When people find a colony of Seed Shrimp in their aquarium, they often panic and search for ways to get rid of them.
It is unclear whether it’s because the person doesn’t know about these small creatures or if this may be an extreme case of finding any bug that disrupts your tank ecosystem as something you must kill before it kills your other inhabitants.
To me, though, I’ve found that looking at them through my own eyes has shown these creatures can make exciting additions to tanks with plant life added too!
In this post, I want to eliminate the fear people have about these beautiful creatures by giving you just enough knowledge so that you might feel more comfortable with them in your aquarium.
Overview
The Seed Shrimp or Ostracoda Podocopida order is a type of small crustacean that can be found in terrestrial, marine, and freshwater environments. The members vary from 0.2 to 1 mm across their body size, with the majority being round or egg-shaped.
The seed shrimp is an animal with a head, thorax, and shell that resembles the clam. However, unlike many other crustaceans, which have segments on their body, this small creature has no divisions as it swims through water to find food using its antennae for swimming or feeding itself.
The most significant part of the shrimp’s body is its head and bears most of the appendages: two pairs of well-developed antennas used for swimming; mandibles to grind up any food they come across in order to eat them; two pairs of maxillae (mouthparts).
They are found all over the world, but they mainly live in Africa and Australia. Australian shrimp can be found from fresh to hypersaline waters with no permanent or temporary waterways holding them back. They often live on the ground of any environment as well as just below it.
It is a tiny creature that can be beneficial to your aquarium. They’re the perfect size for cleaning up all those algae and other messes; because of their small stomachs, they are crucial in keeping your tank clean!
Many people look forward to them prospering in their aquariums in total faith because their presence indicates that their tank and water conditions are healthy.
From my personal contact with these captivating tiny creatures – they appear to be self-adjusting as they disappear from an aquarium by themselves and then appear again after some time. So I invariably look ahead for their reoccurrence.
Where Do Seed Shrimp Come From?
There are various places where these tiny creatures can come from, such as an aquatic plant or old gravel you put into your aquarium.
And seed shrimps may also be injected into the tank when adding new fishes that we neglect to notice because these shrimp are so tiny and unnoticeable.
Seed shrimp populations grow quickly due to high levels of nutrients and food sources available for them inside tanks; therefore, it’s essential to note when adding fish or anything else changes in the tank.
What Fishes Eat Seed Shrimp?
Fish have a natural instinct to eat small Seed Shrimp called ostracods. But for them to do so, they must be starved first and then stimulated with instincts of eating the smaller creatures that will pass by them on occasion.
Guppies, Bettas, and Cherry Barbs enjoy feeding off these types of Seed shrimps.
It is recommended you starve your fish before trying this tactic because if not done correctly, it could lead them into starvation mode, where all food sources are consumed until there’s nothing left!
Melanotaenia Praecox & Duboulayi can only go through this process under careful supervision as things can go out of hand if these fish are deprived of a proper diet for a more extended period of time.
How To Get Rid Of Seed Shrimps?
You can eliminate these shrimps from your tank or aquarium by following these three methods:
- Frequent Vacuuming
- Adding Predator Fish
- Installing Traps
1. Frequent Vacuuming
Removing seed shrimps from your tank seems like an easy task, but you will find that eggs are a much more difficult thing to remove.
Regular vacuuming is one of the most effective ways for removing seeds shrimp and their eggs when they have nested in your aquarium corners or crevices.
2. Adding Predator Fish
Another strong approach is to add predator fish like guppies in your aquarium filled with seed shrimps.
The guppy is a versatile freshwater fish, and it’s an excellent solution for seed shrimp infestation. The small-bodied critters are known to eat live food like larvae and adult shrimps, which can be beneficial in helping you get rid of the pesky crustaceans that have been plaguing your tank.
Guppies prefer to linger in groups, so make sure to insert at least six of them into your aquarium.
Also, be sure to consider the compatibility of your current fish with guppies before adding them to your tank.
3. Installing Traps
If you’re tired of watching those pesky seed shrimps take over, all it takes is one quick buy and installation from this trap.
You bait the trap and set it in the bottom corner of your tank. You don’t want to put out too much food inside the trap but just enough for what is necessary.
After some time, seed shrimps will go inside the trap to eat food, and due to the trapping equipment, the shrimps cannot go outside after getting caught in it.
Then, you must take out the trap from the tank and eliminate all the shrimps and replicate this process until all of them are entirely removed from your aquarium.
It must be noted that this method primarily works for the adult seed shrimps and is not going to work for the smaller ones.
To remove the smaller ones, you should perform other methods like vacuuming and adding a predator species to your aquarium.
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Seed Shrimp Infestation
Small numbers of seed shrimps are not viewed as an infestation. When you make a slight adjustment to your feeding routine, such as only serving your inhabitants once a day and giving less than what they would typically eat at one time, the shrimps fade off naturally because other fish like to snack on these shrimps or shrimp eggs.
Seed shrimps are a great way to get your fish tank more lively and exciting. But, it is important not to overfeed them, or they will reproduce in large amounts.
Overfeeding these shrimps with food can be harmful because you might end up having tons of shrimp in your tank.
It’s not uncommon for a tank to be overtaken by these Shrimp, and when they’re everywhere, you’ll see only them.
That is called a Seed Shrimp infestation, and it’s a pain to remove.
If this occurs, you should attempt to control the Seed Shrimp population with all three methods mentioned:
You can vacuum them up in your tank, or add a predator fish to eat them or use a trap that attracts them so that they get captured by their own curiosity.
It is not uncommon for fish owners to find that their tanks are over-populated by Seed Shrimps, and it can be very frustrating when you’re in this position.
One solution, which we recommend only as a last resort because of the inevitable high expense involved, is to get rid of your tank entirely and buy a new one with no Shrimps or their eggs before setting up again from scratch.
Seed shrimp eggs are specially made to escape the effects of temperature shocks and higher CO2 levels. They can’t be destroyed by anything.
No one likes to leave their tank, but that is the only way you can get rid of those pesky shrimps.
The first introduction of these shrimps in your tank might be a sign that you should control them as soon as possible.
Conclusion
These shrimps are not going to wreck your aquarium plants if they are already not decaying. Instead, they are a great source of food for predators in the tank.
The seed shrimp is usually considered a pest by tank owners because it reproduces quickly and isn’t visually appealing. However, the fish in your aquarium would love to feast on these treats.
Otherwise, seed shrimps would be an exceptional enhancement to your aquarium as most fish can eat them.
