My success story

[tooth]

Thanks Mustafa.

[tooth]

The larvae from January are now free-swimming and browsing algae on the tank sides.
Another berried female showed up today. I thought I saw her molt a week ago. This one has more eggs than the first 2 did.
The juvenile shrimp from the first hatch (last fall) are now big enough that it's hard to tell some of them from the original shrimp of last April.
I have a 10 gallon tank, with minimal decor and shallow substrate, so it is close to 9 gallons of water, I'd say.
Does anyone know if the shrimp naturally limit their population? I've never had more than one berried female at a time, but that is likely to change soon.
It has taken a little less than a year to triple the population.

[KenCotigirl]

Tooth i am sure there is a natural limit/density for this or any shrimp. However for H. rubra i believe that density is very high. I am only guessing but i believe i must have 500+ in my 10 gallon (how can you count them anyway) and no sign of them slowing down. I have a lot of decor. Hey more room for biofilm.

[tooth]

Hmm...I haven't needed to add food to the system yet, but I'll need to eventually.
What do you feed your shrimp? How often? How much?
I was thinking of breaking off very small pieces of sinking bottom-feeder fish food when the time comes.

[KenCotigirl]

Tooth you are a great example of Mustafa's system. Not only low tech but not fed by you in nearly a year and they are breeding not just once but again. Whenever you decide to feed which does not appear any time soon, i follow a once or twice a month regimen. I break apart a dime sized flake and drop it on the surface. No special flake. My shrimp find the flake pieces in minutes and a feeding frenzy starts. However in another tank i agitate the surface. Some flake pieces fall to the bottom then the feeding begins.

[tooth]

Sounds good.

[Mustafa]

Awesome news! (although I'm a few weeks late ) As long as the number of shrimp in a tank grows naturally, there seems to be not much of a limit (none that I have observed so far). A ten gallon could probably support a few thousand of them over time. However, I would not necessarily *start* a tank with tons of shrimp as they do produce ammonia, and without an establish nitrifying bacteria population (and given the very high pH) ammonia will be highly toxic to the shrimp. You could lose almost an entire population that way....

As for food...as long as it's a high quality, reputable fish food, you can feed anything. Flake is fine, but I feed sinking foods. It makes it much easier for me to feed over 60 tanks, and less taxing for the shrimp to reach (as opposed to floating food). Start throwing food in once a month if you see a decrease in algae growth. Go from there...you can always increase the frequency to every two weeks if need be. Seeing one or two females berried in any given tank is absolutely normal. There may be more (hidden), but there are never masses of berried females running around..even in my tanks with thousands of shrimp.

[tooth]

I've been watching the algae growth rate. It seems to have plateaued, but the bottom is still covered, and it is still green. Some of the algae on the sides is starting to peel off in places. I had to scrape the algae off the front once a few months ago, and it has not grown back. I think the algae will start to dwindle before the shrimp could possibly eat it all. The shrimp probably are not producing enough ammonia by themselves, to sustain the amount of algae in the tank through the nitrifying process--27 shrimp, only 9 of them adults, in 10 gallons. The organic matter in the substrate I chose (crushed shells for pet crabs, apparently not very clean) will run out eventually, then it will be time to add food to the system. For the time being the shrimp just graze lazily through out the day.
The tank will have been up and running for a year in just a couple of weeks.

[Mustafa]

Wait until all signs of peeled algae (i.e. sheets of algae) are gone. I'd feed after that. There should only be surface growing algae left. Alternatively, you could throw a small piece of food in now and see if the shrimp swarm around it. If they do, that's a good sign that you can start the once every two week feeding schedule.

[tooth]

I put a small bit of sinking pellet in last Tuesday afternoon. It sat un-noticed until I fished it out just now. The shrimp had zero interest in it.
I'll wait until the algae is gone from the sides, then try again.

[tooth]

1 new larva 2 days ago, 4 or 5 additional larvae this morning (they are difficult to count as they rise and fall in the water column), and the female still carries 3 eggs. No dropped eggs this time, as far as I can tell.
Looks like this batch will be 8 or 9--just about what I counted when the female first berried.
Just counted--10 new larvae.

[Mustafa]

Congrats on the new larvae! You must have started this tank with tons of nutrients for the algae to last this long! Wow...no feeding = less work for you. Yes, wait for the sheets of algae to be completely gone before attempting to feed again.

[tooth]

Thanks Mustafa. We just returned from a week-long trip, and there are a total of 12 larvae. Like you said, they can hatch over a period of a few days.
"Tons of nutrients" is a nice way of saying "lots of dirty, improperly cleaned substrate". Ijust assumed the stuff was cleaned by the vendor--wrong. I think I mentioned I had to syphon off ammonia for a week or two at the start, before the bacteria/algae began to cycle.

[Mustafa]

Yeah..you did mention that. Ok, then...due to your absolutely filthy substrate, you did not have to feed your shrimp for so long. That should be more accurate...hehe.

[tooth]

Filth breeds success: Another berried female today.