Shrimp bio load?

[Dark Rose]

How much do the small fancy shrimp add to bio load? And how many can be added, as a rule of thumb...

I've read up to 10 shrimp per gallon (talking small shrimp here, 1.5-2" max), but that seems like a lot... (tank is 29 gallon, can't imagine almost 300 shrimp in there...)

I've taken a liking to some of the small fancy colored shrimp, and my son thinks they're awesome, but I don't want to overload my filter and have a waste factory going (the one pleco does enough of that himself).

So are they a big addition to bioload? I've never really read much about how much "waste by-product" shrimp actually produce...

I've got some Amano and Ghost shrimp, but like the Cherry, Neon Green, Black, and other colors...

 

[Curtis Rouse]

I'm short: very little. You could add 20-30 shrimp and just let them breed until they naturally find the equilibrium between bio load and filtration capability.

Sent from my mind to my fingers to my phone to the MFK servers to you

 

[Dark Rose]

Ok, that last post leads me to another question...

How do they breed? More specifically, do they lay their eggs, or do the eggs hatch off the parent? When I got my ghost shrimp, several of them had eggs under the tail, a couple of weeks later, no eggs, never saw any baby shrimp...

Filter got em? Oto cats or Pleco got them? If I see eggs again, should I put something over the filter intake?

 

[E.C.]

Oto cats did the clean up of your eggs, they did that egg-snatching on my ghost.

 

[E.C.]

BTW, most shrimp can be left alone, most of em are prolific breeders. They'll breed and breed and breed and breed with the right parameters. You could control em by selling some, or letting others to be somebody's snack.

 

[Dark Rose]

BTW, most shrimp can be left alone, most of em are prolific breeders. They'll breed and breed and breed and breed with the right parameters. You could control em by selling some, or letting others to be somebody's snack.

I've got a 75g with African cichlids in the other room, if the shrimp end up overrunning me, are they a safe snack for my cichlids?

Sent from my DROID4 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[Fat Homer]

First it depends what type of shrimp you want to keep...

Cherry Red Shrimp are the easiest to breed, and will breed like rabbits...

Ghost shrimp i'm pretty sure require brackish water for them to breed, although they do live fine in fresh...

Crystal Red Shrimp / King Kongs and the other more expensive ornamental shrimp tend to require more care and specific parameters to breed... Not to mention they are much less forgiving to warmer temps...

As for bioload, they add basically nothing to the tank, which is why people who keep them in smaller tanks tend to use sponge filters to prevent sucking up the babies into the filters...

As for the egg carrying, they carry the eggs till they are ready to hatch, which is around 20-28 days or so, Then the babies swim off and start feeding on their own...

Last but not least, if you want a large colony of shrimp, keep them alone and let them do their thing, then after a while they will start to fill out the space, although depending on the species may take a while...

Any fish with your shrimp may end up eating the baby shrimp, so whether you really want fish in there is something you also have to consider...



Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

 

[Dark Rose]

Well, the tank with shrimp already has fish, that's why I was concerned about bioload. Mainly tetras, golden and cherry barbs, Oto cats, a gourami, and a pleco... The pleco is the heaviest hitter, so to speak, when it comes to waste, and when he outgrows the tank he'll move to my 75, so that will lighten it up considerably.

I just didn't want to overload things.

Sent from my DROID4 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[virgil2090]

There are very few fish that would not be able to eat baby shrimp.the adult shrimp are not aggressive so if the fish decide to peck at them, they will end up as food.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[Fat Homer]

All those fish listed will pretty much pick off any baby shrimp they an grab if opportunity arrives, and if the fish stress the shrimp, the shrimp could end up dropping their eggs...

With that all said and done, if the tank is really heavily planted, you may find a few will survive at least...



Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app