desk at work with several plants and two cherry shrimp and ramshorn snails. A colleague loved it and bought me two crystal shrimps that I reluctantly added. Unfortunately one died. The plants are doing very well and over the past 7 weeks I've had to thin out the moss and toss quite a bit of the salvinia. I've only done one water change in that time but several top-offs were necessary. I use a combination of RO water and NYC tap water and there's a few boiled egg shells in the vase. 

However, I'm wondering about the odds of long-term success with this arrangement. Any tips or tricks I need to know to make this work, or am I just asking for trouble?

Here are a few pics.


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## aotf (Dec 19, 2016)

Look into the Walstad method. Once set up properly, it seems capable of maintaining a small population of shrimp without external filtration.

As is, your vase will probably suffer from ammonia/nitrite/nitrate buildup because there isn't an established bacterial colony or gH/TDS creep as you add more and more water to compensate for evaporation (depending on size and frequency of your water changes, of course).

Otherwise, it wouldn't hurt to post parameters for the tap you're putting in and the water in the tank. Neos and crystals don't really share the same preferences so one will likely do much better than the other (I'm putting my money on the neos).


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## shaman. (Oct 26, 2012)

It is definitely possible to keep Neos in such setup. Well, I do not recommend Crystals as they are more sensitive. I have one 0.6 gallon bowl with Red cherry shrimps for almost 2 years now and I can say it is really easy to maintain it. I had 2-3 times they breed in it, but had to remove fry form a bowl as that will be to big bio load. At the moment I have 5 shrimps in (4M + 1F). 
Substrate is ADA Amazonia, low light plants/mosses... Minimal maintenance, mainly only topping up evaporated water with RO. No ferts at all, even rarely feeding them.


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## RWaters (Nov 12, 2003)

That's a beautiful bowl, shaman! The crystals are no longer in the vase. It has three cherry shrimp but I'm moving them to a 1 gallon Deep Blue aquarium that I have.


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