Back in 2010 I found a tiny soft shell turtle in my back yard, about the size of a half dollar. I had no idea how he got there since my back yard was fenced in and there wasn't even a lake or pond near us. My guess is that a bird must have had it and dropped it in the yard as it flew over. I decided to keep the turtle until it grew bigger so that it wouldn’t get eaten.
I went out to Walmart and bought a cheap 10 gallon aquarium to keep it in. At the time my daughter was a little over a year old so I put the aquarium on a low table so she could enjoy watching the baby turtle. Once the turtle grew to about the size of my hand I decided it was time to release it. I took the turtle to a local park at released it into a lake.
Because my daughter loved the tank so much, I bought some fish to keep in it. I had no idea at the time what I was doing. I bought some cheap pebbles for substrate and some fake plants. The light I was using was the hood light the aquarium came with and had no idea about water changing. This caused huge algae blooms which made the aquarium look ugly and I just couldn't get it under control. I decided it was time to get rid of the aquarium but my now four year old daughter became very upset about it so I had no choice but to keep the aquarium.
So I decided that if we were going to keep the aquarium I had to learn how to maintain it and make it look good so I turned to YouTube. While watching video's on planted aquariums, I stumbled upon a video of a planted aquarium that had this soft calming music playing and as I watched, suddenly this small Cherry shrimp came into frame walking over a rock. At the time I had never seen such a thing and had no idea that freshwater aquarium shrimp even existed. Instantly I fell in love with the idea of keeping shrimp but first I needed to learn how to keep a planted aquarium. After a couple of months and about $400 spent on the proper lights, substrate, and plants (which I had to keep buying because I couldn't keep them alive) I finally figured it out.
I bought some small community fish to stock it but couldn't figure out how or where to find shrimp to buy. I finally found a local pet store that had some cherry shrimp but now I needed another aquarium. One night while walking my dog late at night I noticed a 2 or 3 gallon plastic aquarium in someone's garbage at the curb which became my first ever shrimp tank. After a couple of months the shrimp began breeding and before I knew it I had about 80 Cherry shrimp in this tiny tank. I soon learned how to sell the shrimp on eBay just for the purpose of buying more shrimp. This was in 2013 and I have been selling on eBay ever since. In 2019 I created my website and Terry's Shrimp Shop was born.
Currently (2022) I have close to 50 tanks in my home that are breeding shrimp. All the shrimp I sell are USA bred right here in my home. My goal has been and always will be to provide my customers with beautiful, healthy shrimp as well as quality supplies that are needed to care for your shrimp. Being such a small business, I work directly with all of my customers and am always willing to help if you should experience any issues even if you are not buying anything.
