# trapezoid 1 gal shrimp tank.



## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

I have this odd little tank that I've used for all kinds of stuff like a couple gold fish, pet slugs, a tiny preying mantis, etc. I'd live to do a planted pico tank with it.

I recently set up a 40 gallon low tech, low light but didn't research anywhere near enough. This time I'd like to make competent informed decisions!

Decisions to make:
Goal- small planted shrimp tank, low tech


Substrate? - thinking soil possibly
Sand?
Filtration? -none? Maybe just a tiny sponge filter?
Lighting? - possibly DIY LED. Not sure.


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## Ozydego (Aug 29, 2011)

I had one of these for a while and I never found a good lighting setup for it, I am thinking some sort of LED pendant would be useful, kinda like the pendants that some have used with the Fluval edge tanks.... I tried a 3 LED strip, but it was cheap and not bright at all... there is actually a lot of room in that lid, so most pendant types could be used, the plastic cover just comes right off for mounting the LED pendant.... Thats what I would do now if I still used mine


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## Ozydego (Aug 29, 2011)

found the LED I was thinking about
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/planted-nano-tanks/95967-official-edge-thread-12.html#post986904


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

Just got the OK from my boss. I'll be setting this bad boy up on my desk!


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Soil with at least 1/2" sand cap, unless you want muddy waters and fluctuating water quality :/

Get a tiny filter, I think cheapest/smallest is the Hagen Elite Mini @ around $7. Get or find some extra black sponges and glue it to the pre-filter so the shrimps don't get sucked in, also stick some in the output area. The flow is fairly strong.

Not sure about lighting, ppl here recommend the clip on Fluval Mini (comes with Flora/Ebi kits I think), but I don't think it would fit. If you have a window probably won't need one for low light plants or moss.


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

I planned on having shrimp only, and only a few at that. I was considering going without a filter at all, though that little one is tempting. 

For light I might either do a single cfl for now or replace the desk lighting where it is at with a 6500k tube if I can. No one would even notice and it is less than a foot above the top of the tank. That way I could keep other plants alive too!


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

organic soil, then course sand. Plants next week hopefully...

Should I maybe NOT do soil? I hadn't planned on doing a filter.


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

I planted a bunch of dwarf hairgrass today. I'm still not sure if I'm doing this right, but I guess I'll find out. I'm not sure of the quality of the plant since it was a packaged plant at petsmart. I'll be ordering all my plants from now on.










my hill stayed mostly in place. I forgot my lamp though, gotta remember to bring that in tomorrow.


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## Say Car Ramrod (Oct 9, 2011)

nice desk top tank! i have one of these floating around my house and maybe ill do something similar. i've had pretty good luck with the packaged plants for pet stores. as long as the plant still looks healthy it should be good to go.


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

Remembered to bring my light in today. It looks much better, though it is still a bubble extravaganza.


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

My plan was to drop a few red cherries in there, but I'm having trouble finding info on the best way to do that. 

-Do I cycle this like a bigger tank first?
-how much water should I change regularly?


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## FisheriesOmen (Jan 14, 2012)

thats looking GREAt i have 1 of those too and now you gave me the idea of using that for a gal shrimp bowl instead of buying a new one. Btw you wont need a filter and red cherries are very hardy just go on the swap n' shop section there are lots of people wanting to sell their cherries ( they breed quickly). Check out Newman's Shrimp bowl forum for more help and good luck!


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

FisheriesOmen said:


> thats looking GREAt i have 1 of those too and now you gave me the idea of using that for a gal shrimp bowl instead of buying a new one. Btw you wont need a filter and red cherries are very hardy just go on the swap n' shop section there are lots of people wanting to sell their cherries ( they breed quickly). Check out Newman's Shrimp bowl forum for more help and good luck!


Thanks! I'm going to order a ton of Red cherries and distribute them amongst all my tanks. I kind of feel bad that there's nowhere for them to hide in this one. Maybe I'll add something a little taller.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

You don't need to order a ton either. 10 will be more than enough for a small 1g like that! If they breed you'll have to start taking them out as well as the general rule for breeding is 10shrimp per gallon.


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## FisheriesOmen (Jan 14, 2012)

I personally would like to start from square 1 and only get a pair and then slowly build up the pop. (eventually switching shrimp out for new ones to prevent too much inbreeding).


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## trixella (Jan 24, 2011)

Imo, it's more humane to cycle the tank before adding living creatures.  You'll also find that using a little filter will keep you from having to be on top of always doing water changes (still have to do them, just not as often and not as large of an amount), it will keep the water more parameters more stable and aerated. I've used Tom's mini internal filters from Petsmart in my small tank, they're really quiet.


