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About 3mm in length. The light flecks in the water is the best timed green water outbreak I could have wished for! The green colour of the body suggests they might be eating it too so its all fingers crossed for some post-larval juvenile settlement.

An opportunity arose and I couldn't say no... This new tank has only been set up for a couple of weeks prior to getting shrimp, but all the contents (rocks, plants, moss) have come from mature tanks rich in biofilm. Only the glass is clean and thin inert sand layer is fresh. Same size as before ~50 litres. The day before the shrimp arrived I swapped the sponge filter for a mature filter from another tank. Not maturing the tank properly for a month or more is a risk but whatareyagunnado. I did consider removing all the shrimp from another mature tank but then discovered there were Paratya larvae in the water I wanted to keep. So new tank with old contents it had to be. Since the sand is clean - I'm temporarily adding some grotty potted plants in slimy plastic pots from other tanks to supply more biofilm and the shrimp are quickly finding them and cleaning them (small amazon sword bottom pic). The water this time around is pure rainwater from 100KL storage (so water params should be relatively stable) with a constant drip in and out (about 3 litres of 50 litres replaced each day) = ~30% water change per week. KH <1, GH<1, pH ~6.0 22C. I drip acclimatised the shrimp to the rainwater over a 2 day period with no losses. Colours are bright and I'm optimistic. I followed @fishmosy's lead and bought some Boss aquaria shrimp snow to try as a supplemental feed and a test of a just a few flakes brought more interest from the shrimp than I've seen from the zebs before for other foods. .

Salt does not decrease the amount of nitrite. Salt is added to reduce the toxicity of nitrite because at high concentrations the chloride from the salt competes with the nitrite for entry into the gills (of fish) thereby reducing nitrite uptake. Shrimp gills work differently and I don't know if salt has any effect at all on nitrite toxicity to shrimp. Nitrite suggests your tank has not finished cycling - I'd be removing livestock, or in the very least doing frequent water changes to keep the nitrite lower (but this may also prolong the cycle). Best solution is probably to squeeze a sponge from a mature filter into the tank to speed up the cycle.

There are better sources of biofilm. I've noticed that there is a particular slime that grows on silicon air lines when they are new that is thick and slimy and often gets a pink colour to it like your photo ^. It seems to me that the cheaper the air line, the thicker the sludge. I assume there is something leaching from the hose wall that is fuelling a bacterial feeding frenzy. I normally wipe it off with a tissue and after a couple of weeks and it stops coming back. This stuff I wouldn't feed to shrimp. I do feed them the algae (biofilm) that grows on the underside of my glass covers under the lights by scraping the glass with a credit card and washing in the tank. It cleans the glass and feeds the shrimp - win win.

I did use a saw, special type of saw, can't remember the name now. Was recommended by my father who used to cut it all the time. I did have a few small cracks which I didn't really care about. And yes you're correct. It does bow which I thought was annoying initially but actually worked out well because it allows a little air movement [emoji3] ...for summer I'm thinking to cut a square in the corner for a fan and cover it with some kind of Mesh and that should hopefully be enough along with the bow to push air around. I did think of using Mesh on top but was worried it would cut out too much light.

When I was using fans I just left the tank open -or sometimes just the front lid off and rested the fans on the light so they were angled to the water- they don't need to be straight on the water- it worked well and kept my big tank very stable for several years before getting a chiller.

Spotlight has plastic mesh that I use for dividers with the Kmart poster hangers. To make a larger divider I cable tie two or three sheets of plastic mesh together edge to edge. Easy to cut to size with scissors. https://www.spotlightstores.com/sewing/knitting-crochet/knitting-crochet-accessories/plastic-mesh-7-count-canvas-sheet/p/BP80128863?gclid=CIiQ8OuJ6M4CFQNxvAod0ugFUA Great idea @neo-2FX easy to cut as well I use sharp tin snips on solid polycarbonate sheet. Normal Perspex needs to be cut with a saw however need to take care that it doesn't vibrate and break. One problem with the thinner standard/normal Perspex is it will bow after a while due to heat even bows without heat depending on thickness.

Boy was I slow. I only got it after seeing Dimos' tank photo again. Yeah, I know. But I have a huge 1L bottle of Blackwater extract that I want to finish off. Plus, I like adding it once in a while only. Manually adding blackwater and cold water to my tanks simulates the rainy season to induce spawning. +1 to what Grubs said. Perfect water readings doesn't mean a brand new tank has cycled (ie. has beneficial bacteria) if the tank is not producing nitrogenous waste to start off with. It was just devoid of any nitrogenous waste input, so you are not measuring any ammonia or nitrite. The moment you add livestock and they start producing waste, nitrogenous levels start increasing. And without live beneficial bacteria to process these waste products (ammonia & nitrite), you will see readings rise.

I see, makes sense! You can even buy new wood, or alder cones. They run for only $3-4 on ebay. I already have the shrimp cause my first water reading showed everything perfect! The high Nitrite came up immediately after I added all the wood, alder cones and almond leaves. That's why I tried to reduce it instantly with salt. But as you said, no more salt in the shrimp tank. Thanks a lot for the tips, its really helpful! Well, I guess I will leave it as it is, since shrimp prefer it that way! Thanks, however I decided to leave it as is!

Put Bob in to Sponge it out

I just went through this problem too with DAS who discovered suicide. I went to Bunnings and got some acrylic/Perspex sheet and cut it to size. I think it was roughly $50 which I thought was expensive but was desperate at the time because I was losing shrimp every night. I also noticed it was at night that they were jumping. I'm not sure how I'm going to go about having fans on it as well, maybe I'll just slide the acrylic forward a bit to leave a bigger gap which I'm hoping will be enough for fan air to go through but could be problem which I'm thinking through now for best approach. Here's some photos of what it looks like. And one of my other tanks which needed some customisation because of the light and hoses. It's not the greatest but has worked for me. I haven't noticed anymore jumpers.