# Newman's Shrimp Bowl II



## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

This bowl was created for the purpose of moving all the cherry shrimp from the original shrimp bowl so as to not cramp the crystal reds that are living in there now.

So in this bowl cherry shrimp will continue to be bred.
It is a bit of an experiment to see if the shrimp will breed in a tank w/o much plants to supply oxygen. of course i do intend to include floating plants, but idk how much those will help.

The bowl will be primarily hardscaped. the scape is not final, and I will gladly take suggestions on how to make it look better.

And yes the twig is part of the scape lol.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

You've done a great job melding those rocks into the shape of the bowl!

I would just lighting up on the pebbles. Keep them more concentrated in the corners (like you did), but less in between the rocks. Not in love with the vertical twig maybe play around with the twigs some more horizontally not vertically.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

the twig was very experimental, i wonder if it would look any better if i cut off that thicker top portion with the fork at the very top. maybe then it would looks normal? or do you think i should scrap the whole "twig out of water" idea and cut the twig to size and submerge it completely?


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## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

I like it a lot! I think you should use a small grasslike plant to outline the rocks and the path between them. Maybe DHG? Crypt Parva would look nice in the back. And of course, MOSS!


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

Thanks for dropping by!
I really would like to keep this bowl hardscaped for the most part. I think the 1st shrimp bowl accomplishes the whole plant thing better than this thing could. Plus i just want to see if shrimp can live in such a bowl, w/o much help from plants..

As far as the substrate goes, there was a suggestion to clear the inter-rock areas of gravel and leave just sand, and concentrate the gravel in the corners of the bowl.
Would that be a better choice over just adding much more gravel in to cover the whole substrate, having less sand visible?

I tried to do a sort of rivery feel to this tank.


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## demonr6 (Mar 14, 2011)

Very nice, it's a different look that you don't see every day.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

thanks =)


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## shrimpnmoss (Apr 8, 2011)

I don't know how you keep your bowls so clean without pumping some air in. I tried to do something similar. Packed a vase with vals and ludwiga and aquasoil.....got a big vase of algae and cyano bacteria in a month.....ended up trashing the whole thing...


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

same here except i did not give up at the cyano stage. you have top keep going with your maintenance or up the maintenance a bit and the algaes will retreat. namely cyano. idk whats going on with the cladophora in the shrimp bowl atm, but it looks peaceful so its fine with me right now 

This second bowl might get cyano too (all of my tanks so far have including SW) but i am sure there is a way around it.
I *think* a toothbrush should work in this bowl as it has worked in the first shrimp bowl to keep the glass somewhat cleaner =)


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## shrimpnmoss (Apr 8, 2011)

haha...icic...I was hella lazy and only topped water never changed it....

I was trying a Natura/Walstad/self contained eco something....big FAIL


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

lol nice. in small volumes its tougher to do probably. I found that frequent large water changes are very helpful in keeping the tank and shrimp healthy. But i suppose the ultimate evidence of that being true will be supported only after i see my crystal shrimp grow up and breed in that bowl.


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## shrimpnmoss (Apr 8, 2011)

That's amazing that you got CRS to breed in a bowl. You use special water? Or plain old tap?


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

nooo, i meant IF i get them to breed, that will be the best evidence for such a setup being suitable for shrimp.
So far they are still juveniles. They are supposed to be high grade too, so idk how they will fare in the long run.

I use Ro/DI water for their bowl to keep the water soft. I used to add Seachem Equilibrium to the RO/DI to get some GH back into the water (around 3dGH) but i really need to change my filters on the RO/DI unit because its spitting out ~16TDS now and that's too much by my reef standards. My reefs need clean water haha.


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## shrimpnmoss (Apr 8, 2011)

Reefs...that's another level of water making...I bet that RO keeps the algae levels lower also.

Reefers....makes a $20-$30 dollar SSS CRS seem cheap:icon_mrgr


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

woah, $30 is intense for one shrimp, which is why i tried to go with SS grade lol. 

