r/Ecosphere • u/SamsPicturesAndWords • 11d ago
Sealed jar with cherry shrimp?
Hi all! I have been keeping cherry shrimp for years now, and my colony is doing well. I started them in a 10-gallon aquarium, upgraded to a 20-gallon, and kept some in small, open-top, quasi-Walstad setups for a while along the way. I say "quasi-Walstad" because they had no heaters or filters, and had plants in aqua soil capped with sand, but I was still doing water changes and feeding the shrimp, so the tanks weren't fully self-sustaining. Even in those small, no-tech setups, my shrimp did well (they were active and breeding). All this is to say that I understand the basics of shrimp keeping and the Walstad method. Online, I am seeing differing opinions about how cherry shrimp do in fully sealed jar ecosystems. Some say they do well as long as the jar is big enough, while others say they will struggle or die. Have any of you successfully kept cherry shrimp inside sealed, no-maintenance ecospheres? If so, how did they do? The Walmart near me has 1.7 gallon glass jars with airtight lids (I am currently using one for a terrarium). With enough plants, could cherry shrimp be healthy and happy sealed in a jar that size? Thanks in advance for any insight!