# shrimp cleaning up my new plants



## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Just thought I'd show you how industrious my little dudes are. As soon as I put a plant in to 'float,' they are all on it cleaning up whatever yummy bits of algae (that I can't see) might exist.

In fact, I moved a C.Parva from my 55 yesterday, which had a bit of BBA on it, and it is almost clean today (just about 1/4 inch area of BBA left on it). This is despite the fact that I overfeed them! Love'em shrimpies!


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## amber2461 (Jun 15, 2004)

Lucky you ... keep up the good work then


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

LOL, thank you! The Cherry Reds are definitely the better algae eaters.


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## amber2461 (Jun 15, 2004)

I must really take note when I sit down to gaze at my beauties then.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Great pic PG!
I just love the little guys too. They can keep a Minnesotan occupied for hours in the long winter blahs.....


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

LOL, Jan! Yep, they are quite the amuzing little things.


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## iris600 (Feb 12, 2004)

DO you add iodine or salt to your tank for them?


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Hey Iris! I add iodide (reef), just a few drops per week for my 29 gallon tank. I don't add salt as they are freshwater and don't need it. Amano/Yamato shrimp can do with some salt (need it for the young to thrive/survive), but Cherry Shrimp and the Crystal Red Bee shrimp do very well without any salt.


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## gnome (Jan 27, 2004)

Hey, now... Don't forget to give credit to the *other* hard-working critter that's in the photo - humble Mr. Snailie  !

Actually, planorbe snails really are great at scraping off BBA from plants (not so much from hardscape), so it wouldn't surprise me if they're the ones who are primarily responsible for cleaning up the parva. 

Beautiful shrimp, though! Wish I could get mine to breed  .

BTW, Amano himself warns to always be cautious when putting new plants (particularly emerse-grown ones) into a tank with shrimp... Some of the Far East growers use pesticides to protect their plants from beetles and such. I once lost all five of my cherry reds and two of three Amano shrimp that I had for a long time upon tossing some new dwarf lobelia into my 5.5-gallon tank. It was mostly emersed growth, too. I'm reasonably sure that it was residual pesticide that killed the shrimp. You'll know, if you suddenly notice way more activity in your shrimp - they'll grasp at whatever they can close to the surface, even jump out, if they can. And I thought mine were just "happy" to have the new plants in the tank :? . One by one, they went pleopod-up at the bottom of the tank. 

-Naomi


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Oh I love my snails too -- don't get me wrong! That parva wasn't technically 'new' it was in my other tank, but the plants in the picture were. But, I got them at our last plant club meeting, so I knew they were fine (knew where they came from). Thanks for the tip, though, I wouldn't have thought about that. How dare they use pesticides on aquatic plants???? gRRRRRR.


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## gnome (Jan 27, 2004)

The comment about the snails was meant to be light-hearted . But yes, I feel that they get a bad rap in the hobby. I always see posts like, "OMG - a snail!!! What should I do?!?! It's going to be doom for my plants!!! Chemicals? Puffers? Loaches? DOOOOOM!!!" And I keep thinking how without them, I'd have to do so much more work (yes, I'm a VERY LAZY hobbyist when it comes to picking out dead leaves, scraping the sides of the tank and doing regular water changes). Granted, my laziness shows in the appearance of my tanks, but it would be orders of magnitude worse without my little shelled janitors .

Oh, yes - I figured the plant was already in the submersed form, PLUS the shrimp are all over it, which wouldn't be the case if it were doused with poisons... On the contrary, they'd get as far away as possible from it. It's only really something to consider if you buy the plant from a LFS that gets their plants from other countries. Also, only if the purchased specimen was newly-shipped to them. If it's been in their tanks for a while, there shouldn't be anything to worry about. The lobelia I bought had probably been in their tank for about a week, but it was a really big piece and it was going into my very small tank with little filtration, which means that toxic things don't get diluted nor filtered out. 

The other possibility that I'd theorized had to do with L. cardinalis's natural toxicity - maybe the emersed form of the plant secretes the poison in greater concentrations, or the toxins in the emersed form is more potent than what you'd find in the submersed form. Either way, it was a costly oversight on my part and I hope it never happens to anybody else. 

I notice the Proserpinaca palustris in the photo. Doesn't that stuff grow EXCRUCIATINGLY slowly...?! I finally got rid of mine. Figured I'd have grandchildren and maybe great-grandchildren before I could grow out a decent-sized stand of the stuff (and my kids are still little). Do you add ferts to that tank? 

-Naomi


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Hi PG... Great pic... I love my shrimp too... I had one of my Amanos last night clean a Dwarf Lilly leaf completley clean of fuzz algae. I can't wait to get more Cherrys, I have one left.


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Actually, the P.Palustris grows pretty fast in that tank (but won't grow in my 55), but I had other ones that didn't grow as fast or get as red as the ones I have now. I had another P.Palustris, however, that didn't grow fast and eventually passed away  

I like my snails, especially my Ramshorns, although it took awhile for me to understand that they have their place in the tank. So, my 55 gallon is full of loaches, and my snails are in all the other tanks. Pity too, because I want some snails in that 55! One Ramshorn made it and grew reasonably large -- I felt so bad for him risking his life everyday I finally took him out and put him in my shrimp tank. So, he's the 'big' snail of the shrimp tank, now  The loaches seem to enjoy eating MTS the best -- who would have thought?
Hey Trenac , thanks  You will eventually come to one of our plant club meetings, won't you?


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## iris600 (Feb 12, 2004)

Are you NC people near the college? I'm applying to NCU


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Iris, I'm not, I'm in the boonies North of Raleigh about an hour and a half. Do you mean NCSU? IF so, the Raleigh Aquarium Society meets there the first Thursday of every month, which would work great for you if you wanted to participate! We also have a plant club that is less organized, but I like it that way, and we meet about once every other month to chit chat, see each other's tanks, and trade plants (we meet at member's homes).


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

iris600 said:


> Are you NC people near the college? I'm applying to NCU


Which one?


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