Having a clean tank is always going to be a priority for any fish keeping enthusiast. You’ll want your tank to be clean to not only provide a hygienic environment for your fish to live in but also to look good when it’s on display in your home.
Keeping your tank clean involves regular water changes, algae control, removing uneaten food, and also removing fish poop. To stay on top of these tasks you might be wondering whether there are any fish that can help out with the cleaning?
Shrimp are known to be good tank cleaners, however, just how much can they do to help keep your tank clean, and will they even eat fish poop? In this article, we look into whether or not shrimp eat fish poop and can naturally help to keep your fish tank clean.
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What Are Fish Clean-up Crew
Before going any further, it’s important to clarify what I mean by “clean-up” crew as it’s a phrase often used to describe most species of shrimp. There are certain types of fish and aquarium creatures that will help keep your tank clean by eating algae, unwanted fish food that has dropped to the bottom of the tank, and any other nutritious matter (microscopic or otherwise) that might build up in a tank over time.
Research from petmd shows that shrimps will consume:
- Algae
- Worms
- Dead shrimp
- Leftover fish food
- Dead and living plants
All of this is of course alongside any pellets that you feed them as a staple food source. Shrimp are therefore considered to be part of a tank clean-up crew because they will frequently move around the tank eating anything that is edible and nutritious.
This is incredibly important for keeping your tank water healthy as uneaten food and microscopic matter, according to the vets at petcoach, will quickly build up and increase the nitrate and ammonia levels in your tank making it unsafe for your fish.
While regular cleaning on your part will also prevent this, it’s always nice to have some help, isn’t it? Clean-up crew fish like shrimp will actively move around the tank and their actions help to ensure that ammonia and nitrate levels do not rise, ph levels stay balanced, and the tank water remains oxygenated.
I’m not saying that they are solely responsible for keeping a tank clean and that an army of shrimp will mean that you never need to do a water change again but will they do some of the tasks that you’d rather not do, like clean up poop?
Do Shrimp Eat Fish Poop
Shrimp are bottom feeders and will therefore eat anything that falls to the bottom of the fish tank (providing it is edible and/or nutritious) as covered above. Any shrimp owner can testify that these small creatures are workhorses when it comes to helping to keep a tank clean.
With that said, there of course needs to be some exception to this and many wonder whether shrimp (especially ghost shrimp) can eat fish poop?
Shrimp do not eat fish poop despite the popular belief that they do. Shrimp are bottom dwellers but will only eat nutritious food sources. Fish poop is too devoid of nutrition to be of any appeal to shrimp and the only time shrimp will eat fish poop is to see if it is a viable food source or if they are not getting fed a proper diet by their owners.
In the video below you can clearly see that shrimp can eat fish poop, however, one key issue here is that the bottom of the tank appears to be completely clean.
Shrimp will constantly move around feeding at the bottom of the tank and this video appears as though the shrimp might not be getting sufficient nutrition from their diet. This would, of course, lead them to find nutrition from any source they can find which, in this example, appears to be fish poop.
Why Do People Want to Know if Shrimp Eat Fish Poop
The main reason why you are probably wondering whether or not shrimp eat fish poop is that you are looking for ways to keep your fish tank clean with less effort on your part.
This is not necessarily a bad thing and if something does exist that will eat fish poop and keep your tank clean for you, you’d be foolish not to consider it right?
Unfortunately, this has eventually led to the misconception that shrimp eat fish poop and people are buying these shrimp expecting them to clean the tank for you! While shrimp are good at keeping your tank clean, they will not eat fish poop and you will still need to clean your tank manually.
The Spruce Pets indicate that a gravel vacuum is the most common implement for cleaning up debris from the gravel and sand at the bottom of your fish tank. This is a job that people would like shrimp to take over however it is not something that can be outsourced.
For responsible fish keeping, you will still need to get your gravel vac out regularly and ensure you are cleaning up and leftover fish food, dead plants, or fish poop. Shrimps are good but they can’t replace manual cleaning!
Final Thoughts
Shrimp are excellent creatures for helping keep your tank clean and fresh looking. They will move around the bottom of your tank with amazing efficiency and appear to be constantly eating and “cleaning up” anything that they happen to come across.
Unfortunately, fish poop is not one of the things that you can expect to see them eating or cleaning up. While shrimp certainly help to keep your tank clean, you will still need to use a gravel vacuum in order to fully clean the debris on the bottom of your tank, including fish poop.
