Discovered Why My Females Are So Fat

[ginchinsing]

It's been about a week since I put 15 ghost shrimp in my 20 gallon long with my six female bettas. I decided it was time to move the live plants to a better area and see how many shrimp I had left. Turns out, I have six left. I think I now know why my girls are so fat. I also think they will not be getting breakfast tomorrow morning.

I'm also thinking about adding 50 more shrimp to the tank. According to Aqadvisor, it will put me at 75% stocking. Maybe I'll get to see the shrimp for longer than a week this way.

[LadyVictorian]

Aww poor shrimp, I wonder if they are just not hiding good enough in the plants? Are they slow? Maybe if they had a tiny cave the betta's can't enter?

[ginchinsing]

I carefully took out all my fake plants because I'd lost a patch of hairgrass somewhere in there. I also took out all fish and shrimp I could find so I could stir up the sand. I cleaned the tank, I'm about 98% sure there weren't any hiding. I've been thinking about getting something to make little shrimp hides, but I haven't figured out what to use that would be big enough for the shrimp but small enough that the bettas won't try going in.

The shrimp are fairly fast. It took me several tries to catch a few of them. They jet backwards so you have to corner them most times in order to catch them.

Here's a photo of the tank before I moved things today. I'll have to take another photo tomorrow after the water clears again.

[aokashi]

XD you have too little plants for the shrimp! no wonder they're getting eaten!

[ginchinsing]

There are about 20 plants in there, but only five are live - the hairgrass and two swords. I honestly can't put anymore fake ones in because they will block the light to the real ones.

[aokashi]

I meant that you need a denser plant growth so thatthe shrimp can hide in tigheter spaces XD
I'd hold off the 50 shrimps until you can make hiding places for the shrimps :P with 50 shrimps your females wont een have to hunt them down! thy'd probably swim right into their mouths XD

Here's some pictures of my 2.5 gallon tank, where 5 red cherry shrimps co habita with my betta.
even with all that dense growth... my fish still manages to pick off one from time to time
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...1EAD57A818.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...1EA63DB84A.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...1E9ED8BCBE.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...227F2E209C.jpg

[Aus]

^+1

Susswassertang is brilliant for shrimp to hide in, as is a big clump of java moss. I also find short-trimmed (or well-lit for low growth) leafy stems like blyxa and hygro make good 'hides' for the shrimp while feeding if you plant them fairly densely (the example pic below is actually outdated, and the ground is much more densely covered now).



The fish can't see the shrimp moving from above, then, and I find this helps shrimp survive my huge and highly aggressive cod-gobbed fighter plakat, who hunts them mercilessly.

[ginchinsing]

I'm not too worried about the shrimp getting eaten as I originally wanted to have them to feed to my turtles. I'm more worried about the bettas getting so fat. Lol.

I'm waiting for my new credit card to come into the mail so I can go crazy on Ebay. My hairgrass doesn't seem to be doing too well anyway. It is slowly browning. I was wanting to get a few floating plants and a bit of parrot feather among other plants.

I do like that fine leafed, stringy looking plant though. Do you know which one I mean?