Is there such thing as too many shrimp?

well since I have a colony of 10 in my 5 gallon tank, (cherry shrimp) and before I finish this shrimp are just like fish in a way, ammonia, etc. But anyway I have a colony of 10, breeding and all (but I feed babies to my betta 4 a snack :3), so I say you should have maximum 20? or somewhere around that number, I do frequent water changes and cleaning though so o-o

Hundreds, possibly thousands as long as you keep pace with water changes and enough food. Haven't you seen the photos from Asian shrimp breeder tanks?

The general guidelines most people go by is 10 dwarf shrimp per gallon. Of course those aren't exact or limits it anything. Just general guidelines

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Yeah, you can have hundreds in a 10 gallon. I keep hundreds in as little as 3 gallons. Just make sure they have plenty of biofilm to graze on.

Thanks for the responses. I never actually seen a breeding tank that looked very crowded. How do I search this?

My rcs are breeding pretty fast. I feel like I am always on the edge of upsetting the balance. I am not sure how much to feed. I do 50% water changes weekly and feed random things like leaves, variety of fish food, blanched veggies.

It looks like I don't have too much to worry about though.

Man I can just imagine the cardinal tetras being incredibly confused by the sheer quantity of shrimp.

691175002 said:

Man I can just imagine the cardinal tetras being incredibly confused by the sheer quantity of shrimp.

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The tetra is going to be eaten by the shrimp!

When I cleared out my 22 breeding tanks, I sold off my entire breeding stock in less than a month and had sold and shipped off a little over 44,000 shrimp from those 22 tanks.

I have one 10 gallon cherry tank with probably 100+ shrimp in it. I probably get babies everyday from it.
I have tons of moss and a few rooted plants and do water changes once every 2-3 weeks.
One dual sponge filter and ADA soil.
They are pretty easy shrimp.

plantsrockmysocks said:

When I cleared out my 22 breeding tanks, I sold off my entire breeding stock in less than a month and had sold and shipped off a little over 44,000 shrimp from those 22 tanks.

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HOLY- WHAT THE?!? -OMG
That's like 2000 shrimp per tank!!!!! How big we're these tanks? Gotta be a 40-55g, but I'm guessing it's something crazy like 20g...

mrfiock said:

HOLY- WHAT THE?!? -OMG
That's like 2000 shrimp per tank!!!!! How big we're these tanks? Gotta be a 40-55g, but I'm guessing it's something crazy like 20g...

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10 gallon tanks.

plantsrockmysocks said:

10 gallon tanks.

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HELL YES! This needs to be framed somewhere for all those people who say 10 shrimp per gallon... 2000 shrimp per 10g tank!?!? 200 SHRIMP PER GALLON. You're the man. I'd love to see some pics of that!
I've always said 10g is the perfect breeding size tank.

I think that 10 shrimp per gallon rule is a pretty good starting point for many new people, but with the right setup, a tank could easily hold hundreds more, as plantsrockmysocks has easily done.

I'm trying planted (emersed) HOB for that purpose, we will see how many shrimps it will be able to hold (27 litre tank). Starting point is ~10 blue velvet shrimp and a few tangerine tigers.

Before tearing it down, I had a Fluval flora (8gal) with over 600 cherries. The male endlers and pea puffer didn't put a dent in their population haha

mrfiock said:

HELL YES! This needs to be framed somewhere for all those people who say 10 shrimp per gallon... 2000 shrimp per 10g tank!?!? 200 SHRIMP PER GALLON. You're the man. I'd love to see some pics of that!
I've always said 10g is the perfect breeding size tank.

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This.

Also I have something to tell people when they ask if 20 Blue Velvets is too many for my 38 Gallon... Lets see, that means i can have 7,600 shrimp right? right? no?

fishman922 said:

This.

Also I have something to tell people when they ask if 20 Blue Velvets is too many for my 38 Gallon... Lets see, that means i can have 7,600 shrimp right? right? no?

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I don't know about 7,600 shrimps but I am pretty sure a perfect setup can hold a thousand of them. Overkill filtration and heavily planted tank with stable water parameter.