A few weeks ago my oldest tank, which had a built in light, gave up (fitting, not just bulb so not really worth fixing). It was many years old anyway and so I had wanted to replace it and take the opportunity to get rid of as many wild type shrimps as possible. The old tank was very overgrown so very difficult to remove unwanted shrimp.

I got a new tank via friends and they came over to set it up. The new tank is 40L whereas the old one was 30L. As the plants etc were growing at ridiculous rates anyway I thought I may as well use the old substrate and a few of the plants. This left hundreds of wild type shrimps and quite a few plants over, most of which my friends took for their tank and some unwanted went n the bin.

Closing down the old tank was easy enough, then the new tank went in its place. I had 8 neon tetra (thought 5) and 5 ember tetra (thought 3) so that was better than expected. The old substrate went into the tank and the water turned soooo cloudy dark brown that all we could then do was drop the plants in (to be sorted another day) together with the fish and shrimps, turn on the filters and leave it to settle.

Over the first week I placed the plants, and did daily filter sponge cleans and it gradually got clearer/better each day, together with daily wild type shrimp removal. I am assuming that using the old substrate probably made the water much worse due to years of old detrtis etc that must have been in it. All the fish and shrimp survived this saga. Last week I ordered 30 very high quality/colour red cherry shrimps and they went into the tank, via the carpet and therefore no acclimatising, it is what it is, hopefully a good number survived their ordeal but time will tell (won't be getting any more shrimps  though as it is clearly beyond me now) - I saw about 10+ of them this morning (not in the photo unfortunately though). I am not using any moss etc in this tank (except the ball type) as it just overtook the old tank and I want to keep this tank clearer and tidier, which should also aid removing (culling) unwanted shrimp?

I took this picture using an iphone so was about as good as I could get it, but next time I have freinds over I may get them to get some better pictures, hopefully with more shrimps in the photo(s) and less reflection, but this will have to do for now..

Edited February 26, 20224 yr by sdlTBfanUK

The tank has all settled now and the water was so very clear it was wonderful. I made the mistake of adding a couple of indian almond leaves and the tank looks healthy enough but it isn't as easy to see into it so I think I won't use Indian Almond leaves in this tank from here on and it should slowly get back to crystal clear water.

I attach some pictures taken by friends so you can see there are some red cherry shrimps in the tank, the pictures arent the best quality unfortunately! I like the tank design as it looks very tidy. The heater is a bit iffy and I have reset it twice when the water temperature dropped, but the aquarium is easily seen from where I normally sit (and you can see the stick-on thermometer in the photo) so it is easy to keep an eye on it for now.

I am keeping a chair next to the tank so that hopefully I can do a better job of keeping on top of removing the poor quality/colour shrimp regularly, so hopefully I can avoid the 'over-run with wild type' that happened before.

The design of the tank means there is only the one plug for the light AND filter, very tidy, but does mean you can't use a timer for the lights (???). I did know it was like this before I bought it but was/am using 2 of my usual cheapo filter sponges anyway so it isn't a problem. Here is link to tank just in case anyone UK based is interested;

https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/love-fish-panorama-aquarium-black-40-litre

All the 8 neon tetra and 5 ember tetra are still alive and looking as happy as fish can look(?), and there are a few assassin snails, so I think it is pretty well fully stocked for now? I don't like the floating weed but that is in there as friend takes some each time they come, so I just grow it for them, but I may just stop doing that as it just gets in the way when trying to catch cull shrimps! I MAY try some water lettuce from one of the other tanks, but that tank has a duck weed problem, so I am a bit hesitant as I don't want to also transfer that problem at the same time?

I think that is about it, but ask away if you have any questions.