For those experienced with shrimp: Will population equalize?

Piscesgirl · Post by **Piscesgirl** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 5:05 am

For those of you with a lot of experience with shrimp -- do you believe the population will equalize or will it overpopulate a tank?

The reason I ask is because I do not intend to get into the business of selling shrimp, and I do have another tank for them, but my hope is that the population will reach equillibrium and not overpopulate the tank.

Your thoughts?

The shrimp have seemed to slow down their reproduction lately (but I also stopped using Indian Almond Leaf, which I am a firm believer of).

Post by **Mustafa** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 6:59 am

The population will only reach equilibrium if you do not increase the the amount of food you give them as your shrimp population is growing. It is really all dependent on the food. However, if you have an old, well established planted tank with a lot of rotting leaves and mulm AND feed the shrimp (which I believe you are doing), then it will take quite some time until the population reaches equilibrium. Under certain circumstances it could even happen that you experience a population implosion, where almost all of your shrimp die for no apparent reason.

I would suggest not feeding them. There should be enough detritus/mulm in the tank to support a population.

Mustafa

Piscesgirl · Post by **Piscesgirl** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 8:38 am

Thank you Mustafa. The tank is well established, but there is no rotting leaves. I have extremely high light (5.1 watts per gallon, compact fluorescent), and CO2, so the plants grow extremely fast. I have to trim weekly. There is also no algae, as they do an incredible job with eating that.

I do have a 20 gallon that I can move them to that is planted and has a lot of various snails in it now, but being that the population doesn't seem to be exploding like it was, I was hoping you or someone else would tell me that it would equalize

I won't increase feeding, but I will probably keep feeding the same amount. I could definitely use the money selling some, but I would be a nervous wreck about what kind of homes they would go to, and that wouldn't be worth the money to me

Post by **Mustafa** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:21 pm

Think about it this way. If you don't sell your shrimp and thus give them a chance to actually live and reproduce, you will sentence most of your baby shrimp to a starvation death. That's how the population stabilizes...most baby shrimp die of starvation and only a few make it....enough to keep the population going.

Mustafa

Piscesgirl · Post by **Piscesgirl** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 8:53 am

Well, I do feed amply and I plan to continue to -- as a well fed planted tank is a happy tank (I do very little fertilizing -- mostly calcium/magnesium). However, I did read a comment by a German Crystal Red breeder who said that Crystal Reds breed less in the warmer temps (78/80 degrees). As that is what my tank is right now, breeding has indeed declined, although I was attributing that to the removal of Indian Almond tea to the water.