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I have 2 questions about my 55 gallon tank for breeding Red Cherry Shrimp. My first is for advice on maintaining a colony with strong genetic diversity for health and color. My second is about keeping baby shrimps from getting killed by my filter's pump, while having a pump strong enough for good filtration in a 55 gallon tank, i.e. How strong at swimming are the little guys when they hatch? Background regarding my tank and stuff: I am new to this forum and new to keeping Cherry Shrimps. I’ve kept freshwater fish for nearly 50 years, but I have never kept inverts before. I kept goldfish for many years, but they passed away after 15 years, and I'm trying something new. My tanks had been in storage for year while I was buying a home and moving. I have two 55 gallon, 48 inch long tanks and had decided this time to have schools of small fish with plants rather than a few big fish. I had not keep plants (since my guppy period 30 years ago) because my 9+ inch goldfish ate anything I put into their tank. I was reading on several planted tank forums for ideas for my community tank containing tetras, zebra danio, and barbs. I saw lots of pics of RCS that the plant folks kept for cleaning their tanks and decorating their plants. I fell in love with the little RCS. After I had set up my second 55 gallon tanks and was waiting for it to cycle, I was pondering what I wanted to keep in it. I had decided to have a single species breeding tank and initially was leaning toward the idea of one of the miniature Cory Catfish (C. habrosus, C. pygmaeus, or C. hastatus), but I could not find them anywhere local or online. Everyone said they were out of stock and/or season. I then decided to take the plunge and try keeping shrimp. I have read that the mini-Cory can be kept with RCS, but I’m going to let my RCS have the tank to themselves for now. I would like some advice on how to maintain good health and color in my RCS as I try to establish my colony. I am not planing to try to breed any new strains or anything, but rather just want to keep a self-sustaining colony that is consistent. After reading lots of stuff, my understanding is that unless people are doing really strict culling to breed more intense red coloring, the colonies of RCS can begin to fade and decline in quality after a few years. I am a soft hearted, vegetarian, Buddhist, and killing healthy shrimp just because they not as dark red as their tank mates is not something I am willing to do. I euthanize a sick or unhealthy animal to prevent it from suffering, but I not going to kill it simply because its not as pretty as another. If I am successful in keeping a colony and decide to do selective breeding later, I would get an additional tank with one for the prettiest boys and girls, and another for everyone else (including me if I were a shrimp). I ordered 40 Fire Red Cherries and they seem happy in their new home. They were shipped from California to Tennessee, and only 3 were DOA. All of the females dropped their eggs during shipping, so I’ll have a delay before any babies are born. They are all really good colored from what I’ve compared to online pics. The site I bought these from only sells Fire and Bloody Mary grade RCS. Even my males are a good deep red, including their legs. The body of each female varies a bit from a rich bright red to areas that are the dark red of Bloody Mary’s. I suspect that the seller is trying to breed the Mary’s and is selling these lesser ones with splotchy complexions as Fire Reds. I actually like the solid bright red of good Fire and Painted grade better than these darker Bloody colored ones, but the seller had a good fair price for the quantity I wanted and others I saw had very pale males. I am fine with the colony’s color being somewhat lighter over time, but I’d rather my males not all end up pale pink in a year or two. My first priority is for a strong colony without genetic health defects, while the color intensity is my second priority. Once this first group of shrimp has produced a grown and breeding new generation, I am wondering if I can improve/maintain the genetic diversity of my colony if every 6 months I were to buy a few good quality Fire or Painted ones to add. None of the stores in my area stocks RCS, and the only local person selling them was wanting to get rid of his colony of really pink ones that were admittedly inbred for many generations. Since online retailers often buy their livestock from the same wholesale importers or breeders, I was planning to look for a breeders in another part of the country that sold stock they bred themselves. I have been keeping fish long enough now that I am good at