Shrimp in the Planted Aquarium

Shrimp in the Planted Aquarium

By Mustafa Ucozler

     Greg often gets questions about shrimp and using fertilizer in a planted aquarium and asked me to briefly talk about some of the important issues to be aware of when keeping shrimp in planted tanks.

     Shrimp are the perfect compliment to a planted tank. They are interesting creatures to observe climbing around in your plant garden and are useful as algae and detritus eaters.  There are several things however that one has to consider to keep these shrimp happy.  Below is a  short list of helpful information for the current and future shrimp enthusiast:

1. Buy shrimp from reputable breeders or exchange shrimp with other hobbyists who are breeding shrimp in their tanks. This will make it more likely that your shrimp will be healthy and in top condition. Imported shrimp rarely last more than a few days if they happen to arrive alive at all.
2. Use a dechlorinator with every water change. Shrimp are extremely sensitive to chlorine and chloramines build-up in a tank. Even if your plants are doing fine, your shrimp will start dying “mysteriously” one by one once chlorine and chloramines build up. I recommend using Seachem Prime for this purpose since it has proven completely shrimp safe in my tanks.
3. Never use the hot water tap to adjust the temperature when refilling water during water changes. This is especially important in older buildings with old, corroded pipes. The hot water pipes release higher levels of copper, lead and possibly other heavy metals into the water.  Fish are not as sensitive to this, but shrimp will die within a few days.
4. Do not feed your shrimp too much. You should only feed enough that the shrimp can consume within a few minutes. Do not let food sit around for hours or overnight as it will pollute the water enough to have adverse effects on your shrimp, even if you cannot measure any pollution.
5. Rinse any new plants you buy from stores thoroughly.  Especially plants that look like they were grown emerse tend to have traces of pesticides and other chemicals lethal to shrimp on them. Again, even if your fish do fine, the shrimp will die.
6. Do not medicate your tank with medication that contains copper, as the copper will kill your shrimp. If you need to treat ick and cannot take the fish out of your tank to treat them separately, “Quick Cure” has proven to be a shrimp-safe, copperless  ick treatment option.

      Finally, one of the most common questions that planted tank enthusiasts ask is if it is safe to fertilize shrimp tanks as most trace element fertilizers contain minute amounts of copper.  I have personally used both Seachem Flourish and CSM+B on all of my shrimp tanks and I can guarantee you my shrimp are not adversely affected by these fertilizers. Recently, I have bought chemicals from Greg and mixed my own plant fertilizer solutions, which I am now using to fertilize all of my shrimp tanks and it is working wonderfully. Aside from the fact that there are really minute amounts of heavy metals in our fertilizers, the reason why heavy metals like copper or iron do not affect the shrimp is because fertilizers contain them in their chelated  form.  Chelated metals are a lot less toxic to living organisms than free metals. In fact, all of the commercial “detoxifiers” that I am aware of use some sort of chelation to “detoxify” heavy metals. Your fertilizers have this detoxification already built in!

     Once you understand what it takes to properly care for shrimp, you can safely enjoy a beautiful planted aquarium with shrimp as inhabitants.

      I always recommend that people buy juvenile, domestically bred shrimp because they adapt more easily to the new water conditions in your planted aquarium and are in top shape compared to the half-dead, imported shrimp frequently offered for sale. My favorite shrimp variety for first time shrimp keepers is the Red Cherry Shrimp (Neocaridina denticulata sinensis).  They are great “first” shrimp because they have a high adaptability to different water conditions, are a beautiful bright red, and they reproduce readily to keep your shrimp population going indefinitely.

      To read more about shrimp, how to keep them, and to learn about different shrimp varieties, visit my website: http://www.PetShrimp.com