What to do when it's lights out....

[JJenna]

and you are living in a canister filter? You get to making babies of course! Cherry shrimp always seem to find their way into our large tank canister filters, even with a sponge on the intake. We cleaned the canisters last night and couldn't even count the number of cherry shrimp that were living there. Good thing they have lots of hiding places from the turtle, but the barbs were gluttons and had a feast before the shrimp scattered. No visible shrimp this morning, until I see the piece of spider-wood is covered with them. 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 12/6/2022 at 4:09 PM, JJenna said:

and you are living in a canister filter? You get to making babies of course! Cherry shrimp always seem to find their way into our large tank canister filters, even with a sponge on the intake. We cleaned the canisters last night and couldn't even count the number of cherry shrimp that were living there. Good thing they have lots of hiding places from the turtle, but the barbs were gluttons and had a feast before the shrimp scattered. No visible shrimp this morning, until I see the piece of spider-wood is covered with them. 

Have you thought about removing the predators?

[JJenna]

On 12/6/2022 at 10:40 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Have you thought about removing the predators?

The main inhabitant of the tank is a turtle, we added shrimp for clean up. The barbs generally can't get to them but in that instance where we literally put about 100 shrimp in the tank at once (besides the few that jumped from the tray and the dogs got them). The canister shrimp didn't know the environs in the tank and were sitting ducks so to speak. Will try to corral the barbs next time. 

[nabokovfan87]

Does the canister have a pre-filter sponge?

[JJenna]

On 12/6/2022 at 2:04 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Does the canister have a pre-filter sponge?

Yes, it's a coarse sponge that fills the whole tray, that's where all the shrimp were, and that's what surprised us so much! We also have large Co-op filters on our intakes. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/6/2022 at 2:44 PM, JJenna said:

Yes, it's a coarse sponge that fills the whole tray, that's where all the shrimp were, and that's what surprised us so much! We also have large Co-op filters on our intakes. 

Yeah, the shrimp are small but the intakes should help keep them out. Weird.

[jwcarlson]

I think the youngest ones can get through the coarse sponge.  Any coarse sponge in my tanks end up packed with shrimplets.  They're like hotels for them.

Edited December 7, 2022 by jwcarlson