I have an established cherry shrimp tank, but I am looking to moving them to a new rimless tank I recently purchased. Along with this, I want to use new substrate and I had a few questions.
Can I immediately transfer the shrimp if I decide to use a plant substrate such as Fluval Stratum? Or would it release dangerous levels of ammonia? Should I stick to an inert substate like Seachem Fluorite or EcoComplete?
Different plant substrates are different - some are heavy ammonia (like the amano one, aquasoil?), but you should expect any new tank, with any substrate, to need to cycle before you want to move in shrimp.
The only way I'd move in shrimp to a newly set up tank is if I had a lot of plants out of a cycled tank AND a filter full of media that had been running in a cycled tank, and not if I were using a lot of a heavy-ammonia substrate. I don't have experience with the Fluval Stratum to know it's particular characteristics.
Maybe you can transfer a portion of the substrate from the old shrimp tank to the new one? That should give the bacteria a jump-start too.
Transfer filter media to your new aquarium and also set the new aquarium up and afterwards you can set new aquarium up and wait a month to fully cycle. Then test your water parameters. I believe fluval stratum has 0 ammonia release but test
Firstly, as other people have mentioned before, you have to cycle your new tank. You can do this by having an old filter, that has been running for a while, or you can have a lot of plants too, that suck up all the bad stuff. There are a lot of cool plants for shrimp, which would make them feel very comfortable in your new tank.
When it comes to the substrate, I would just play it safe and go with the one that you know would not harm your shrimp. Just use extra root tabs and liquid fertilizer, or find a substrate that you know is good for shrimp and plants.
Transferring established shrimp into new tank
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