Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Is there a magic number? 1 shrimp per gallon?? more? I mean the small algae eating types not the bamboo etc ones.

Does anyone agree with Amano I think he says 1 per gallon atleast. Is there a maximum???

ta

magic number? 1 per gallon? shrimps usually like to be in a big group. It make u feel good seeing them too I don think u nid to follow the concept of 1 per gallon

oh I know I just thought, is there too many. ie I have 24g tank, if I had 100 is it a problem?

I think 100 small shrimp is reasonable. Heck, you could get a wood shrimp. (20g and up)

The only limiting factors are water quality and food. It's *much* harder to maintain water quality in smaller tanks with high populations. Also, they will run out of "naturally available" (i.e. algae, detritus, microorganisms growing in the tank) food quite quickly, in which case you would have to feed them with artificial food, which will affect the water quality.

Mustafa

hmmm ok. Well at the moment this tank has lots of algae and detritus haha. But only about 25 shrimps, added 11 of those 2 weeks ago. See how they get one but might stump up for another 20 cherrys or something then....

High population = higher competition for algae

Shrimpmania wrote:High population = higher competition for algae

PLENTY to go round haha its a high powered tank.

If they cleaned it though, more power to them, I can move some to my other tanks then!!

If you're getting shrimp for algae control, I can tell you that shrimp for shrimp, Caridina japonica ("Amano" shrimp) will give you the biggest bang for your buck. I harvest thread and hair algae from other tanks to "treat" my Amano shrimp. The six of them fix themselves onto the massive algae wads until they finish every bit of it. Cherry red shrimp won't do anywhere near that amount of work, and considering how much more they cost, it's impractical to try and use them for algae control. I think 100 Amano shrimp for a 24-gallon tank is reasonable if the tank is really heavily-infested. But for upkeep once things are cleaned up, I'd say 1 per gallon is more than enough. Make sure you have a lot of fully-matured females and just a few males. It's when the females start carrying eggs that they become voracious for thread/hair algae. Fully-mature males will also eat algae, but are much less efficient than egg-laden females.

While there's algae in the tank, it will act as a nitrate sink. But once it's been eaten and if the tank lacks any other vegetation, you'll have to keep the nitrates in check through regular water changes. I think that when you reach a point where the algae is fully under control, it may be in your best interest to sell off a good portion of your shrimp population until you have just enough to keep the tank clean. Otherwise, you'll likely run into the problems that others have already mentioned.

-Naomi

cool thanks naomi. Well I have added so far about 25 shrimps, so am on the right limit for now as per 1 per gallon (which is what I think is about right). I will see how they do for a bit. Algae is going down - slowly. SAEs prolly help with it too.

Cheers for the tip on amanos. I will mostly get those now, because I can get them alot cheaper too. And just get cherry's and others for my viewing pleasure in smaller quantities for now

There should be plenty of waste, dead plant leafs etc to maintain the shrimps even if algae stops (atleast the 25). But will keep an eye out for ones being naughty

I couldnt bring myself to sell em! They are too hard to get as it is. I'll share them round me other tanks, or even setup one just for them if need be.

oh btw NOT doign water changes keeps my tank nitrate free - my tap water is 25-40 nitrates but the tank runs near 0 most of the time - because its a high powered tank (t5 VHO lighting and co2 injection) - the plants use it all up - and maybe algae as you mentioned. I have to get an RO unit to sort my water out really. Then I can do more changes.

the only downside of keeping yamato shrimp is they will start eating your plant and moss once they got no algae to eat

vicker03 wrote:the only downside of keeping yamato shrimp is they will start eating your plant and moss once they got no algae to eat

I don't know - I hear this a lot, but my experience is very different... I thought the same thing until an incident with erect moss about a year ago. I received some in the mail, and I kept it floating in a plastic breeding container for a while (I was too lazy to do anything with it, but I didn't want it getting spread around in my 10-gallon tank. Anyhow, it was getting covered in algae and I dumped it out of the container so my Amano shrimp could clean it. Sure enough, they got to work on it, and proceeded to decimate it, from what I could tell. They picked off nearly all of the "soft parts" and left only the wiry-looking vein things. Well, all of a sudden, they stopped and I thought they left it for dead, but after a while, new growth started. It looked like they were picking at this, too, but it turned out that they were plucking off algae and keeping the moss clean. So in my experience, if it looks like they're eating plants, it's most likely that the targeted vegetation is on its way out (rotting). They don't appear to eat healthy foliage, even if the tank looks pretty clean. I think they can almost always find *something* to eat.

Then again, maybe my shrimp are just particularly "well-behaved" .

-Naomi

my experience is similar to naomi's. i've never known the yamato's to eat anything other than algae, rotting plant parts, leftover food and/or treats i give them in my tanks. plants go unharmed, even delicate ones.