Competition....?

[Terran]

At one point I did not have to worry about this issue but now since I have Red Cherry Shrimp, Sri Lanka Dwarf Shrimp, and Malaya Shrimp the topic of competition now is important to me.....


I do not feed my shrimp so each tank has a relatively low population limit....So what I am wondering is does anyone have any experiance with what shrimp ultimately outcompetes the other....

Cherry vs Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka vs Malaya
Malaya vs Cherry
Other species match ups would be nice as well....

I suppose a lot of variables might enter this type of thing...like certain shrimp may do well in certain types of tank arrangments better than others when in another arrangement the opposite occurs....but some generalizations might be nice to know about....

I imagine that it could be possible that some species of shrimp never outcompete each other because each might be better at capitilizing on certain particular resources within the tank better than the other so each species kindof has a niche within the tank....


I guess Ill eventually need a tank for each species just to ensure Ill have future generations of my shrimp....


If this hasnt been done before it might be an interesting project to conduct as a community so there would be several different sets of data on the same matchup....

I plan on testing this out nonetheless...

[zapisto]

i keep all my shrimp separate from each other.
so i will not be able to mucjh much
but i will follow the thread.

[alohamonte]

I have asian fan, bumblebee, and amano in a single tank.

No issues with compeition. Asian fan use the same sleeping caves, go to the same feeding spots, and then back again, every day.

The amanos are in all levels of the tank, actively swimming top to bottom, left to right.

The bumblebees are crawlers. They dont swim around unless I startle them with my big face on the glass. They go anywhere they can walk: the substrate up wood, up plant stems. They dont seem to be in a rush like the amanos are.

The amanos and bumblebees seem to rest/sleep together in the same caves, although when they search for food, they eat seperately with their own kind.

The shrimp seem to be grazers, moving over the same spots several times, and dont compete the way fish do. Fish will eat so much so fast, that more passive fish will starve to death. I have not found this to be the case with dwarf shrimp.

[Terran]

I have asian fan, bumblebee, and amano in a single tank.

No issues with compeition.

Well this competition would only apply to species of shrimp that reproduce readily in a freshwater tank...

So if you have two species in one tank that both reproduce in freshwater....
Ultimately if one is better at finding resources and utilizing them quickly enough so that they reproduce more frequently than the other species in the long run you will have less and less of the one species until it is displaced by the more productive species....

[Baby_Girl]

Terran, I've wondered about this too. For example, I'm considering putting my yellow and greens together to consolidate tanks (I've completely run out of space!). But I'm worried that the shyer, more reserved green shrimp would not get enough to eat. On the other hand, a healthy tank ought to have more than enough biofilm to go around, eh?

Are you worried about other kinds of competition, other than for food? I suppose there might be competition over hiding spots to molt and lay eggs/release hatchlings. But this issue is easily resolved by providing a physically complex environment.

[Neonshrimp]

Interesting, this sounds like a long turm observational study. Does anyone else have results they can share? If not I, like zapisto, will be following this thread.

[Terran]

Well I was planning on starting a crude study....but I probally need a little advice to keep things as even as possible....
I suppose there could be a couple ways to do start it off (I can think of two):

I could start off with the same amount of males as females for both species.....

I could start off with one fertilized female of both species....



Part of the criteria would be that I do not feed the shrimp ...so that they reach their maximum population size much quicker.....and I imagine I would want to use a smaller sized tank....like a 10 gallon....

A probelm is that I dont think I can do three at once....in fact the most I could do is only 1 ......so I think that if I had to choose a matchup I think I would like to see Red cherry vs a shrimp with an abbreviated larval stage.....might give a good idea to see if the reproduction strategies play a key role in overcompetition within an aquarium....

Any other factors I should be considering or advice....?

Yeah this might take a while to get any results....or perhaps it will sort itself out more quickly than we suspect....or who knows ...maybe Mustafa already knows the answer

[Terran]

Ok Im a little closer to starting this crude experiment. One of my Sri Lanka Dwarf Shrimp has berried so barring any horrible accident I should have some more offspring so I can move them to additional tanks which would free up this tank to start the experiment.

I just need the Malaya Shrimp to reproduce and then I should be able to start the experiment.... The Malaya are adult sized now so I should expect them to berry in the near future....(That is, if I have any males...I hope I do)

So If all goes well I should be able to start in the relative "near" future

[southerndesert]

I unintentionally started a similar experiment... After starting a 15 gallon with 10 young Malaya Shrimp the wife bought me 10 young Indian Zebra. Having no cycled tank to house the zebra I put them in with the Malaya as opposed to my CRS or RCS. Both are doing great and will be of breeding age very soon.

I plan to leave them together as long as I don't see any issues....

Bill

[Terran]

If you start to see the population shifting in either direction please keep us informed.

Ideally it would be neat to have like a comprehensive comparision sheet, in which each species is evaluated on which species they will tend to outcompete in the longrun....