Dosing Fertilizers in Shrimp Tanks

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bradlgt21

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May 9, 2009
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Brad
I have been having a lot of cherry shrimp deaths lately in my new Fluval Edge tank. I checked the water params and everything seemed fine except the nitrates were around 15, the tank is planted and I dose. CSM+B, NO3, KH2P04, and Pottassium (KS something). I also use root tabs. I figured it was from the high Nitrates and it seemed to be the worst after I dose fertilizers. So I read this article.

http://www.planetinverts.com/Dosing Fertilizers with Shrimp.html

Learned some great stuff and think I can add to it. See the shrimp used to be in a 3 gallon eclipse that I dosed with the same stuff and never had deaths, they all breed like crazy and now the shrimp never have eggs and are not as active. I think I figured out the reason. The 3 gallon eclipse had mostly stem plants, the edge has mostly root plants. My theory is the stem plants took all the ferts from the water column and it never effected the shrimp. Now with mostly root plants the ferts stay in the water and effect the shrimp. My 29 also had problems with shrimp. Back when I was in a apartment I dosed my ferts every other day on a schedule and I had 3 out of 4 shrimp die, and a low population of pond snails. Now I have the tanks in the basement and only dose on water change day. I now have 4 healthy amanos, 2 filter shrimp, and 4 nerites and many pond snails all healthy. There are some stem plants in there but not tons. I think one dosing a week was such a small amount the stems could take care of it where as frequent dosing was to much and left some to kill the shrimp.

So I am going to try to stop dosing CSM+B and monitor the Nitrate levels closer and only does NO3 when needed. I will still use root tabs in all my root feeders since I doubt the root tabs will really add that much into the water column since they are under the gravel.

Any input is appreciated and open for debate. Just wanted to share and hope it helps.
 

pbmax

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Aug 18, 2009
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Olympia, WA
I hadn't read that article - good information for sure. I dose Seachem Flourish comprehensive in my shrimp tanks and occasionally Potassium, but that's all. I've dosed Excel in the past, but now I only dose it in my big tank which is primarily fish.

I love using fast-growing stem plants in shrimp tanks until it comes time to trim it all back. That becomes a huge pain and an exercise in rescuing shrimp. I have a large amount of water wisteria in my latest planted tank (with yellow shrimp) that I hope will provide all the water-processing benefits of guppy grass and elodea without being as difficult to keep under control. I use ludwigia repens in the same way in other tanks.

Thankfully, I don't think I've seen any fertilizer-induced issues in my tanks, even when I was overdosing excel in my big tank (the ghost shrimp in there took it all in stride).
 

captmicha

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Dec 6, 2006
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I usually cut the dose of fertilizers in half for invert tanks. Haven't had any problems that I know of.
 

Fish_Bone

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Jun 14, 2012
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Samual
I asked this same question a few weeks ago, thank you for making a thread on this and posting that link, very useful.

And just to make sure I understand correctly, when using the EI method I should probably cut the dosing in half for inverts, depent on how many and what type of plants I use. correct?
 
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