Plants in shrimp tanks?

I get this question quite a bit, can we have both planted tank and shrimps together? Sure why not. Anyway if the objective is a planted tank, then by all means go ahead and do a planted tank, paludarium, terrarium or any type and then add shrimps in.

If I want to breed shrimps like a breeder, can I put in a lot of plants? Yes, just that you will make your life a lot more difficult as the shrimps will not be easy to be selected out. If you would just want to breed them and not select them, yes I think keeping plants and shrimp together are fine too.

As a breeder myself, what would I recommend for plants? Frankly there is a lot of plants to choose from as long as you like them and they do not require frequent pruning and maintenance I think they all qualify. I like using Echinodorus as they are relatively inexpensive and they don’t propagate by runners and grow fairly slowly without CO2 injection. I also like using mosses; all kinds and then frog bits.

I grow my plants in a ceramic pot filled with ADA soil, you can use any other soil. The reason i keep them within ceramic pot is so the root ball do not get out of the pot disturbing the rest of the tank. It helps contain the plant and the pot is fairly shallow. I haven’t had any issues over the years using this method as long as the plant is growing well and the root is healthy.

For mosses I weigh them down using big ceramic filter media by putting the moss through the hole which then allow the moss to grow in various direction, I often put the moss near to a filter outlet so that the moss will help disperse the direct flow from the filter. This is also fairly beneficial for the moss as well as they like a gentle flow of water through them to help bring nutrients to them.

Lastly are some frogbits, I thin these out very regularly as they start growing too quickly over a few weeks. It helps with control of excess nitrate during my travel days or busy weeks where I have to go without a water change for 2 weeks.

With all addition of plants, it is important to note that plants that come from unknown sources have the chance of bringing pest that is unwelcome in shrimp tanks. Hence, it is important to quarantine your plants before adding into your tank. I do so by isolating the plants in a glass container for a few weeks and changing water till I don’t see any pest or you can purchase tissue cultured plants to be sure.

This is a low tech tank where plants and aqua scaping takes the primary focus. Shrimp kept are some Neocaridina and Caridina. As you can see selective breeder become almost a daunting task in such a setup. Hence, personally it will be much easier if i separate breeding tanks and planted tanks.

Hope all of you enjoyed this installment!