A breeding shrimp tank is never empty floor and glass: babies graze in every corner, along plant stems, inside moss, and across the sponge itself, and they are small enough to be lost to any careless bucket or siphon. Cleaning such a tank is a routine designed around them — the same gentle steps, in the same order, every week — because shrimp thrive on stability and a colony that started at ten or more grows into hundreds only if routine care never becomes the danger.
Small Water Changes, Matched and Slow
Make small water changes rather than large ones, and make them matched: replacement water at the same temperature as the tank, prepared ahead, and added slowly — dripped or poured in a thin stream over several minutes rather than tipped in at once. Shrimp, and babies above all, react badly to sudden shifts in temperature and water chemistry, so a modest change done gently beats a large change done fast even when the new water is clean. Take the water out slowly too, and keep the whole change to the open part of the routine: same day each week, same small proportion, so the colony's water stays nearly constant while waste still leaves steadily. Fresh water added quickly also triggers sudden molting across a colony, and a tank full of freshly molted shrimp and newborn babies is a tank to disturb as little as possible for the rest of that day.
The Sponge, the Intakes, the Glass, and the Plants
Squeeze the sponge in removed tank water, in the bucket the change just filled, never under a tap: tap water and hard wringing strip out the bacteria the sponge exists to carry, while a few squeezes in tank water clear the trapped debris and leave the colony of bacteria working. Keep every intake covered with fine mesh or a sponge prefilter at all times, since an uncovered intake draws in babies continuously, not just during cleaning. Wipe the glass gently with a soft pad where viewing matters, working slowly so grazing babies move aside rather than being swept. Leave the plants undisturbed as the babies' refuge: no uprooting, no deep gravel vacuuming through planted areas, and no rearranging of moss or wood during a routine clean, because the biofilm-rich surfaces of settled plants are where babies feed and hide between cleanings.
The Siphon Stays on Open Ground, and the Bucket Gets Checked
Keep a bucket, net, and pad reserved for this tank alone, rinsed in plain water and air-dried between uses, so no residue from other tanks or household cleaning ever reaches water that babies are grazing in.
When a siphon is used at all, keep it to open ground — the bare patches and front strip where debris gathers and babies are visible — and watch its end constantly, stopping the moment a baby drifts near. Deep cleaning through gravel where babies shelter does more harm through disturbance and loss than the debris it removes ever would. End every clean with the step that saves more babies than any other: check the bucket for babies before any removed water is discarded. Shine a light through the bucket, let it settle, and look along the waterline and bottom for tiny moving specks; return any babies found to the tank with a soft pipette or spoon of tank water. Assign the routine through KinsLe's Care Teams, with one named helper owning the weekly change, the sponge squeeze, and the bucket check, each marked complete in turn. Marking each gentle clean complete in the Care Teams file on KinsLe shows the next helper when the sponge was squeezed and the glass last wiped.