...Are my shrimp happy?

[graphit3]

Hey there all!

I'm having a difficult time with the keyword-based search, so if my questions have been answered elsewhere, a redirection would be very much appreciated!

I started my ~10 gallon shrimp tank in early May, added snails, agae, and moss ball shortly thereafter, and felt good enough about the algae growth to order 16 supershrimp by the beginning of June. The tank has rocks and bamboo skewers for decoration, and I added some java fern later that I think may not survive.

I just can't tell whether or not the shrimp are doing well. Most of the snails have gone into hiding (posted about on the relevant forum) and the shrimps seem much less active than they did initially. There are no signs of their reproducing as of yet, but I do see molts from time to time. Sometimes one or two of them will be ghostly-white.

So, I'm going to post some pictures here, including one of my floating moss ball and of a particularly well-illuminated molt. Could I have some feedback/insight? Thank you!

[Varanus]

I don't think you have much too to worry about just yet, fact is that 16 shrimp can hide pretty easily in a ten gallon tank. The snails are also burrowers by habit, so its normal for them to spend a fair amount of time underground.

However, if you think that the fern is dying then I would remove it right away before it has a chance to pollute the water. Also if said dying plant is producing a lot of organic matter to feed on in the water as it breaks down, it may explain why your shrimp seem inactive, they just have an excess of food and don't need to move much to find it. You know you have a good balance of nutrients when your shrimp spend most of their time just moving about scrubbing surfaces for biofilm.

The algae on the back of your tank and the fact you say in the other topic you have to clean the glass also suggests there are excess nutrients. I wouldn't feed the tank at all until most of the visible algae is gone from the glass. Perhaps my case isn't typical but I've never had to clean algae off my supershrimp tank's glass.

If you still have these issues after the tank's nutrients are balance, then you could add more structures for the shrimp and snails to climb and hide among, and that may increase their visibility as they move from one structure to the next. But chances are you won't see them as much as you want until their populations grow a bit. I think I have over sixty shrimp in my six gallon tank, but at any given time only around twenty are likely to be visible in the tank as most of them constantly move about (except at feeding time about once a month, when the whole tank seems to awaken and come together to feast).

[graphit3]

Thanks Varanus! The shrimp aren't hiding particularly, I just don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for regarding their quality of life, etc.

Also, just realized today that the infestation of "Squigglies" in my tank is maybe more serious than I'd previously reckoned. Here's a picture of one of my snails covered in the mystery invaders, and you can see clusters of them on the glass, too. Help!

[Varanus]

How strange... I'm not sure what they could be, but hopefully someone else can identify them.

[Super Jess]

I like the way you used the bamboo skewers! I would not have thought of using them that way. They add a nice vertical element that still looks organic. Neat!

[Keystone]

I've seen fungus grow on freshwater snail shells that looks similar, but your photo makes me think of eggs more than anything else - do you actually see them move?

[AnotherKevin]

What kind of sand do you have? If it's argonite, that's great, but if not, I'd worry about your water going acidic. (I'm no expert, but I'd guess that a tiny bit of tanic acid will leech out of the bamboo.) If you don't have argonite sand, another way to buffer the acidity would be to add some pieces of coral.

Also, how did you initially prepare the water? I'm curious how salty it is.

[graphit3]

Hi Keystone, yes, they move quite a lot. Yesterday I fished out a bunch that had gathered at the surface near the light, but that made, I'm sure, only a small dent in the population.

The sand is some sort of artificial stuff, but I ground up some eggshell and sprinkled it in when I prepared the tank top help balance the acidity. I prepared the water as instructed on the PetShrimp website, with salt from a brand called Instant Ocean.

Trying to figure out what these Squiggles are. At first I assumed they were something larval that would sprout wings and fly away, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Their appearance predates the addition of the pet-store Java fern, so unless they came in on the sand or rocks (could totally be the culprit), they must have come from Mustafa's tanks, so hopefully they can ID them!

[Varanus]

I recall Mustafa once saying that when he was just starting out there were all sorts of extra little creatures in the supershrimp tanks, but that over time all but the shrimp and snails died out/disappeared. Still, he may have some clue to their identity.

[The Beach]

I had bought a nerite zebra snail with a parasite like you are describing. It let lose & I suck it up in a gravy baster. It looked like a protozoa. The snail moved more & seemed quite happy afterwards. (He didn't like the brackish environment. He moved to my fresh water tank.) I do have the orange nerite in my brackish tank.

[Mustafa]

Can you upload a small video to youtube or similar site? Without seeing the creatures move it's hard or impossible to say what they may be. Also, I'd take out the java fern immediately...and also the bamboo skewer things. Anything organic like that has the potential to pollute the water too much...and cause excessive algae and bacterial blooms. From what I can see you don't have to feed your tank at all for now and for months to come...LOTS of algae growing in it.