# Noob ? - El Natural & Shrimp



## Dr. Demento (Jul 26, 2007)

Hey folks,

I am getting re-acquainted with aquaria after many years and find myself the victim of copious nodding while reading Diana's book - makes sense and I'm all about ease.

I have yet to set up my 6gal NPT, but I wanted to include shrimp (cherry) to combat algae. However, I've read that you should not overfeed shrimp, as this can cause illness/death fairly quickly. My question is if any one has experience with both and can confidently contradict this info (Breeding Cherry Red Shrimp by Jack Rowland at http://www.freshwaterinverts.com/info_articles.html). My only goal is to have my cake and eat it too!!

Thanks, y'all.


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## Tony65 (Jun 3, 2006)

I've 6gal nano NPT with 6 pygmy corries, 6 Rainbow shrimp, 4 Crystal Red shrimp + 1st batch of their kids, and red ramshorns.

I don't feed much. The ramshorn population soon take care of any excess shrimp food, and I move excess snails to my larger tank every so often.

Currently the tank gets direct sun at about 4pm for half an hour.

Nitrate levels are around 5ppm - the plants grow quite slowly and there's a slight green coating on the rockwork, which the shrimp like to pick at.

I think the only problem you'll face is the same one I now have: where to put all the baby shrimp (I'm now setting up a larger tank )


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

I have cherry shrimp and Amano shrimp in all of my soil tanks without any problems. Of course, I never advocate overfeeding.


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## Tony65 (Jun 3, 2006)

Oops - re-read my earlier post.

I would like to make it clear that I don't deliberately overfeed my NPT shrimp tank.


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## Dr. Demento (Jul 26, 2007)

Thanks for the responses. However, I'm confused - I was under the impression the El Natural consisted of using excess fish food as fertilizer; I took this to mean "overfeeding". Or do you use a different method to feed your plants?

I guess what I'm hearing is that - bad idea to overfeed with shrimp; I should look at an alternative to using fishfood as fertilizer -- Correct??

Thanks much.


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## Tony65 (Jun 3, 2006)

A larger NPT fish tank is better able to handle the excess food.

Any feed eventually makes its way to the plants via animal waste products - but I don't set out to overfeed the NPT shrimp tank.

The plants don't grow very fast, but it's a Nano and I'm happy with the balance  

If the plants started showing deficiencies I would use minute doses of trace ferts, but so far this hasn't been the case.


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## dymndgyrl (Jan 22, 2007)

I over feed my cherry shrimp in a 10g NPT and they do fine . . .


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

Um, it can be argued that dosing nutrients in amounts as required is better than overfeeding.

Bill (the Heretic)


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## Dr. Demento (Jul 26, 2007)

Understood, but I was attempting to forego additives with this tank  However, if it takes dosing to have both plants and shrimp, then that's what I'll have to do. 

Thanks everyone for your input!


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

Too me "overfeeding" conjures images of fuzzy rotting food on the bottom of the tank that rots and kills fish. In an NPT you don't overfeed, nor does Diana recommend that. Her recommendation is to feed your fish and add "a little extra for the plants". I don't think "a little extra" should be read as "overfeed". A semantic difference? Perhaps, but "a little extra for the plants" to me sounds like less food than you would add if you were "overfeeding".

-ricardo


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## dymndgyrl (Jan 22, 2007)

Wording . . .  ok. If you put more food in the tank than the fish or shrimps will eat - then you are "overfeeding" them. If you put just enough in that they eat it all then there is no "extra" for the plants. Eventually all the nutrients in the soil will be used up by the plants and you will have to dose ferts.

The way I read Diana's book - all the nutrients the plants will need are found in flaked fish food and therefore allowing this food to decompose into mulm is her method of providing fertilizer to the plants.

I suppose everyone will have to determine how much that "little extra" for the plants should be - but you can't tell the fish, "here's your food, and this other little bit is for the plants so don't eat it!" 
You have to feed them more than they will eat.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

As i understand it, overfeeding is suggested only if the plants aren't doing well.
Normally the fish will eat a normal amount of food, process it, and provide the fertilizer that the plants need.

I have to say that I can see little difference between adding more food than the fish can eat, and adding some KN03 or PO4, except the latter is more controlled.

