FreshwaterFacet Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 A little over a week ago, I purchased some juvenile blue neocaridina shrimp and I love them but being my first shrimp tank I have a few questions. I’ve never had planaria in my tanks.. atleast that I’ve seen, who knows, maybe my fish have eaten them. I saw one very small planaria in my shrimp tank just days after getting them.. assuming maybe a hitchhiker. I immediately removed it and ordered some panacur-c to treat the tank. I have not seen another planaria since even after really studying it. Should I still treat the tank? Second question, since planaria can occur when overfeeding, I purchased a shrimp feeder dish and tube like in this picture. I really like it & plan to use it in conjunction with feeding small amounts across the tank as I know they love to scavenge around but how long can I leave it in the little dish with a food before removing it? I don’t want to over feed and encourage planaria or other pests and/or foul the water because I know small neo shrimp don’t love big water changes but I also don’t want to underfeed them! 12 very small, juvenile neocaridina shrimp, sand substrate, driftwood, mossball, some floating plants, one medium Indian Almond leaf, and two small, cycled sponge filters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casual aquatics Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 What dish we don’t see a picture? And if you had it snd worried I’d treat to be safe but just my opinion 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 I leave my food 12 hours in my feeder dish and suck back out with turkey baster/coral feeder. I do not spread food. Shrimp will graze and forage on biofilm no worries there is tons to eat in an aquarium as long as you provide one spot with nutritional things. My shrimp thrive and if you have planarians they may feed from the dish so you will see them ive never dealt with planarians but you can get a cheap planaria trap on amazon bait per instructions they will go inside the glass tube to feed and find out before you throw in treatment also anything that kills planarians kills snail 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JettsPapa Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 (edited) Hello, Since you're new to keeping shrimp I thought you might like to check out this thing I wrote out for another newby a while ago. Edited July 21, 2021 by JettsPapa 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreshwaterFacet Posted July 21, 2021 Author Share Posted July 21, 2021 Thank you @Guppysnail! That is super helpful!! @Casual aquaticsOh man! I guess it didn’t upload. I apologize! I added it again. I did clean it well before putting it in. All of the edges are nice and smooth.. pretty well made actually! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreshwaterFacet Posted July 21, 2021 Author Share Posted July 21, 2021 On 7/21/2021 at 8:37 AM, JettsPapa said: Hello, Since you're new to keeping shrimp I thought you might like to check out this thing I wrote out for another newby a while ago. Thank you so much @JettsPapa! I really appreciate! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tolstoy21 Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 Knowing how much to feed is a little trial and error at first. I think most people leave food in the dish for a few hours and then remove whatever is uneaten. Just be careful because sometimes when you go to remove the dish from the tank, the left over stuff can scatter everywhere on the water current! After a while, you'll get good at knowing how much to feed so you won't really need to remove any food at all. Just one of those 'experience' things. But that doesn't take too long to figure out. When you first start out, 12 juvenile shrimp or so don't eat much at all, and it is very easy to overfeed. But once the population explodes, you don't have to worry as much about planaria and detritus worms, because unless you're grossly overfeeding, everything gets gobbled up by the ravenous horde of crustaceans. Here's my little guys eating snowflake right now. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tolstoy21 Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 Oh, some other notes: A product called "No-Planaria" works well but will also wipe out snails. The feeding dish is your friend! Any food that can disintegrate and make it down into the substrate where shrimp can't reach it is then food for detritus worms and other things. I use a standard fine sponge filter in my tank for mechanical filtration. The shrimp love to graze on everything stuck on its surface and babies won't get into it like they could with coarser sponge material. However, fine sponge does clog quickly, so I wring mine out every water change or so. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreshwaterFacet Posted July 22, 2021 Author Share Posted July 22, 2021 Thank you @tolstoy21! I appreciate the thorough information!! I really do! I also have fine sponges in my shrimp tank for filtration. I was worried they’d wiggle their way into the holes and I’d squish them during cleaning. What is your favorite food? Also, this may seem like a silly question but do you feel like the shrimp start to go to the dish more as they realize what it is? (Haha I hope that makes sense) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tolstoy21 Posted July 22, 2021 Share Posted July 22, 2021 (edited) On 7/22/2021 at 12:31 PM, FreshwaterFacet said: What is your favorite food? My favorite food? Thanks for asking. It's Pepperoni Pizza! If you're asking about what the shrimp like, not sure I (or they) have a favorite. But I do feed the following -- Repashy Soilent Green, snow flake food, Mineral Junkie, Bacter AE and Indian almond leaves. I just sort of rotate through that mix, feeding maybe every other day or so. The Indian almond leaves and some other botanicals are always present in the tank for shrimp to munch on. My shrimp go berserk when I drop food in the dish. But I think they must smell it because otherwise the dish is just something else to randomly crawl on. Edited July 22, 2021 by tolstoy21 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreshwaterFacet Posted July 24, 2021 Author Share Posted July 24, 2021 (edited) @tolstoy21 hahaha ya got me there! Mine don’t seem to care much about the dish yet. They are very young though, and small still so I am hopeful that they will begin to utilize it eventually! I recently found what I am pretty positive are Copepods in my shrimp tank. I know they aren’t harmful but I hate that they are in there. I’ve never dealt with any like planaria, detritus worms, copepods, etc until now. There are only a few copepods that I could see after examining for what my husband claims was “hours.” Haha Shrimp only tanks seem to come with so many different challenges than my other tanks. My immediate reaction was water change but I know shrimp can be sensitive to water changes also so I’ve been doing them sparingly & slowly. Feeling a little defeated but they are so cute! Edited July 24, 2021 by FreshwaterFacet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 (edited) On 7/21/2021 at 10:50 AM, tolstoy21 said: Just be careful because sometimes when you go to remove the dish from the tank, the left over stuff can scatter everywhere on the water current! I use an acrylic coral feeder to remove uneaten wafers shrimp pellets from my feeding dishes. Turkey Baster work wonders. I also feed repashy but I use a bamboo stick. Shrimp snails and pleco flock to it Edited July 24, 2021 by Guppysnail Spelling 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 On 7/24/2021 at 2:03 AM, FreshwaterFacet said: Shrimp only tanks seem to come with so many different challenges than my other tanks. I use celestial pearl danios in my shrimp tank for just this reason. My colony thrives. If you have hiding spots and a coarse sponge filter the babies do not leave where they are born until they get a touch bigger as a survival instinct a rock pile also works great. New born shrimp are the only thing a cpd can fit in their mouth and cpd don’t forage so much so they are safe in hiding. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreshwaterFacet Posted July 24, 2021 Author Share Posted July 24, 2021 @Guppysnail Thank you for the feedback! I really appreciate it! So the celestial pearl danios help keep the copepod population down? I was really shooting for a shrimp only tank but I am kind of obsessed with keeping my tanks crystal clear and clean... the copepods might just be enough to push me to get fish in there. I have been suggested and have seen in different articles that people suggest chili rasboras as well. Would those be a contender to to take care of the problem as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 Yup. I know nothing about chili’s but my cpd will eat amphipods copepod I even seen one poor detritus worm brave the glass and mpMeg (my largest fem cpd like megeladon lol) snatch it right off the front glass. Mine hunt staring at the substrate and walls just praying for a copepod. They go nuts for baby brine. My shrimp populthrives cpd are almost no maintenance low waste producers robust and healthy. I was shooting for a shrimp/snail only tank as well. The micro fauna began to drive me nuts. As you can see my shrimp have no fear of them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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