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

trixella said:


> Imo, it's more humane to cycle the tank before adding living creatures.  You'll also find that using a little filter will keep you from having to be on top of always doing water changes (still have to do them, just not as often and not as large of an amount), it will keep the water more parameters more stable and aerated. I've used Tom's mini internal filters from Petsmart in my small tank, they're really quiet.


I can't imagine a filter being small enough for this tank. Then again, I haven't seen that one you mentioned yet. I plan on finding a tiny one for my son's betta tank.


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## Say Car Ramrod (Oct 9, 2011)

A lot of people use hagen mini filters. You would just need to find a way to reduce the flow though.

Sent from my Samsung Vibrant using Tapatalk


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## epiphany (Oct 8, 2011)

Since you're just doing shrimp, I would consider using a really small sponge filter as you shouldn't need much filtration at all in there. Anything else would likely take up half your tank.


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## Basil (Jul 11, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Get a tiny filter, I think cheapest/smallest is the Hagen Elite Mini @ around $7. Get or find some extra black sponges and glue it to the pre-filter so the shrimps don't get sucked in, also stick some in the output area. The flow is fairly strong.


Xenxes got that Hagen Mini to fit in a Marina 0.5gal 'tank' so it should fit this. Also if you don't want to go the desk lamp route I've got a brand new LED light from my Spec I'm not using if you're interested.


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

Thanks for the offer on the LED, but I've already got the desk lamp set up and it seems to be doing ok. Tat is, unless you think your LED will fit inside my lid. 

I got my shrimp in the mail and put a few in this tank. They seem fairly happy.


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## zacheyp (Jan 25, 2012)

calebkraft said:


> Thanks for the offer on the LED, but I've already got the desk lamp set up and it seems to be doing ok. Tat is, unless you think your LED will fit inside my lid.
> 
> I got my shrimp in the mail and put a few in this tank. They seem fairly happy.


nice shrimp!


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

Full tank shot for good measure.


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

Dwarf hairgrass has grown in quite well. If my scissors would fit in there I could trim it down, but I'm not too worried about it. 

I just put that Hagen mini-elite filter in there since I really didn't have enough plants to keep the water clean. The flow out of that is pretty strong. I need to figure out a way to slow it down even more.


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## Ozydego (Aug 29, 2011)

Foam at the intake will be your best friend to slow it down.. I found that out recently and am using it more and more often for strong flow issues...


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

Foam at the intake? It has foam in the intake. Are you saying to stuff more in there to try to restrict flow?

I saw Xenxe stuffed some foam in the output.


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

I think he meant placing a piece of foam on the intake. You can also place foam over the outtake to reduce flow even further.


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## Ozydego (Aug 29, 2011)

Depending on how it is set up, stuffing foam in the intake or "on" the intake can reduce the flow, does it have an inflow pipe? I have a small HOB filter where I put some foam inside the tube and that helped a lot, on another I put the foam around the intake... The extra foam is what reduces the flow


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## calebkraft (Jan 3, 2012)

Ah, I see. No, the hagen mini elite is basically a powerhead that sucks water in through a sponge, even though the sponge is encased in plastic. I wrapped the inlet area in pantyhose to avoid sucking in any shrimplets and reduce flow, as well as added a little more material to the intake area. I suspect I'll have to shove some inside the outlet to really reduce the flow.


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## cjstl (Mar 4, 2013)

Curious, do you still have this tank going? I have one of these too. I managed to cram a 5 watt LED 5500K bulb into the existing fixture. Made the tank very bright and sparkly, but I had a hair algae explosion and my shrimp and snails couldn't keep up. Then moisture or something got under the plastic and the bulb went out. Was out for about a week, which took care of the hair algae. I just got a 3 watt replacement bulb, which seems more reasonable. I'm hoping my HC will grow out. It was doing pretty well with the old bulb, but withered quite a bit during the blackout period.

I have one tiny little yellow shrimp in there currently. He is an adult, but just never grew. My wife killed all the others by overfeeding when I was out of town, but this one is a survivor.

And FYI for anyone who finds this thread, I use the TOM Mini filter in this tank. Very quiet and works great. I found that by dumping the tiny bit of carbon that comes with the filter and cutting a piece of carbon filter pad, I could fit it in the holder. Works great for such a small tank, and I change it about once a month. One sheet of the carbon pad will last a lifetime for this filter.


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