Bill


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## dymndgyrl (Jan 22, 2007)

In Chapter 5 of Ecology of the Planted Aquarium it goes into great detail as to why fishfood is an excellent source of nutrients for plants. Diana lists 13 different essential elements it contains, so in one easy and inexpensive step you are dosing micros and macros. Also fishfood breaks down into ammonia which most plants take up more readily than nitrates.
Here is a quote from the book that sums it up:

"Fishfood is the perfect fertilizer. Not only does it contain all the nutrients that plants require, including carbon and trace elements but it is relatively safe. Because nutrients are released slowly in small increments by the metabolism of fish and bacteria, it's probably better for the plants than adding big doses of inorganic fertilizers at weekly or monthly intervals. And it's cheap.
In my opinion , if an aquarium contains at least 2 mg/l (ppm) of nitrate-N and a layer of soil, there should be enough nutrients for the plants. The hobbyist must use some judgement about how much tank cleaning is necessary. But certainly, there is little to be gained from restricting nutrient levels in the aquarium by underfeeding the fish, changing water frequently and cleaning gravel, but then adding it all back as plant fertilizers. (Sounds like alot of work to me.)"

So, yes, in a Walstad style Natural planted tank, overfeeding _is_ the recommended method of fertilizing.


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## newbie314 (Mar 2, 2007)

For our Betta there is a type of food he doesn't like (too big).
I put an extra pellet in the opposite corner where he isn't.
If it sinks and he doesn't try to eat it, I can track how much the food is decomposing.
We have planarians and I think they eat a lot (snails and possibly a RCS (MIA)).

Walstad says one should observe excess food disappearing in a few days (para-phasing).
One could do this just to see what happens (of course with RCH it maybe hard to tell).


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

dymndgyrl said:


> In Chapter 5 of Ecology of the Planted Aquarium it goes into great detail as to why fishfood is an excellent source of nutrients for plants. Diana lists 13 different essential elements it contains, so in one easy and inexpensive step you are dosing micros and macros. Also fishfood breaks down into ammonia which most plants take up more readily than nitrates.
> Here is a quote from the book that sums it up:
> 
> "Fishfood is the perfect fertilizer. Not only does it contain all the nutrients that plants require, including carbon and trace elements but it is relatively safe. Because nutrients are released slowly in small increments by the metabolism of fish and bacteria, it's probably better for the plants than adding big doses of inorganic fertilizers at weekly or monthly intervals. And it's cheap.
> ...


Hello,

I have no desire to be drawn into a debate with Ms. Walstad. She is all-knowing in the NPT area, as far as I am concerned.

Nor with you, dymndgyrl <g>

But - fish food is not the perfect plant fertilizer, and you would be hard put to find someone who would claim that it was.

I use mainly Tetramin, and while the "guaranteed analysis" list shows 1% phosphates, it shows no nitrates, and few if any of the mineral nutrients that plants need. I might be wrong; check it out.

I agree that it is unwise to add "big doses" of inorganic chemicals monthly or weekly. But small doses, as required, can do wonders for heavily stocked, well fed environments in which the plants are not doing well.

Bill


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## Tony65 (Jun 3, 2006)

aquabillpers said:


> I use mainly Tetramin, and while the "guaranteed analysis" list shows 1% phosphates, it shows no nitrates, and few if any of the mineral nutrients that plants need.
> Bill


LOL - you don't feed Nitrates to fish or shrimp  You feed them protein, which should be in there somewhere.

And if the food contains vegetable matter it will also contain at least a trace of all the minerals that plants need (but most of these usually come from the soil in an NPT).

The only nutrient I've had to dose in my main NPT tank is K2CO3, as 5ml of (20g/500ml) solution in a 500ltr tank every other month or so. This prevents pinholes appearing on the leaves.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

OK <g> Of course nitrates come from proteins, and a good fish food has a lot of it. A minor brain tic here. Thanks for the correction.

But in an NPT, after the initial period when most of the initial nutrients in the soil have dissipated, , the fish waste (or rotting fish food) is supposed to satisfy the nutrient needs of the tank. I don't think that it is a complete plant food and I've wondered from where the additional nutrients come from. Maybe from the infrequent water changes?

I have tanks that require nitrate dosing every two months or so. They are fairly heavily stocked. Maybe I should feed the fish more, but I became a fish keeper when the accepted rule was "Overfeeding kills more fish than any other factor." Fish can suffer from obesity too. They don't eat KNO3.

