Shrimp Keeping Guide

Congratulations on your new desktop mini-ecosystem. While it is designed to be as low-maintenance as possible, there are a few things to keep in mind to ensure that you keep everything healthy.

Feeding

Probably the first question when first getting shrimp is what do they eat?

Mostly biofilm and algae that has grown on the surfaces of all the things in the jar. They also like some specific kinds of household veggies, they really love to eat fish poop, and will go bananas for algae tablets and other commercially available food intended for shrimp.

Do I ever need to add any additional food to the jarrarium?

The amount you need to feed depends on a few factors. The first one is how mature the aquarium is; in other words how much biofilm and algae has grown in and established itself as a food source. Shrimp are grazers and are happiest when they have lots of fouled surfaces to eat from. A brand new tank would be too clean and would require more food for the shrimp than would be necessary in a tank with a ton of algae. Another factor is the number of shrimp that are in the aquarium. Logically, the more shrimp you have, the more food they need. Often a tank with a large number of shrimp will have a low amount of algae growing because they eat it all, so shrimp must be given additional food to keep the colony happy.

Now the next question may be what do I feed shrimp?

They are omnivores, but are primarily vegetarians. Algae is one of their primary food sources, but if tank algae is not established then you can buy sinking algae wafers or veggie pellets that are intended for invertebrates. Be sure to check any food or additives that you are adding to the aquarium to ensure they do not contain any ingredients with copper in them. Copper is super toxic to shrimp, and can be found in quite a few fish foods, so be careful about what you add. It is usually one of the last ingredients, and feeding them a little bit probably will not wipe out your colony, but if you were to feed them for a long time and not do many water changes then the copper may build up to a level that is damaging.

Non-processed foods can also be fed to your shrimp. Canned or frozen peas can be either boiled or microwaved, and the skins removed by squishing the insides out of the peas. You can either drop them in like this or mash them up, the latter is a good technique especially if you have baby shrimp. Vegetables such as zucchini, cucumber, spinach, and lettuce can be blanched in boiling water for a few minutes before being speared on a fork and dropped into the water. Make sure you rinse your forks really well to remove any soap residue that could cause problems in your aquarium. The reason we use the fork is so it is easy to remove the food after an hour or so. The chunk of food will probably be way too much for them to eat, and will quickly foul the water, so it is prudent to remove the food after meal time.

When feeding with pellets, flakes, or wafers from commercial food, it is advisable to break down big pieces into small portions. The big algae wafers that are intended for pleco fish can be cut into smaller pieces using wire cutters and ensuring you cup your hand around the pellet because they go flying! In a small aquarium with about 20 shrimp I would add a small piece of an algae wafer, about the size of a pea into the tank. When feeding the same tank with pellets I would only add about 5-10 micro pellets. The tiniest pinch of food. Less is more, because if you put too much in you can cause pollution problems and mess up your cycle Some shrimp keepers use little glass petri dishes to place food into so it does not get scattered about the tank and is easier to remove after they have eaten their fill. Not 100% necessary but may suit your shrimp keeping style. Err on the side of underfeeding, and keep lots of surface area for them to graze on between feedings. You can leave a colony of shrimp in a mature tank with lots of plants and moss for a week or two without feeding them, which is nice if you need to go on vacation. Just make sure they still get light!

Lighting

Light is essential for keeping your shrimp habitat running. The plants need at least 2 hours a day of light but no more than 10 or you will have algae problems. Plants prefer the light cycle to be consistent, so it is worth investing in a mechanical or digital timer that you can set to turn on and off at the same time each day. I like to set my timers so the tanks are illuminated in the evening after I get home from work. This means they turn on around 1 pm and turn off at 9 pm, for an 8 hour photoperiod. This light timing maximises your plant growth so they can compete with the algae and grow beautifully. If you are relying on the sun for your photons, then you are in luck because it tends to be very regular with it’s timing without any effort on your part.

Water changes/additions

Occasionally you may want to do a water change or a top off. A water change involves taking water out of the aquarium and then filling it back up with clean, dechlorinated and re-mineralised water. A top-off is just adding water to offset water lost to evaporation. Water from municipal sources is usually chlorinated, so it is important to set water aside for a change/top-off at least 24-hours prior to use. If you need emergency water, you can put an air stone in the water and bubble lots of air through it for a few hours to force out as much chlorine as possible. This emergency method will NOT work if you have chloramine in your city’s water. Water de-chlorinator is available from all fish stores and can be added to water to remove the chlorine. This additive is also used for neutralising ammonia so can be used in emergency situations if the tank’s cycle crashes. Often only a few drops of de-chlorinator are required when dosing small aquariums and overdosing may harm your shrimp. Err on the side of caution when dosing this additive and make sure to read the label closely. The label may advise against using on tanks with invertebrates which means it will kill shrimp.

