Amano Ammonia Production

[Bugdozer]

Question: if you have one amano shrimp in a 20l tank, how long will it take it to generate enough ammonia to poison itself if the filter isn't on?

 

[CezzaXV]

I once considered keeping some shrimp in an unfiltered tank on a windowsill. I ended up not doing it in the end - I couldn't be bothered going down the whole Walstad route and I didn't want the extra electricity output, but I'm interested in the answer to your question.

I suspect though, the answer is a Walstad kind of thing. Depending on whether you had plants in there, whether those plants got enough lighting, maybe even temperature, pH etc, it's possible that one shrimp on it's own could never produce enough ammonia to poison itself.

 

[Bugdozer]

Yes, the thing is it's "common knowledge" that shrimps supposedly place a smaller bioload on an aquarium than fish, but I can't find any figures really quantifying that in a comparable way. I guess the only way to find out is to run the experiment with a shrimp in the tank and monitor the ammonia levels closely.