Coworkers overfed Opae

[shrimpy4]

I just got back from a four month trip and I can see that my co-workers got very overzealous in feeding my Opae. The 1-gallon bowl has had a very large amount of algae growth, the surface is covered in dark green patches as well as a thin film on the inside of the bowl.

That doesn't concern me so much as the food waste I see around the bottom however. I had told them 1 pinhead sized food pellet every two weeks, but I can see someone tossed in a small handful, and there's patches of reddish gunk where the food broke down around the bottom and is just sitting there.

My question is, should I try to suck or scoop it out? The shrimp are very pale and swimming in constant circles around the bowl, but that may be because I already tried to suck some food out with a baster and freaked them out. I just ordered some snails to hopefully run cleanup duty, but is it worth disturbing them more to get rid of the rest of the excess food? At this point I would probably have to take out most of the decorations to be able to any out.

[yoster]

At this point, all the nutrients have definitely permeated the water. I am not an expert, but I would try and suck up the bottom as much as possible with 1/4 - 1/2 water change.

[Mustafa]

I agree with yoster...do a water change. And never let anyone else feed the tank again. People have no idea about how little food these animals need. Plus, they will do just fine for a month (or two or three) without additional feeding. That's the great thing about these guys, they are vacation-proof.

[shrimpy4]

Ach, bummer, OK. Thanks guys for the input, I'll have to look up on the site how to handle the water change. It's such a small bowl that pretty much anything I do to it really freaks them out. I'll try and upload a picture so you guys can chime in on how it looks, maybe it's not so bad and I'm overreacting.

The snails showed up and I put them in. Hopefully they'll help with the algae and actually live, that whole previous batch was dead within a week. I think the next time I travel I'm just going to saran wrap up the top really tight so there's no evaporation and nobody even needs to do water changes. Better that they're left alone before some idiot drops pieces of bagel in there to feed them.

[shrimpy4]

Thinking about it some more, maybe instead of a water change I'll take the opportunity to move them to a bigger tank. I've had this 1-gallon for almost a full year now, and there's never been any breeding, though when they blanche themselves I can see several have saddles full of eggs. I'd like to get something with enough space to put lava rock/hiding places, as I think there being nowhere to escape the light isn't helping.

[Mustafa]

A larger tank can be a good idea, but keep in mind that the larger tank has to cycle, settle in and develop a biological balance, which can take several months again. The size of the tank has nothing to do with the fact that the shrimp get "excited" every time you do anything in the tank. In my 20 gallon tanks they swim around even if I just stick my hand in there for a few minutes. That's just their behavior...nothing to worry about.

[Iwantshrimp]

I'm surprised hat they still live, but they are very hardy. Next time Mabel put a sticky note on it