Bill


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## dymndgyrl (Jan 22, 2007)

I think Diana's point in the above quote is that fish flakes _is_ a complete plant food. If you look at what makes good compost in natural gardening - vegetable matter, manure or fish fertilizer plus bacteria to break it all down - it's all there in a good fish food. We are essentially adding compost to our aquatic soil by leaving the fish poop, extra flake food and decomposing plant material on the bottom.

As she states in the book - fish food (and fish waste) break down into ammonia first - in a tank with biological filtration the ammonia will be converted to nitrate, but in an NPT the plants will take up the ammonia as a source of nitrogen before it gets converted.

What additional nutrients are you wondering about? One of the reasons why compost is better to add to a garden than chemical nutrients is because it adds many nutrients that would be impossible to dose separately. As I mentioned, Diana lists 13 of them in her analysis of flaked food. Do you have her book? I could list them for you if you want.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

dymndgyrl said:


> I think Diana's point in the above quote is that fish flakes _is_ a complete plant food. If you look at what makes good compost in natural gardening - vegetable matter, manure or fish fertilizer plus bacteria to break it all down - it's all there in a good fish food. We are essentially adding compost to our aquatic soil by leaving the fish poop, extra flake food and decomposing plant material on the bottom.
> 
> As she states in the book - fish food (and fish waste) break down into ammonia first - in a tank with biological filtration the ammonia will be converted to nitrate, but in an NPT the plants will take up the ammonia as a source of nitrogen before it gets converted.
> 
> What additional nutrients are you wondering about? One of the reasons why compost is better to add to a garden than chemical nutrients is because it adds many nutrients that would be impossible to dose separately. As I mentioned, Diana lists 13 of them in her analysis of flaked food. Do you have her book? I could list them for you if you want.


Yes, I've had her book for about 4 years. I've read it three or more times, each time learning something new. Every keeper of aquatic plants, regardless of the method used, could benefit from reading it.

The analysis that you cite does list 13 elements that were found in an average of six different fish foods. There are significant differences among the six, and only two of them show any nitrates at all which makes me wonder, based on Tony65's comments, above, but . . .

More important, I think, the analysis that lists the nutrients also shows the number of months of nutrients that the food "dose" provides. These range from 3 months' worth of K to 80 months' worth of Mn. That sounds impressive until you see that the "months' worth" is based on 40 grams of fish food! That is about 1.6 ounces. Based on the packing of my 4 inch high cylinder of Tetramin flakes, that amounts to over 11 cubic inches of fish food! 11 cubic inches! unless I made a mistake somewhere.  That would feed my 20 gallon tank for a year, I'd bet. So I again question how much plant food is really in the food that you or I use.

But if Diana and other people say that it works for them, then, it works, as far as I am concerned. I just prefer a more targeted approach. I would also be concerned that I might overdose the fish food, which could generate more ammonia than the plants could immediately handle, causing health problems for the fish in my high pH aquariums.

Bill


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

aquabillpers said:


> The analysis that you cite does list 13 elements that were found in an average of six different fish foods. There are significant differences among the six, and only two of them show any nitrates at all which makes me wonder, based on Tony65's comments, above, but . . .
> 
> I would also be concerned that I might overdose the fish food, which could generate more ammonia than the plants could immediately handle, causing health problems for the fish in my high pH aquariums.
> 
> Bill


About your concerns that some fishfood might not have nitrogen.... Trust me; it will. That's because all fishfood contains protein, and all proteins contains nitrogen (fish will excrete the N as ammonia, and bacteria will later convert the ammonia-N to nitrate-N).

I see that Table V-2 (my book, p. 79) does, indeed, show only two of the 6 fishfoods having N (nitrogen). That is not because N isn't in the fishfood. It is only because the investigators didn't list it in their analysis (or they didn't bother to measure it). Nitrogen (like sulfur) is so intrinsic to fishfood protein that many investigators probably don't bother to measure it.

Fish, like any other animal, must have protein to survive. Thus, any fishfood will contain nitrogen.

Thank you for allowing me to clarify this important point.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

To get even more specific... proteins (as I'm sure we all remember from HS biology) are built from amino acids. All 20 amino acids have what's called an "amino group" and that is where we find our nitrogen in the form of NH2, H3N+, HN, NH3, N+H3. I think that's all of them. For a quick introduction to the structure of proteins, here's a link...

http://matcmadison.edu/biotech/resources/proteins/labManual/chapter_2.htm

-ricardo


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