JSak - that was a well written thoughtful reply, and it really gave some assurance that I should stop worrying so much. I think I will get a couple amanos just to get the cycle finished (they are amazingly hardy little dudes), then I'll get some neos when I'm sure the cycle is finished. The neos in my old tank were tough little buggers too!If the neos do well, and the params stay in caridina levels, I'll add some of them too.
Hi @Scienceseuss! I currently have a tank with both CRS and Blue Dream Neos and they're breeding and doing very well. I keep them in caridina parameters and the Blue Dreams actually filled the entire tank with babies. However, I have to admit that the process took quite a bit of time and I lost a lot of my original CRS in the process. If you're still considering doing caridina and neos together, it's possible, but I'd sway more to caridina parameters as neos seem to be able to adapt over time.
As for the cycling of the tank, tbh when I cycle shrimp tanks I cycle my tanks in about a couple of days to a week at most by using snails, Fluval Cycle and old filter media. I'd say your tank would be close to being ready for shrimp. Algae growth is good news for a cycling tank and it means that your shrimp will have plenty of natural food in your tank. The longer you go with cycling the better chances you'll have of the shrimp doing well.
As for the soil, the amount of buffering depends on how hard the water is. If you're using pure R/O water and remineralizing to keep the kH low, I've heard that the soil can buffer for at least a year or 2, but if you're adding, for example, tap water that's high in gH and kH the soil will lose its buffering capacity at a much quicker rate, maybe in less than a year if you're doing frequent water changes. I find that indian almond leaves, alder cones, etc. don't tend to make too much of a difference in regards to lowering the hardness or pH of a tank unless you add a lot of them. With those parameters I think you can still go with neos. In my experience, neos are very hardy and adaptable except for the orange rilis. The one thing that I have found that kills shrimp the quickest is sudden changes, whether it be in terms of water parameters or temperature; they absolutely do not like change. As long as the soil isn't changing the water parameters drastically, I think you'll be fine with keeping neos. Usually buffering soil tends to buffer water slowly over time rather than overnight.
I use Salty Shrimp products as well for my tanks; gH+ for my caridinas and gH+/kH+ for my neos and it's been working well so far. If you get your shrimp from a trusted source, I think you'll have success. The thing that I feel most people struggle with when they first get into shrimp (I was guilty of this too) is that they kill them by caring for them too much. For example, when I first started with shrimp I would immediately start changing things in the tank if I saw even a single dead shrimp. These changes would in turn cause more deaths in the tank and the cycle would repeat. Even now it's tough for me to not always be checking on them every 5 minutes, but the shrimp that I leave alone the most are the ones that seem to do the best. Shrimp are honestly quite easy to keep imo and you seem to be doing your homework, researching, and taking the time to make sure the tank is cycled and the parameters are correct. I don't mean to downplay shrimp keeping, but one of the things I love about it so much is how easy they can be once you get the hang of it. The difficulties seem to arise when people get shrimp from sellers who import them and send them out right after they get them in. Since the shrimp have been bouncing around from one tank to another so quickly, they tend to be sickly and weak by the time they get to the buyer. The buyer blames themselves for not being able to keep the shrimp alive when in reality it was most likely because they went from Taiwan to the importer and to the buyer in a matter of a week or 2. The hardiest shrimp you can get are USA bred neos.
I don't want to make my post too long, but I thought I'd share my experiences and opinions. What you could do is get an amano shrimp or 2 since they're cheaper and more readily available and introduce them to the tank and see how they do. Amanos are EXTREMELY hardy and I've heard stories of them surviving over a week in shipping after the post office lost the package, so if they don't do well in your tank it might mean there's something you need to change. Hope this helps and good luck!
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