When introducing new water or anything additives into the aquarium it is essential that it is not done all at once. Shrimp are extremely sensitive to changes in water parameters, and if changes happen too quickly you will find dead shrimp over the next few days. Some of the water parameters that are essential to maintain in as much balance as possible are pH, hardness (gH), alkalinity (kH) and total dissolved solids. pH is the percent hydrogen which means how acidic or basic the water is. Shrimp like neutral water so maintain between 6.6 -7.2. Hardness is the concentration of calcium and magnesium ions in the water. This is important for shrimp to harden their carapace after molting, and if the concentrations are too low your shrimp will die. Alkalinity is very closely tied to hardness, and pH, but refers to the buffering capacity of the water as a basic explanation. Often phosphate buffers are added to the tank, and these compounds (in addition to helping your plants grow) help keep the pH in the right zone for your shrimp. There are many other products that are designed for buffering the water, from different types of substrates for the bottom of the aquarium, to stones or other objects that are placed in the water to slowly release buffering capacity, and chemical additives. You can not adjust both the gH and kH at the same time because they will cancel each other out and render the effort useless. Additionally, high kH will kill your shrimp. They are more tolerant of high levels of minerals, but pH, kH, or temperature beyond tolerable parameters will result in shrimp deaths.

 When you do a water change you remove some of the minerals in the water along with the wastes, so it is a good idea to remember to check the hardness and potentially add a little to the water you are replacing. If you are only doing a top off it is often a good time to add buffer instead of hardness minerals because I find that the minerals are not really consumed at the same rate as the buffer is.

To ensure you are adding the new water to the tank slowly enough a siphon and dripper set up can be employed to deliver clean water at a slow trickle over many hours. This ensures any changes in water parameters will shift very gradually and not shock your aquarium’s inhabitants. Below is an illustration of how to set up a very simple siphon with your aquarium. Place the clean water so the bottom of the container is higher than the top of your aquarium. Use airline tubing pieces and a valve to deliver the water. Place one end of the tubing into the container to the bottom of the water as best you can. To start the siphon you can suck on the airline, and it is helpful to have clear tubing so you can see the water and not end up drinking any of it. Once you get the water past the bottom of the container it is in gravity will do the rest for you. You can close the valve and move the tube into place. Once it is secure you can open the valve and let water slowly start to drip, I like to keep it at about 1 drip per second. This rate will change as the water level drops in your tank so you will need to periodically open the valve a little bit to keep the water flowing fast enough.

Two water changes max per month, only taking out 10-15% of the water. The rest of the time only do top-offs when the evaporation is causing the water level to drop too low. Shrimp don’t produce very much waste and they really prefer consistency.

Shrimp Behaviour

Shrimp are kind of like the cows of the ocean. They like to spend a lot of time going over patches of gravel or plants and grazing on the algae and biofilm that has grown. If your shrimp are swimming around like crazy it is a sign that you should investigate further.

Take a look at the shrimp that are swimming around. Are they mostly the smaller, less colourful ones? Are there some shrimp that are doing the usual thing and seemingly missed the memo to panic? If only the small ones seem to be frantic, then congratulations you have a female shrimp that has fresh eggs. The males get a little carried away when they get the chemical signal, so it can be a little alarming, but it is a good sign that your shrimp are happy enough to be able to grow and produce new shrimp.

On the other hand if all of your shrimp are swimming around looking for an exit, then you might have a problem on your hands. The water quality has probably changed in some way to make the shrimp uncomfortable so they are looking for greener pastures. Often shrimp will display this behaviour if a large water change just happened or something they don’t like was added to the water. Unfortunately any further large changes are likely to do more damage than harm, so sometimes the only solution at this point is to test the water if possible for nitrates/nitrites and other parameters if possible.

Shrimp Morphology

The adult shrimp are about an inch long, with the females being large and more colourful. Males typically are smaller and tend to have less coloration, which often leads some people to assume they are poorly coloured juveniles and may remove them if they are attempting to improve the colouration in the colony. This can be problematic as if you remove enough males you may collapse your colony. Males also have a straight-line shape on the bottom of their carapace, whereas females have a rounded shape to accommodate the carrying of fertilized eggs.

Females will develop eggs when they become mature. The eggs are visible in shrimp with translucence to their carapace. The eggs can appear as yellow or green ‘saddle’ on the back of the carapace near the split. The eggs are carried until the female is ready to molt. When this happens, she releases chemicals into the water and the males will frenzy to find her. They will land on her back and fertilise the eggs. The female will usually molt within a day or two of fertilisation. After molting the eggs move down and she will arrange them amongst the swimmerets, or the little flippers on the underside of the carapace that are used for swimming. The eggs are secreted with a sticky substance that helps them adhere to the swimmerets and the momma shrimp will carry the eggs for 20 to 30 days until they hatch. While the babies are growing, the shrimp will gently fan the eggs to bathe them in a fresh water. When they are ready to hatch she will hold her tail out straight and kick the babies out of their eggs. For cherry shrimp, the babies are tiny copies of the adults, so there is no intermediate larval stage like other species of shrimp. This means you don’t need to worry about fancy baby food for them; the newborn shrimp will go to town on the biofilm growing on your filter and in any mosses or plants.

 Water change process

1.   Collect 1 L of cold tap water

2.   Allow the water to reach room temperature

3.   Add a drop of prime to the water

4.   Add a drop of shrimp mineral supplement to the water

5.   Set up an airline tube with drip valve

6.   Position the fresh water higher than the tank

7.   Start the siphon and adjust the drip rate

8.   Allow the tank to fill slowly over several hours

9.   Success