Can you have too many invertebrates in one tank?

[Stef]

Hi All. I have a good problem to have in that after purchasing a few amano shrimp for my 10 gal mystery snail tank, I got a little cherry shrimplet hitchhiker!  After a two weeks I finally see him out and about regularly scavenging around, so naturally I would like to get a little colony going and get him some friends. However, not sure if the tank can support so many different invertebrates. 

Here are the stats:

-10 gallon Dennerle tank running 3+ years

- Adjustable heater, currently 76F

- lightly planted with mostly anubias and some stray vals

- 7.2 pH, 4 dkh, 300 ppm gh

- Occupants: 3 mystery snails, 1 nerite, 5 amano shrimp, 1 cherry shrimp

i have 17 other baby mystery snails growing out in another tank that I’d like to add a few ( not all) to this 10 gal but may have to have alternate location for them)

- filtration: small sponge filter and Dennerle Eckfilter 

 

I have another 6 gallon cube with blue dreams and a betta where I could add the red shrimplet to, but then could get weird color morphs, right?

Thoughts?

[AllFishNoBrakes]

In my experience, shrimp can have massive numbers and still have a very small bioload. I’ve easily had 300+ shrimp in a 20 gallon long. I hit up the LFS and said “I think I can bring you 100 cherry shrimp” and they told me to bring them. I didn’t realize how many shrimp I actually had, until I bagged up the 100 and it looked like I didn’t even put a dent in the population.

My concern with your tank is more on the Mystery Snail side. Personally, I wouldn’t add more than the 3 you already have. 
 

For the shrimp, add a few more and let the colony establish. 
 

That’s just what I’d do if it was my tank. 

Edited September 28, 2023 by AllFishNoBrakes

[JettsPapa]

I agree with @AllFishNoBrakes.  I took somewhere around 100 shrimp from a heavily planted 5.5 gallon tank earlier this year, and that was nowhere near all of them.

[Stef]

On 9/28/2023 at 12:11 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

My concern with your tank is more on the Mystery Snail side. Personally, I wouldn’t add more than the 1 you already have. 

I have 3 mystery snails in this tank (only 1 photo bombed 😄) plus a few ramshorns I forgot to mention. I am worried about lack of minerals and calcium in the water if the shrimp population takes off. 

 

On 9/28/2023 at 12:11 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

For the shrimp, add a few more and let the colony establish. 
 

That’s just what I’d do if it was my tank. 

Thanks. I hate to leave the little guy all by himself. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

On 9/28/2023 at 4:08 PM, Stef said:

I have 3 mystery snails in this tank

I actually edited my original message. I thought I was quick enough. Apologies!

On 9/28/2023 at 4:08 PM, Stef said:

Thanks. I hate to leave the little guy all by himself.

For sure. The 300+ that I was talking about started with 15. I’m working on a Blue Diamond colony that started from 10 with a lone female. Looking forward to when I have a giant colony and one single lady will be responsible for all of it. 

[nabokovfan87]

If you're trying to have shrimp.... I know it goes against a ton of conventional wisdom.... I would avoid snails with shrimp.  It's so much easier to handle one "type" of invert per tank.  If you have nerites, that's one thing, but I would recommend just having a pleco or two with shrimp and let them do their thing.  If you want/have them in a community tank that's all gravy too.

To your question, if you want to try to get more variation and just let the shrimp do their own thing, then I wouldn't be worried at all about adding the red to the blue colony.  You could end up with something cool, like a blue shadowed red rili shrimp or something.  That being said, if your blue colony is meant for breeding and sale, then I definitely would not mix it.  I would add culls with the red guy and let them do their thing.