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Yeah that sounds like it might work. Using sponge to block the intake holes should be enough. Whatever you use, make sure it is easily removed during tank maintenance days, so you can clean it. Pulling a sponge insert out and swishing it around in water to clean it is the easiest. Minimise your chores, so you have more time watching the shrimp. That's fine. It's not your plants you need to worry about. Worry about the likes/needs of the shrimp first. Shrimp prefer a slower flow. Correct. The ferts themselves do not kill shrimp, but ferts change the water parameters. And the constant change can upset the shrimps health. Stones can change water parameters - KH increases and thus pH also increases. If you find your KH and pH rising and you need to battle it rising then look at removing the stones. Flourite is an ok substrate for Neo Caridina. Hopefully Neos were on your plans for this tank. That's normal for a cycling tank. As the bacteria convert Ammonia to Nitrites and then to Nitrates, they cause pH, KH and GH to drop. This is fine while the tank is still cycling. Keep your pH above 7 using tap water (dechlorinated). You can reduce pH, GH and KH after the tank has cycled to match the shrimp's requirements just before adding them. Fish are a different ball game. Be prepared to re-learn all new things when keeping shrimp. I bet you never needed to worry about TDS with fish. So a tip from me is to buy a TDS meter. You can get a cheap one for now (Amazon or EBay). It won't be super accurate, but that doesn't matter. You just need it to be consistent, even if it is consistently reading 10ppm off. Knowing your TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) in the tank is very helpful to keeping healthy shrimp, and the TDS meter can be used to improve your water quality for the fish tank too. RO is undoubtedly better because you are in control of what is in the water. But of course there is an initial cost of purchasing the unit. Check out the Water Parameter subforum and read topics on RO water. Weigh up the benefits vs the cost and then maybe you can make a decision. (RO water is much better than tap) Even Rain water is many times better than tap water. Not the best idea when the tank is cycling. Heater is required at this stage of the tank's setup for bacteria growth. Think about it ... do bacteria grow faster in a warm wet environment or a cold environment? - Crank the heat up to 28degC. unless you have lots of time to waiting around for bacteria to grow in the cold. The bacteria needs 4 things to grow... Neutral to Alkaline water (ph 7.0 up), food (ammonia), oxygen (well aerated water), and heat (heater). Remove one of these and they don't grow or die completely. Tap water can provide pH 7 & up water with some ammonia in it, so all you need is to provide water that is circulating and heat. If you squeeze the gunk from your fish tank's filter into this new tank, you will seed it with millions of beneficial bacteria, thereby reducing the cycling time drastically. That's how I cycle a new tank. I use tap water initially, squeeze in the gunk from another filter (from a known healthy tank), turn the heat up and wait. After the tank is cycled, I empty 99% of the tanks water and add RO water adjusted to the parameters of whatever shrimp I am keeping.

This is my first tank. It is a Fluval Flex 9. I have a plan to make sure no shrimp get into the filter compartment I think will work - knitting mesh on the wall, large pore sponge filling up the intake chamber. I am also planning to keep the water level about an inch below the top of the wall leading to the compartment. As for flow, the current version seems to have a pretty docile pump doing something like 60 gph, and it's not exactly wreaking havoc on my plants, so I'm hoping it'll be fine. I've included a picture of the current setup. PLANTS: By the time I have shrimp, I expect the surface to be about 75% covered with salvinia and dwarf water lettuce, which are growing quite quickly. On the ground I have some Marimo moss balls, crypt parva, microsword, and Monte Carlo. They are all doing fine and I am not expecting rapid growth. Everything is stable after initial die off of the plants. I am not planning to use ferts, as several of the suppliers I contacted suggested that shrimp did better in un-dosed tanks. Should I add or remove anything? STONE: that's Ohko Stone in my tank. The gravel is Seachem Flourite. WATER: at the moment, it'll be tap water, but my cycle seems to have really messed with my parameters. Out of the tap, I'm seeing pH 7.4, Gh 7, Kh 3, but I have seen all of those stats take a nose dive over the last few weeks as I cycled the tank. That's one of the big questions I have to get answered before adding shrimp. I am debating RO, but would like to run with tap. I have a 29 gallon that has been quite stable, albeit with fish only. We'll see if, now that I have cycled the tank, I can get things stable in 8 gallons of water. No heater. House is routinely at 70 degrees and the tank is literally 10 feet from the thermostat. Your advice will be appreciated. Here's my pic.

Welcome @ShrimpNewb. Glad to have you on board. There are lots of articles and posts to read on the subject of shrimps here, but feel free to ask questions.

This kind of injury can happen during a moult. Did you notice it moult? And if it moulted recently, it would be tired and in a recovery state for a couple of days. Feed it a frozen bloodworm and keep an eye on it for the next few days. Keep lowering GH and TDS for the next water change. They might be used to very soft water.

The best write up on CPD's I've come across (and I've been trying to read everything I can find on them). Fantastic photos too. From the first time I read about and watched CPD's online I wanted some with a clear intent to breed them. It took me over 6 months to find some CPDs in a LFS to purchase (could have got some shipped earlier, but hated the idea of them not surviving as they are not cheap in Australia). Finally I found and bought 20 less than a week ago. Fitted right in with my community tank, colour improving daily. A tank to house them in is maturing and intend to pick out a few to see if they will breed there to start with. Plan is to get breeding tanks set-up soon and looking forward to trying some of the methods explained pretty clearly in this article. Hope I remember to come back here and share my experience. Thanks S1l3nt! Dooliga