RO water does help with algae. since my filters went, algae has increased in one of my reefs so i can tell more TDS is in the water (before i add my salt). New filters arrive next week so i will have clean water for them again.

Reefs are definitely not cheap but unfortunately, only once you've had some experience, and spent some good money do you finally figure out how you could have setup a casual but successful reef that was low cost 

Back to this bowl though, I trimmed of an upper bit of the twig so it look better now IMO.


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## demonr6 (Mar 14, 2011)

Newman said:


> Back to this bowl though, I trimmed of an upper bit of the twig so it look better now IMO.


Pics or it didn't happen!


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

haha, ok ill take some pics soon.


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## elliebellie (Jan 28, 2011)

I am loving this second bowl!! Can't wait to see some new pix =)


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## Rider (Mar 13, 2006)

What are the dimensions of the bowl? How much water will it hold?


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

it holds 1 gallon just like the original bowl but with all that sand and rock there i bet it holds a bit less, maybe 3/4 of a gallon. The area is what i think is important though, the shrimp will have lots of room to crawl over.
the bowl is 8+ inches in diameter and 4+ inches high (not including tall base, its filled with sand anyway.)


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## demonr6 (Mar 14, 2011)

My wife is pissed at you.. I saw this bowl, showed it to her and got the stink eye along with "Don't you get any ideas." Later that evening we were out running errands and she went to Michael's (crafting store) and I made my way to where they have the bowls for decoration, plants etc.. well, she is pissed at you. 

I wonder if I can cap Eco-Complete with white or black sand? I have a half bag of the red EC and both white and black Super Naturals sand, and that stump of wood. Oh this won't be good, I can already sense it.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

Haha! nice, so you want to do the eco complete for your root feeding plants and cap it with white sand? eco complete can be used w/o a cap easily, it is basically fine gravel. but eco with black sand cap would be fine. White sand might get mixed eventually, but you can minimize that by planting all the plants right after you added the eco complete layer. then after that, cap the layer with the white sand and try not to pull up plants or move the substrate around/poke it lol. That way you can avoid the white mixing with the red color of eco complete.

I apologize guys, I have no means of taking any pictures atm since i gave someone my phone and my camera for the week, but next week I'll post up some pictures.

Currently the bowl is cycling with water lettuce as the only plant, a piece of filter sponge from my 40 gal planted, and 4 cherry shrimp from my original shrimp bowl.

I am going to try and take the advice of houseofcards and play around with the substrate arrangement.


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## demonr6 (Mar 14, 2011)

Well, I went ahead and stuck with the Eco Complete only. I planted some dwarf hairgrass, some *insert here I had* and telanthera for now just to get it started. I did have a piece of driftwood but it is soaking, hopefully I can throw in there soon else I will have to figure out how to weigh it down to put it in the tank. How are you cycling yours? Shoot me a PM if you can.. I have not tried this sort of experiment.  The bowl is crazy, it's like a huge magnifying glass. I think this will be all shrimp and maybe some snails.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

Yes the magnifying glass property is really sweet for viewing even the smallest shrimp in the bowl.

Yes, i do not recommend a fish in something like this. too much area for it to jump.(same for shrimp, but they are more suited to a bowl than a small fish IMO)


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## demonr6 (Mar 14, 2011)

Jumping shrimp will meet the top of the bowl since I am not filling this to the rim. They may get a nasty headache, but hopefully no worse than that.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

Most recent FTS has been updated in the first post. You can kind of see a cherry shrimp in the right rock crevice.


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## demonr6 (Mar 14, 2011)

Yeppers, I see the little critter in that pic..


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

CLOSED

I took this down today and put the cherries into my 40 gallon.
I didnt really feel like this was a good bowl to raise shrimp in, it needed plants, but one planted bowl is enough to take care of. i need to concentrate on the crystals anyway haha.


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