Ghost Shrimp

[This Old Spouse]

I keep seeing that ghost shrimp (or any shrimp for that matter) don't affect the bioload of the tank. So how many could I safely put in my 55g? I have a pleco whose poo is massive, and the ghost shrimp I have in my 29g do a fantastic job of helping to keep the poo in check. Yes, I do regular water changes (usually 50% every few days) but the poo is still all over my ivory sand.

Thanks for the help ...

 

[This Old Spouse]

I got bumped down from a bunch of spam! Anyone help?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I don't know... I'm curious about this myself.

 

[swanseastilo]

From what i have read it doesnt matter i have seen pics with people who have nano tanks and have about 50 cherry shrimps in i got a 100 litre tanks with about 10 ammano shrimp in hardly see them that much,

 

[This Old Spouse]

Just found this on another forum:

"As far as bioload, 100 is no problem for a 55 gallon. You could add in 50 at a time to reduce the impact....just in case. Just buy two bags of 50 at a time...add one bag, wait a day and rip open the other bag. That's only if you want to be super careful but I really can't imagine it being much of a problem to dump in a 100 shrimp. Just keep an eye on your tank the first time you do it and see how everything reacts but you should be fine.
The real problem is how pissed off the LFS is going to be trying to count out a 100 ghost shrimp

And your right, everything will be healthier."


So I'm thinking once my moss arrives and gets settled in, I'll probably get a whole bunch of the little guys and see what happens.

 

[James9114]

i don't know how similar ghost are to amanos but my amanos seem to always steal all of my corys food and i only have 10 so be warned

 

[Meggie :)]

i have a ten gallon and i never get more than 4 or 5 ghost shrimp at a time they are some of my favorites they have so much character

 

[thisguyek]

so ghost shrimp basically go about the tank breaking leftover food and even waste down even further with extremely little waste on their end? I had two a while ago but lost them to parasite meds... wont do that again! was actually thinking about picking some up myself. and why not if its nearly 100% beneficial?!

 

[Caprichoso]

I keep seeing that ghost shrimp (or any shrimp for that matter) don't affect the bioload of the tank. So how many could I safely put in my 55g? I have a pleco whose poo is massive, and the ghost shrimp I have in my 29g do a fantastic job of helping to keep the poo in check. Yes, I do regular water changes (usually 50% every few days) but the poo is still all over my ivory sand.

Thanks for the help ...

I've had shrimp for a very long time and I've never seen them eat fish waste, they will however eat dead fish, shrimp, snails, leftover food and plant matter and bits of certain algae. I think that the fact that you're doing regular water changes is what is keeping things in check. I'm not aware of any fish or invert that will eat "poo" but wouldn't that be lovely if someone did! On the other hand, shrimp don't contribute very much to the bio-load so you can have many in your tank. You could have 50 or more shrimp if you wanted to since you are doing big water changes each week.