Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi all,

Just curious, but is there a general rule regarding the number of shrimp in a tank?

I plan on setting up a 20 gallon with weekly 10% water changes. I haven't yet decided on a species.

Thanks!

If you go with ghost shrimp and amanos and some good nutrient eating plants (I like riccia) you can pack in a lot of these guys. I have a 10 gallon tank with 20 ghosts, 30 amanos and 4 (soon to be more) endlers, 2 Briggs snails, a gazillion MT snails, 4 fresh water clams and everyone has been happy & active for quite a while. I'm watching for signs of stress but so far everyone looks good. I AM pushing the envelope, but I have really good filtration.

I find Red Cherries and Indian Zebras are a lot more sensitive. That is just my experience. I've not been at this a long time, but I research a lot.

Hi Mikha, Nope, no general rule. All aquarium and animal situations are different so what works for one may not work for another.

With that said you could put a fair amount of the smaller algae-eatiing shimp (such as the Red Cherry shrimp) in a 20 gallon. This is just my personal experience, but I find that you can put more in a tank from a load issue than you can from an individual shrimp health issue.

What I mean by that is, when you have a crowded tank, some of the shrimp will suffer, as you won't be able to feed them all adequately without messing up your water. So what happens is you will have a handful of shrimp that grow very slowly, whereas the bigger, more aggressive shrimp gets more of the food. Sort of "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" scenario.

On the other hand, I've found that in a less populated tank, the shrimp have a more continous supply of food like algae and other micro-tidbits, and when they do get fed commercial food, they all get fed. So these shrimp seem to grow quickly and thrive in that sense.

Let us know what kinds of shrimp you decide on and keep us updated. It'll be fun slowly stocking a 20 gallon after it's cycled.

-GB