Case of the missing Shrimp (Solved)

[PsiPro]

I had noticed my shrimp were appearing less and less often, I figured they were just getting better at hiding.

Today during spontaneous maintinance I happend to glance inside the HOB filter and sure enough stuck to the filter media is a dead shrimp, still fresh and pink. I had 90% of the filter intake covered with a spong for extra bio filtration, the bottom (smallest holes down there) were left uncovered so some of the debris would go up to the real filter. I left that one part uncorked.

The shrimp always stood up to the current, even of my high flow powerhead, so I suspect he ventured in and got a suprise at the impellor. I have only had this filter hanging on for 4 days

Needless to say the bottom is now corked with a spong and nothing can get into the filter now, only water.

$4.00 gone This is my story and a warning to allyall with missing or dissapearing shrimp.

 

[Tiffi]

I'm sorry about that! I've wrote a Amano Shrimp profile that will be submitted soon. I've inculded there that it would be really good to have something before your filterintake (like a prefilter). I think the shrimp like the detrius so much and some flow that they go up the filter .

 

[Zagz]

Sorry to hear about your loss. I will learn from your experience, I was thinking about getting some shrimp for my community tank but may rethink that for now.

 

[PsiPro]

Glad my loss is your gain Zagz! Just Kidding Just stick some nylon over it.

I use: http://stores.ebay.com/FISH-SAVERS

they work great.

 

[Zagz]

I think I will get a tank that I can dedicate to the little guys. There are some flower shrimp at the lfs that are so cute. I have too much bio-load in the community tank to put nylon over the filter intake. Would 15 gal be enough to house a few of the little guys?

 

[PsiPro]

I have mine in a 15 gal (complete stockin sig)

I'd say they would like a 15gal long very much, tall not co much. They dont seem to be fans of high current but have no problems with it. If you had a well planted 15gal long i'm sure it would support 100s, just toss in ten or tewenty and in a few months they will be crawling all over everything. (From what I have heard)

I havn't had mine long enough to breed them but I have looked over pages and pages of details on them.

If you make a dedicated tank I'd go with many different species becasue it adds variation and many will interbreed (giving you very nice variations).

If you go with this method, I would either use a sponge or nylon over the HOB or go with a regular sponge filter. The shrimp keep the sponges clean, all the extra food that gets stuck to the filter will be eaten by the shimp as well as alot of the waste from fish.