[Coderpup]

I've been battling a swarm of seed shrimp for a while now in my shrimp only tank.
Doing research I read that theire is no real way to get rid of them once you have them. The main advice seems to be

1. Stop overfeeding and
2. Get some fish.

Well in the attached images is my shrimp tank after 3 weeks of not putting any food in the tank. The result?
Still a swarm over the glass and in the water column and my floating plants have all but disapeard presumably eaten as they were expanding fine before the swarm.

I've also tried getting a whole new everything including tank, the only thing not new were the shrimp themselves and yet the
seed shrimp returned =(

As for fish, I really really dont want to keep fish, I wanted a shrimp tank and having to add hiding places for shrimp babys to not get eaten
kind of detracts from the point of wanting a shrimp only tank. I want to see the shrimp!

Does anyone have any other ideas or solutions I could try?

 

[Zoidburg]

1.) Remove shrimp. Heat tank up to over 100° F for a few hours. Once done, allow tank to cool back down to room temp before reintroducing shrimp. May want to do a water change prior to adding them back in - be aware that this may kill your cycle.


2.) Remove shrimp. Find a source for free/cheap (or buy and return) fish. Add fast hunters. I've had good luck with endlers myself - from limited experience. (was not intentional to get endlers - they were supposed to be guppies...) Allow fish to hunt inside tank for at least a week or longer before returning them. Be aware that they might miss some if the seed shrimp decide to hide from the fish.

 

[en7jos]

Do you have another tank with fish, or a friend that does? Wondering if you could fish them out with a fine (e.g. brine shrimp) net and use as fish food in another tank. Presumably the plague will be self-limiting once the food supply has been exhausted, so maybe just need to sit it out.

On the adding fish front, I understanding where you are coming from regarding having a shrimp only tank. I was teh same, but got sick of having too much (but waaaay less than you!) micro-fauna in the tank and so picked up some chilli rasbora. These are tiny little fish, great in a shrimp tank and don't bother the shrimp at all (my adult RCS are actually bigger than the fish!). Just another option...

 

[Coderpup]

Solved!

Figured I'd give an update as I have now managed to solve this issue!

I'm sure for many people fish are the ultimate solution but I was unwilling to go down this path so I took a chance.

I got an external filter with filter pads fine enough they do not let the seed shrimp back out once they get sucked in the intake.
I've been running it non-stop for the last 2 days and i'd say its reduced the swarm down by 95% This leaves me
with the benefit of the seed shrimp clean up crew still in the tank and the clearer water coloum and tank sides.

The shrimp also seem happier now they arn't constantly being harrassed by the little critters.

 

[Zoidburg]

That's a pretty smart idea! And one I don't think most people are willing to consider...

What external filter did you get to help with this?


My only concern is that shrimp have been known to live in external filters without dying, so if seed shrimp get in there, they might have their own colony going... if they are living inside the filter, you could always give them to a friend or someone who has fish as a source of free food.

 

[en7jos]

I got an external filter with filter pads fine enough they do not let the seed shrimp back out once they get sucked in the intake.

Neat idea - good thinking!

So is this external filter just purely for seed shrimp removal (i.e. the main filter is still your previous internal one) or will this new filter become the main one?

If just an additional one to remove the SS, presumably you can just dump the water inside and wash out the filter pads every now and then to completely get rid of the critters without being at all worried about affecting your bio-filtration etc?

This is a really cool idea: get a small external filter with just filter pads inside (no bio-filtration) to just attach to whichever tank needs it to get rid of any unwanted micro-fauna outbreaks. Just run it for a few hours or days until they've all gone. Much better that trying to remove by sucking them out with water changes which are then much too large to keep stable tank parameters.

Thanks for the inspiration! I'll be investigating small, cheap external filters on my next trip to my LFS.... :grin2:

 

[Coderpup]

I got the EF-150 external filter from all pond solutions.
In my testing of running it and letting the outflow empty to a bucket I didn't notice any seed shrimp comming out, so if they want to make a colony inside the filter im fine with that, The final filter sponge is just too fine to let them get though.
I am keeping my previous filters in the tank so I can attach and detach the external as and when needed without having to worry about any ammonia spikes.

I've only got the one tank but I imgine it would be handy for people with a few that they could run an external from time to time to help clean up any water issues.

I'm now also successfully growing floating plants in my tank so I am 100% convinced the seed shrimp were eating my plants as a food source.

 

[thazt]

I used to have a problem with seed shrimp in my nano shrimp tank too. Someone gave me the advice to wait it out, and so I did. It took awhile, but honestly they disappeared after a while.