How to clean a shrimp tank?

[Freakin' Fraud]

Anyone care to share their experience on how they keep their shrimp tanks in clean condition?

Here is my account of a disastrous attempt to clean mine:

My shrimp tank has been around for more than a year with 100+++ shrimps and shrimplets. All this while I didnt do any gravel cleaning at all as I didnt want to risk vacuuming away the many young shrimplets. Over time, the tank has accumulated a massive amount of debris and mulm, subsequently promoting the growth of many unwanted living things (flat worms, water mites, blah blah..)

Today I got kind of fed up seeing all those freshwater pests everywhere and so, in fit of anger, decided to clean my tank once and for all. I removed all the plants, dug up all the lapis sand and threw them away.. while the shrimps were still in the tank. (No choice..the shrimps too difficult and too many to catch..) Now what remains is an empty tank with the survivors.

I conclude that what I did was not a good solution at all. I think I accidentally threw away half my population of shrimplets along with the lapis sand and vacuumed away even more shrimps while using the gravel cleaner to remove the remaining debris.... all innocent lives.

So I hereby urge fellow forummers not to try this in your tanks... because I feel so guilty now after this shrimp holocaust episode..

[diki]

Freakin' Fraud, by doing what you have done, do you intend to have a bare bottom tank for shrimps??

For me, I just leave my shrimp tank alone, even when it has spot algae growing along the glass that is facing the window. Luckily I do not have flat worms, water mites, blah blah.. growing in this tank (or just not seen by me yet). I would think it would be wise to plant the tank as dense as you can, so you cannot see the debris and mulm or at leave cover up most of them. Leaving it bare sounds like a interesting new concept to keep them in.

You can get those bottles that are used to put soya sauce in (think call turkey dropper or something along that line) to suck out the mulm and some debris and then manually catch those water mites and flat worms when you see them, whenever possible. Else vacuum them into a transparent container (pet bottle, maybe) and inspect the contents before disposing. I put mine in a disposal box to detect any stray shrimplets when cleaning my filter just the other day.

Well, after all said, at least you know now what you did is wrong and don't do it again. Take it as a lesson learned.

[Freakin' Fraud]

I was manually removing the pests by the dozens everyday until one day I figured out that they were probably multiplying faster than my rate of catching. And I was spending more time freting about them than admiring my aquasape.

Yes, basically what I have now is just a bare tank with shrimps. I have not planned my next step yet, afterall everything was done in a moment of impulse... But I have placed a few big pieces of granite stone and put in an air pump (because all the plants were thrown away... saw some flat worms on the leaves so didnt want to risk re-introducing them into the tank again)

But I definitely will be adding plants in the future. Afterall, my focus is on aquascaping and not shrimp keeping (and definitely NOT worm/mite/snail catching!) But I still can't figure out a good solution to maintaining a clean and green shrimp tank without all the pests.

Turkey dropper.. sounds like a good idea.. where can I get them?

[Jungle-mania]

Do you have fish in the tank? What do you feed your shrimps too? Most of this pest come about when there is an influx of excess food.

[diki]

I was manually removing the pests by the dozens everyday until one day I figured out that they were probably multiplying faster than my rate of catching. And I was spending more time freting about them than admiring my aquasape.

Yes, basically what I have now is just a bare tank with shrimps. I have not planned my next step yet, afterall everything was done in a moment of impulse... But I have placed a few big pieces of granite stone and put in an air pump (because all the plants were thrown away... saw some flat worms on the leaves so didnt want to risk re-introducing them into the tank again)

But I definitely will be adding plants in the future. Afterall, my focus is on aquascaping and not shrimp keeping (and definitely NOT worm/mite/snail catching!) But I still can't figure out a good solution to maintaining a clean and green shrimp tank without all the pests.

Turkey dropper.. sounds like a good idea.. where can I get them?

I can understand how you feel. Now stuck with the BBA algae too which is even worse.

Turkey dropper is the smaller version. The one that I mentioned is bigger, a lot bigger. Should be able to find it in some hardware store selling household stuff.

[Freakin' Fraud]

Do you have fish in the tank? What do you feed your shrimps too? Most of this pest come about when there is an influx of excess food.

No fish. used to feed them algae wafer and crab cuisine, but that was like months ago. I stopped feeding completely for months but the population of pests didnt show any signs of decrease. So thats why I concluded that the massive amount mulm and debris in my tank is the problem.

Especially when you switch on the lights at night, they are all over your tank wall...

[Freakin' Fraud]

I can understand how you feel. Now stuck with the BBA algae too which is even worse.

Turkey dropper is the smaller version. The one that I mentioned is bigger, a lot bigger. Should be able to find it in some hardware store selling household stuff.

thanks, will go scout for it.