Addition of Freshwater Shrimp to Your Aquarium and What You Need To Know
There is a time that will come in which enthusiastic people will look forward to diversifying the animal fauna that they have in their tank to ensure that they have some type of species which are not just inclusive of fish. For someone that would be thinking about such an idea, one of the best ideas for such an inclusion would be a freshwater aquarium. With these species, you will get good diversity to your aquarium and besides being a wonderful addition for diversity, they will also help in the cleaning process as they will scavenge for the leftovers which you fed the fish from the substrate and additionally, they will eat the algae growing in your aquarium. For a home aquarium, a majority of the species of shrimp will have a size ranging from about 0.5 inches to about 3 inches when they get fully mature.
When you are introducing shrimp to an already established shrimp, you need to follow a certain basic process to ensure that you do not get acclimation problems for the fish already existing plant and fish as well as for the shrimp. For that matter, you need to think about the species of fish that you already have in the aquarium. Some of the compatible fish with shrimp include killifish, tetras, and guppies. However, a general rule exists that you only add shrimp to the aquarium if the fish you have a mouth less than a half in size when compared to the body size of a shrimp that is fully grown. Suppose when you add shrimp to the aquarium you find aggression from a given fish, there is a need for you to pay close attention to the given fish. In case there is no end to the aggression, then you might have to relocate the shrimp.
Additionally, when introducing shrimp to the aquarium, you need to decide on the number you want to have in one tank. Naturally, these are territorial species. As such, if you put too many in a tank, you can get aggression among themselves. For a ten-gallon capacity aquarium and even higher, it would be best to have one small species of shrimp in every gallon of water. These species never go beyond an inch when they are fully grown. For the bigger species, the preferred volume is about three gallons for every shrimp to ensure that you do not have to deal with territorial aggressiveness.
When it comes to feeding them, you need to know that these are omnivores. As such, they feed on the animal as well as plant tissue. However, the commonest sold for aquariums tend to be plant-friendly. They will feed on algae that grow on the sides of the aquarium tank. In case you realize that the shrimps have started to nibble at the live plants that you have, you must put more food flakes than you are used to when feeding the fish. The flakes will fall more to the site of the shrimp to ensure that they feed on them more.
– Getting Started & Next Steps
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