keeping my water quality consistent and near the middle of the optimum specs. Before I had decided to keep Red Cherry Shrimp, I had already bought a new filtration system that I really love, but I fear it might be too powerful for baby RCS. It is an above tank, wet-dry trickle filter. I like the effectiveness of wet-dry trickle systems, but ones in a sump below the tank have always created headaches for me in the past. I love this one, because any leak would go directly back into the tank, and there is no way for siphon problems to occur. For my pumps I like using a power head attached to a big Hydro Sponge as a pre-filter. I use a HydroSponge that is 6 inches high and 6 inches in diameter, not as much for its added bio capacity, but because it diffuses the pump’s intake and keeps any small fish from being injured or killed. My power head is rated for 400 gallons per hour and the sponge has a surface area of more than 160 square inches. The adult shrimp are having no problem with the pump’s suction. They are climbing around on the sponge picking off the algae that was sucked up when I cleaned it from the tank’s front glass. I have the filter’s return set so that I get enough circulation to prevent dead water areas. I have a stack of large rocks in the tank’s center that has lots of spaces between them so that there are lots of hiding places with only a very gentle current. I’m trying to create the look of the live rock in a reef tank, but in freshwater. If the pump's intake flow is gentle enough that the adults like to hang out there, will newly hatched shrimplets have the swimming strength to avoid getting stuck to the sponge? I’ve read that the females will normally look for a hiding place when the babies are about to hatch, so hopefully they will be safe from the pump when they first hatch, and then won’t go out into the stronger current until they are stronger swimmers. I’ve not been able to find posts from many people that are trying to keep a breeding colony in a tank as large as 55 gallons. Most posts I’ve found are from people keeping them in smaller tanks that don’t require as large a pump. I found one post on another forum were someone was using a pump with half the flow rate as mine in her 55 gallon tank, and she used a sponge with half of the surface area of mine. She said that her newly hatched babies did fine, but she had difficulty keeping ammonia down because she didn’t have enough flow through her canister filter. Besides the rock caves for them to rest and hide, the tank has lots of plants, Marimo balls, and some giant catappa leaves. The shrimp love the catappa leaves. The leaves had been in the tank for 3 weeks before the shrimp, so they have a good growth of bio-film for the shrimp to graze on. Additionally, they like crawling under these leaves when they want to hide. Between these large leaves and the tank’s black sand, are nice dark hiding places. I would like to share an idea that I’ve found that my shrimp love. I wanted part of my tank’s bottom to have a planted carpet, but most of the plants used for carpets required CO2, which I don’t want to mess with. I want plants to keep my fish happy and healthy, and not a few fish to decorate my plants. I took 6 large Marimo balls and cut them halfway into. I then unfolded each to form a mat that is about 12 square inches from each ball. I put these 6 mats in a 2 foot strip between the rocks and the tank’s front glass. It forms a velvet carpet that is like sodding on a lawn. The shrimp on these mats look like tiny red sheep grazing on a green pasture. If anyone is looking for a new filter, this new one I bought for this tank is the best filter design I’ve seen during my many years in the hobby. It is available for tank sizes from 10 to 55 gallons. The filter is medium priced. It’s more expensive than a small SunSun canister or generic hang on the back, but it is less than most premium filters or any wet-dry trickle system I’ve seen. I saw a few filters of similar design, but this one looked much more sturdy than the others. It is also available in black while the others were only available in a clear plastic that would encourage algae to clog the bio-media. The black is also much neater looking than the clear ones, which would look very grungy once cycled. It has a huge capacity for bio-media to keep ammonia and nitrites at zero. Mine holds over 4 gallons of bio media for my 55 gallon tank, which I hope will be home to a colony of 500 to 1000 RCS eventually. If you need a new filter, this one is super: http://stores.ebay.com/topstore1016/Other-/_i.html?_fsub=1&_dmd=1&_nkw=aquarium I look forward to being a part of this forum as my shrimp family grows. Thanks for your help, Greg