Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi guys,

I have a 77 gal tank with a serious green water problem and I'm wondering if anyone has ever used Bamboo Shrimp to get rid of green water. Do you think they eat enough to make an impact?

I was thinking of getting some golden clams (Corbicula fluminea), but I'm too scared that they will overtake the tank. Thanks for your help!

Janis

Hi Janis, I'm still a novice with tanks, so please bear with me! If you haven't already, you could try looking into the cause of it, the most likely suspects being too much light and food/wastes. Try reducing it, along with smaller more frequent water changes for a time. Make sure there's no dead fish lurking somewhere that didn't get removed. So basically speaking, starve the algae. Was there a recent cause that you know of for the bloom or had it been an ongoing problem?

As to your question about Bamboo shrimp, I would only get them if you thought they would be an interesting addition to your tank (I think they are, but that's just me). They can live quite a long time, at least 5 years according to this site, so they are not for the shorter haul. Another potential problem is that if you happen to have a community tank, it is difficult to directly feed them. For example, when you swirl finely crushed food into the water, the fish will end up getting most of it. Some people do keep them with fish; I'm just mentioning that this problem does come up for you to consider.

I do think Bamboo shrimp will help filter the algae from the water and as to eating enough, just like the smaller shrimp, they can eat a lot when they've a mind to, but that also means they'll poop a lot (yes, it's and endless chicken and egg cycle!). You'll probably need at least a few or more for a 77 gallon, but again, I would also try to control green water by reducing the cause.

I had two Bamboo in a 10 gallon (which is too small) and they kept the water crystal clear. They've very recently been moved to a 5-week old 20-gallon which has a mild case of green water by the way. However, they went nuts with the light coating of algae on everything and have been using their secondary method of feeding, which is "sweeping" their fan on plants, etc, to get at the food. They've only just begun to "filter" so don't have your answer just yet as to their impact on green water . But I'm fairly certain the water clarity will improve, though part of it will be the tank maturing, I think, and the fact that the only other inhabitant at this time is 1 Zebra Danio. This tank gets a lot of natural light though, which will be a battle in the making.

-GB

I didn't know C. fluminea was threat to overbreed in a tank. I like those guys. You could get some and use physical enclosures (build little pens for them or something) to keep them filtering in specific areas and away from each other. Then again, do they even need to be next to each other to in order to spawn?

I'm not sure how well this would work, but rotifers voraciously feed and reproduce to feed even more in microalgae. You could obtain a freshwater culture and try to let them work on it. However they may just end up food for any fish. If it's a serious greenwater, I suspect the rotifers would still manage to multiply though.

Gunmetal is right though; it would probably be ideal to correct the cause. Likely a surplus of nutrients and light. Water with limited circulation may help limit some greenwater too.

chlorophyll wrote:I didn't know C. fluminea was threat to overbreed in a tank. I like those guys. You could get some and use physical enclosures (build little pens for them or something) to keep them filtering in specific areas and away from each other. Then again, do they even need to be next to each other to in order to spawn?

The "golden Asian clam" ( Corbicula fluminea ) of the aquarium hobby differs from many other freshwater bivalves in that its larvae - hermaphroditically-recruited veligers - are free-living, in contrast to the parasitic glochidea of most freshwater "mussels".

[ C. fluminea is androgenetic - that is, sperm containing the entire paternal genome (rather than just half) enters an egg (here, of the same individual), whereupon it "kicks out" the entire maternal genome; all offspring are thus clones of the "father". In addition, there is preliminary evidence that certain disparate species of this genus are capable of "parasitizing" each others' eggs; the sperm cell of one species, upon entering the egg of another, removes the original DNA, forcing the clam to brood the offspring of another species.]

(http://www.bio.utexas.edu/grad/shedtke/Undergrad.html & http://www.bio.utexas.edu/grad/shedtke/Research.html)

Have you tried daphnia?

If a tank gets out of control I put some daphnia magna in. They clear the tank pretty fast. They'll bloom so to speak and multiply like crazy, then after the water clears, they crash, and most die out. The bloom/crash takes about 4 days for me, but I put alot of daphnia in, since I keep them as live food for other stuff. If you want to get rid of them, do a water change, and dont declor right away. They'll die off in like.. a couple hours in chlorinated tap water.

The clams.. are apparently an invasive pest. If they get into the wild.. they could cause problems.

Daphnia are naturally occuring in most freshwater bodies. I usually leave some in the tanks. They filter feed so dont compete with anything else. Also.. I use algae wafers sometimes, and the wafers tend to encourage algae blooms for me.

Just a thought. I've not tried any filter feeding shrimp.

Filter shrimp are useless for combating green water. The best thing is to eliminate the source of the green water, which is always excess nutrients from one source or another.

Mustafa

Thanks for all the great information!

I have had this problem off and on for a year and I know it's because my discus are really messy eaters. It's a fairly well planted tank and they eat the beefheart mix and spit the little pieces all over the tank. They won't eat anything else except bloodworms so I'm stuck with this problem.

I was just thinking that, even if the bamboo shrimp don't directly eat the algae (thanks Mustafa), they still might help clear up the floating bits of food. The discus are tank raised and I don't think they've ever been given live food so they totally ignore the amanos I've already got in there. I wouldn't put my cherries in there because they might look like bloodworms, but the amanos walk around and steal chunks of beefheart from the discus so I think they're pretty happy.

I have actually tried daphnia, but I find the discus tank temperatures are a little too high for them. I keep my tank at 28 C (82 F) and I haven't found any that are able to survive at those temperatures.

I might try a couple of bamboo shrimp and see how they do. I think they're really interesting and, provided they don't get harassed by the discus, they should be pretty happy with all the floating food particles.

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and suggestions!

Janis