what eats the poo????

victimizati0n said:
nothing eats poo.

It looks your trying to find a way to do less tank maintnence. If you are, then fishkeeping isnt for you.
Click to expand...



Umm, that is not true! Everybody looks for easier ways to do things! There is nothing wrong with that! If it wasnt true than there wouldnt be all these chemicals and all these super fansy filters coming out all the time! Why do most people keep shrimp and ots and such? to make it easier to control the algae in your tank and to help you keep your tank clean!!Meaning they help make it easier!! Dont try and discourage people cause they ask questions about how to make keeping a tank a little easier! The hobby is daunting enough as is!

Shrimp and such do not eat poo! they do tear it apart and eat any left over undigested material form in the poo though! This may look like they are eating it but they actually arent, they are just tearing it into such small particles that it is nearly impossible to see what they dont eat as they drop it!
 
Ultimately it comes down to nutrient cycling. You add nutrients to a tank through fish food and those nutrients have to go somewhere or they'll build up to toxic levels. Those nutrients won't disappear if you have a "poo-eater." Decomposer food webs are about digesting carbon that's increasingly difficult to break down, rather than incorporating nutrients like nitrogen. Fish/invert growth is negligible in terms of nutrient storage, as suggested above. Plant growth can be an important uptake of the nutrients - which is why heavily planted tanks have undetectable nitrates. Thus the more relevant question is not "what eats poo?" but rather "what can best help turn fish poo into mulm and incorporate it into the substrate for optimal plant utilization?"

So what fish/inverts would people most recommend for incorpating fish poo into a suitable plant substrate? Burrowing bottom-feeding fish and MTS seem like they would be good.
 
Inverts are the best waste disrupters IME. Any of several shrimp species (Amano, Red Cherry, etc- the Caridina and Neocaridina species, plus ordinary Ghost Shrimp for this use) and MTS (which only burrow very shallowly, but they do help stir the surface layer of the substrate) are the best in my tanks. Most burrowing fish will disrupt plants to some degree - depending in part of the plants used.
 
I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong which is most proberly the case given how new I am to keeping fish. It is my understanding in a tropical tank the addition of worms to the gravel help breakdown the fish waste into usable by-products for fertilising plants and also as food for bottom feeders.
 
After reading your post i googled worms in aquariums and nothing I read said it was a good idea..They all showed ways to eliminate and remove them..

So,not being an expert,I'd say it would be a bad idea.
 
I've had a worms problem in my goldfish tank, and it was indicating too much waste. Recently, I moved everything to a new tank: I put all the gravel in boiling water to eliminate the worms.


Even if worms can do that dirty job, I don't want any of them in my tanks ever.
 
soojeong said:
somehow, i've never seen my shrimp poop! is it just wrong timing? what's going on??
Click to expand...

Yes, even shrimp poop. If you have a "clear" shrimp species, you can look at their "tail" and see a dark line running its length. This is the intestine. It terminates in an opening at the last segment of the tail, called the telson. It's from here that the shrimp "poops." It could just be bad timing or it could that the poop is so small, you just can't really see it..............I don't know. I've never actually watched and waited to see if my shrimp would poop.
 
IceH2O said:
After reading your post i googled worms in aquariums and nothing I read said it was a good idea..They all showed ways to eliminate and remove them..

So,not being an expert,I'd say it would be a bad idea.
Click to expand...
As I said I proberly are incorrect. The way it was explained to me is that you need worms to keep soil healthy in the garden and a fish tank was no different and worms preform the same thing they do out in your garden. My I have only added a 2 scoups over time and at least half of them were eaten by the fish when I added them and the others have been happily living in the gravel. My plants have grown and been very healthy and I have no problems in the world having worms in my tank. The loaches I have love them and spend half their time digging in the gravel trying to find a feed of worms.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom