Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Three adult cherry shrimp and three tiger babies managed to get through the prefilter foam I cover the intake with and got stuck by the impellor.
The babies were swimming around the bucket of tank water I siphoned out to clean the filter parts so were easily netted but the three cherrys sunk to the bottom of the bucket.
As I poured the water away I found two to be alive! Well slightly twitching.
I could only save one and she's back in the tank but she looks drunk. She is on her feet but seems to sway a bit (she doesn't fall over) and although she picked at some food she doesn't seem to be putting much in her mouth. Also her rostrum is moving up and down a lot....kinda like she's sniffing.

I'm so mad at myself....I block the bottom of my prefilter with a piece of sponge that fits fine but they must have squeezed through it somehow.

Tonight I found out that I have the similar problem in regards to my baby green shrimp or green juvenile shrimp getting sucked through the sponge (not the fine pores sponge, but the larger pore sponge like the AC filter sponge) and living inside my AC 50 power filter. They apparently are doing quiet well in there, picking at the detrius matter on the sponge and growing actually. Some were actually tiny newborn baby shrimps, but most of them turned out to be 0.5 - 1 cm in length. So I changed the sponge with the large pores into the one with smaller pores like the Hydro-sponge air filter sponge replacement. Hopefully no shrimps would get sucked into the power filter again. Of course, I caught all of the shrimps in the power filter and place them back where they are suppose to belong.

Perhaps I should invest in a different filter altogether.....one that won't hurt my shrimp if they get sucked up into it.

The system I have never injurs shrimp. I have an under gravel filter adapted to use an HOB to move the water through it. The flow through the gravel is very gentle, and the gravel is packed too tight to let shrimp through. This has been working well for me and provides many imes the cleaning capacity of just an HOB or sponge filter. I've tried them both for long periods.

I recently tried an experiment where I put two 60 gallon capacity HOB filters on my 40 gallon M. Rosenbergii tank bypassing the undergravel filter. I had turned & vacuumed the gravel prior to doing this and had done several water changes. the filter media was relatively new, but had plenty of active bacteria, yet it could not keep up. The water quality took a dive fast. I went back to the under gravel system with 1 HOB and the water cleared right up.