I hope someone can help me with my question

[Herefishie]

I began fish keeping about nine months ago. I have a 15 gallon Fluval Flex, a 5 gallon Aqueon and a 2.5 gallon Fluval Spec that I use for a few shrimp  

All tanks are lightly stocked. I do a 20% water change weekly and I gravel once a month. For some reason, I've had an outbreak of both planaria and seed shrimp in my small shrimp tank (different times). I don't have any critters that I have noticed in my other two tanks. I realize they could be there but I've never seen any.
 

Since they all have the same water parameters (normal) and they all get the same maintenance, can anyone explain to me why the small tank is causing me fits?

[Fish Folk]

For the seed shrimp, my guess is that you got them from plants, wood, etc. they’re great hitchhikers. They are probably in all of your tanks, but are eaten by fish — whereas shrimp leave them alone.

Planaria arise from habitual overfeeding. 

[Nina]

I don't have an easy answer, but I get detritus worms in my 10 gallon planted tank. It could be that in the small tank more food, etc. is getting into the bottom. I have detritus worms in the tank I feed fry food in because it's much harder to get it out versus pellets and large flakes. I hope you figure it out!

[beastie]

Yup, planaria can be in every tank, hitching ride on snails, plants, decorations. In fish tank they cause no problems and are most often eaten by (hungry) fish.

In shrimp tanks they are always problems. I recommend using a trap, over 24 hr period with some raw meat like fish. And rethink your shrimp feeding schedule..three times a week is plenty enough 🙂

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/3/2023 at 10:49 AM, Herefishie said:

Since they all have the same water parameters (normal) and they all get the same maintenance, can anyone explain to me why the small tank is causing me fits?

One of the best ways to really diagnose a problem like this is to take a high level view of everything.  How are you doing with maintenance, food, plant care, and so forth.  Given that you have a shrimp tank, I want to start by recommending the youtube creator Mark's Shrimp Tanks.  Hopefully that is a great resource for you to look up many of the things that you are dealing with.

I think that you might just be dealing with a siphon issue.  Keeping the substrate clean in a shrimp tank can be a challenge, especially for a new hobbyist.  This is something I am dealing with in my own care because I am relative new to keeping specialty shrimp, neocaridinas. I have a journal linked below where I am trying to share useful information and dive into how to best care for them.

One final thing I will note is that when it comes to tanks with critters, you have to be careful with oxygenation.  They use up the oxygen which can be a reason (and secondarily a further issue) for why they showed up in the first place. I would add an additional airstone for the time being to keep up good oxygenation for your shrimp while you are dealing with the planaria and other things going on. 

[Herefishie]

Thanks all for the helpful suggestions. I've been thinking about getting an air stone so I think I might try that. I am kind of anal when it comes to clean tanks so when they appeared, I did water changes every day, vacuumed fastidiously and even went so far as to use a turkey baster to suck up those that I could see. I haven't seen anything in there now for about a week but when I do gravel vacs, I do see the little seed shrimp swimming around in the bottom of the bucket so I know they're in there. I do believe maybe I was overfeeding because I was new at this. Ironically, the only plants in that little tank are ones that I moved over from the other tanks of which I never see anything. Again, I know they probably are in there though. I've also come to the conclusion that a smaller tank is harder to take care of than the larger ones, lol. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/3/2023 at 11:59 AM, Herefishie said:

Again, I know they probably are in there though. I've also come to the conclusion that a smaller tank is harder to take care of than the larger ones, lol. 

Very likely. The python brand has a "nano siphon" that's really awesome for small tanks. It might be a good one to check out if you are having any issues with tight spaces. I use a longer one that's probably good for a 10G tank or larger, it's a store brand, blue narrow tube from one of the big box chains. If you need help trying to find the nano one I can send you a link in DM to where I got mine.

If you ever want to find a "good tank size" I think my favorite one for most nano size tanks is a 20L. It's got the right size and shape to make it easy to work in, cheap and affordable (can't beat a great tank for $25) and it's a nice size to view because it's longer and more panoramic of sorts. I just wanted to mention that in case you're considering changing tank sizes at all.

[Herefishie]

 "If you need help trying to find the nano one I can send you a link in DM to where I got mine."

I've been searching on Amazon but the smallest one I can find is a mini not a nano. The one I have now is the mini. It works pretty well but if I could find a nano, I might go with that.

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/3/2023 at 12:44 PM, Herefishie said:

The one I have now is the mini. It works pretty well but if I could find a nano, I might go with that.

That might be the same one, let me double check....

Yeah. They have a small and a small/tall which is the same thing but just a longer tube.

For very small tanks, using a bulb to start the siphon might be all you need and then just pinch the hose using what you have. 🙂

Here's a video on Cory's spot siphon and clean to go section by section.

 

 

Here's pecktec and clone charlie cleaning out one of his nano size tanks. It's a really fun channel with useful tips and tricks 🙂

 

[Herefishie]

I am a faithful viewer of Cory's videos. I honestly think this video on how to get the siphon started is the most valuable one I've ever watched!

[TheBlueBeetle]

This may not be an option as it looks like the Flex 15 is your largest tank, But I use my Flex 15 shrimp tank as a grow out tank for fish that are too small to put in my 125 initially. Currently I have 7 harlequin rasboras that are to small to pose any danger to my shrimp. They mow down any tiny unwanted guest and will be moved out when they've grown a bit. If you don't have another tank for the grown fish, maybe you have a friend with a larger tank? This all assumes you want to keep a shrimp only tank, otherwise, you could pick up some nano fish that will eat the occasional shrimplet, but will take care of other critters. 

[Herefishie]

I've thought about putting a fish from my biggest tank in the shrimp tank. If I have another burst of critters, I will try that. Thanks for your input.