Aquaball 160 And Cherry Shrimp

[showjyr]

I just got an Eheim Aquaball 160 and I'm planning on using it in my 30gal moderately planted tank.

My question is would this have too powerful a suction for baby cherry shrimp? They breed very often in my tank and i don't want them getting sucked up.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

They most likely will do. The best option would be to cover the filter inlets with very fine meshing (like a pair of tights). The down side to this is that they get clogged up really quickly so you need to take them out and rinse them often so the water flow doesnt get stopped.

The other thing you could do is make sure there is a foam cover block before the impeller. That way if a shrimp does get sucked up it wont get caught in the impeller.

I use an external canister filter on the tank that my cherry shrimp are in and a lot of babies do get sucked into it. It doesnt do them any harm but I when I clean/check the filter (about every two weeks) I have to net out a load of cherry shrimp from the bottom and put them back into the tank