Question for Owners with Older Tanks

[shepbal]

Hey guys, first time commenting but longtime lurker here!

For anyone who has had a tank for at least year (maybe less), do the algae and debris gradually build up to the degree that the tank will never be relatively clean without maintenance? If you stopped feeding once there was a degree of visible algae, would it eventually be eaten down again or will it always get to a point where there is too much to eat, even with both shrimp and snails? Is it possible to never let it get to the point of that much algae or is it inevitable? Sorry for all the questions!

Basically I'm wondering if pristine tanks are always the result of a newly started tank and/or manual cleaning, and if it's inevitable for a no-maintenance opae ula tank (with snails?) to end up cloudy and overgrown with algae like I've seen.

I have been pining over opae ula for upwards of 3 years but haven't gotten them yet for various reasons. This is one of the reasons. I don't want to eventually feel like I need to hide their tank or be turned off by the appearance.

I hope I don't sound like a jerk who doesn't want to put in a little manual labor to keep something looking nice, but low maintenance was one of the reasons I was drawn to these little shrimp.

Thanks in advance!

[Super Jess]

I have two tanks, one is 3 years old and the other is 1 year old. Both tanks have tiny specks of green algae on the glass that do not obscure viewing. Water is crystal clear. I have never cleaned either tank, and I feed a tiny spirulina pellet about once a month if I remember to. The shrimp are happy and reproducing. The 1-year tank gets indirect natural light, and the 3-year tank has a light on a timer.

[shepbal]

Awesome thanks!
Hmm I'm curious if dark substrate would hold up as well as the lighter colored...

[Ula Hula]

I have had a 5-gallon tank populated with shrimp since 9/18. I have a light on it for 12 hrs/day. I started with 26 shrimp and some snails now have about 150 (?) shrimp or so. No clue how many snails I have, as they tend to burrow in the substrate a lot. The glass was obscured with algae at first and I'd brush it off the sides (but leave it in the tank for them to eat). As time went on and the the snails and the shrimp have cleaned all visible algae and now it is crystal clear. I feed them a tiny shrimp pellet every couple weeks.

[skylorvivo88]

Your tank should look pretty clean. You’ll see things growing but never insane.

[shepbal]

Hmmm okay, interesting...
Thanks for the answers guys, it definitely encourages me to keep shrimp in my "eventually" plans!
Seeing some other posts with people saying they never fed but had a big algae presence from the beginning, I guess it all just depends on things like what is on the substrate and rocks in the first place and the lighting...

[SuperProofer]

Mine is 2 years old. The water is clear. Nothing on the glass. Just some algae build up on the white colored shells. The white sand has a thin layer on top that still looks clean and white, but the bottom 3/4 of it is almost black. The snails don't seem to be making a dent in it. Not sure what's going on there. I had an Ecosphere with black gravel and it always looked bad as well. The debris looked white against the black. I don't think either color is better than the other. But the rest still looks good.

[shepbal]

Oh yeah the substrate is something I was wondering about too in regards to that. I came to a similar conclusion that it seems no matter which color go for, it'll end up looking kind of dirty and worn in one way or another. Unless you go for some kind of mixed version? But idk how good that would look.

I'm planning on going with a dark substrate anyway, even if it ends up looking spotty. Maybe having some calcium carbonate pebbles sprinkled around would make it less obvious as it accumulates? Meh.

[sabbylina]

I have a 7 year old 1 gallon tank. The current setup is at least 4 years old. It has black sand with blue pebbles scattered on top, white coral pieces, and red lava rock. I have about 20 shrimps and a ball of chateomorphia from here. Other than the white coral starting to look more green recently, I've never had an issues with buildup. I don't do any maintenance on my tank besides topping it off. I don't even feed the shrimp because when i used to try, they never ate it. I used to have zebra thorn nerite snails and a few of the conical ones from here. Only in the last few months have i noticed any green on the walls because the last of my zebra snails had died. However you can only see it from up close and the tank still looks fine even then.

When i first moved over from the all blue pebble set up, the black sand had some sediment in it form the water. It settled and the surface looks totally fine. Mostly its just littered with broken off pieces of algae that the shrimp drag everywhere.

Don't be discouraged from getting these beautiful babies. Your tank will still be clean and easy without maintenance and If you find its getting to be too much, just go get a snail. The amount of algae buildup does depend on the number of animals per the size of the tank, but its really not a biggie. Don't forget that you DO want some buildup before you get them, so that they have food to eat. They will clean it easily though. I didn't wait long enough when i first bought mine, and even though i had the algae, they weren't super happy for at least a week or two.

[shepbal]

Thank you for the encouragement! I really think I will get them - maybe this year will be the year!

[Vorteil]

To a certain degree you may need to do some maintenance based on what you're looking for. There's some keys elements that the tank will require in order for it to flourish. You cannot expect it to do well without some type of initial feeding. The shrimp waste will have to go somewhere and degrade. This will create the algae and bio film needed to feed the shrimp.I'm sure you can always clean the glass which will stir up the tank from time to time. The water will be perfectly clear but a film will appear at the top of the water eventually. There's a give and take to get you what you want but there's very little to do to keep these.

[shepbal]

Oh of course I am planning on feeding it (not too much!) and stuff like that, topping it off, etc. I just want to make sure that the overgrown completely green tanks I've seen aren't always going to be the endgame eventually. I'm good with a little algae and some biofilm on things!

[Vorteil]

There's always reason why those tanks get that green. It's up to us to determine how much algae we want in the tanks. Sounds like you have a handle on it. Stick to the basics is all you have to do.

[mike.d]

I started a 10 gallon 3 years ago. Shrimp only, no snails, with a strong LED light I got from Amazon. Over the course of a few months the algae took over and I couldn't see the 50 or 60 shrimp I started with. I got 3 nerite snails and they took care of it. Later, I added a bunch of MTS snails. The MTS snails don't really do that much, but they do burrow in the substrate (aragonite) so that helps.

I''ve been leaving the light on longer than I should, about 16-17 hours a day. There's algae on the rocks and some on the aragonite. I also have a film of algae on the glass. It's not bad, but it's not perfectly clear either. I can still see into the tank and that's all I really care about.

I've never fed the shrimp. Every few months I pour in a half gallon or so of RO/DI water to keep the level up. That's it. No other maintenance. If the algae bugged me, I'd either get another nerite or I'd get a timer for the light.

[Varanus]

It's been about two years now since I moved my original colony to a 20 gallon tank, and the amount of organic matter you start with really impacts how the tank ends up looking. Namely my original supershrimp tank stayed quite clean looking for years (not counting the macroalgae in it falling apart), but the 20 gallon one was used since it had been a freshwater tank for years. So despite my efforts to clean it when removing the freshwater, a lot of organic matter was left over, which resulted in a lot of algae growth. But over months of no feeding, the shrimp and snails gradually made things visible and quite nice looking again. There is still more algae on parts of the glass than I'd prefer, but not enough to make it worth scraping off, and it likely will improve more as time passes.

There was also over time a buildup of organic gunk under the sand, but I found that can be cleaned up pretty easily by just digging into the sand with a shrimp safe object. Once the organic material is brought to the surface the shrimp devour it all in short order.

In short, if you start off with a fairly spartan setup and don't overfeed or add other fuel (such as organic decorations that can break down), then algae and gunk shouldn't go out of control, and if it somehow still does then things can still improve over time if you take the right steps.