Liquid Fertilizer & Shrimps

[Flowerfairy13]

Hi Everyone!
I wanted to ask peoples opinions on using liquid fertilizer in shrimp tanks.
I have a 60L planted tank containing around 30 mixed Neo Shrimp and 1 Male Betta. It is planted with Sessiflora, Montecarlo, Cryptocorne, Java Moss & Frogbit.
I have been using Seachem Flourish once a week, 1.3ml as per instructions on the bottle. However, I have read a few posts online recently stating they have lost shrimp because of Liquid Fertilizer in their tanks? I know you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet - but I have seen several posts on Facebook over the past week on this topic so said it would be best to check it out with people who are confident in their knowledge
I know Seachem Flourish contains Copper, although it is a tiny amount (0.0001%), what I am reading is that it is still toxic in trace amounts to Shrimp, especially Cherries which I have in the tank.
Pics below of the tank (& my favourite blue velvet shrimp)!
Thanks so much in advance

 

[Essjay]

I use Seachem Flourish (the one labelled comprehensive supplement for the planted tank, not anything else in the Flourish range) with no ill effects on my shrimps or nerites. The amount of copper in it is not high enough to harm shrimps and snails - shrimps do need some copper and their blood cells contain copper not iron like in ours.
Of course if any product is overdosed it can harm the residents of a fish tank.

 

[gwand]

I use Seachem Flourish (the one labelled comprehensive supplement for the planted tank, not anything else in the Flourish range) with no ill effects on my shrimps or nerites. The amount of copper in it is not high enough to harm shrimps and snails - shrimps do need some copper and their blood cells contain copper not iron like in ours.
Of course if any product is overdosed it can harm the residents of a fish tank.

Do you also use fertilizer in addition to Seachem Flourish for your planted tanks?

 

[Flowerfairy13]

I use Seachem Flourish (the one labelled comprehensive supplement for the planted tank, not anything else in the Flourish range) with no ill effects on my shrimps or nerites. The amount of copper in it is not high enough to harm shrimps and snails - shrimps do need some copper and their blood cells contain copper not iron like in ours.
Of course if any product is overdosed it can harm the residents of a fish tank.

Thank you so much! Good to know that it is safe to use once it is the correct doseage!

 

[Flowerfairy13]

Do you also use fertilizer in addition to Seachem Flourish for your planted tanks?

Not on my shrimp tank. For my shrimp tank I don't have any heavy root feeders in there so I just use Seachem Flourish. In my bigger tank which has Amazon Swords I use root tabs in addition to Flourish.

 

[Essjay]

Do you also use fertilizer in addition to Seachem Flourish for your planted tanks?

the fertilisers Seachem Flourish Comprehensive Supplement and Seachem Flourish root tabs in the substrate are the only things I add to the tank besides water conditioner and food.

 

[MaloK]

With slow growing plants, I'm always nervous about something building up unnoticed, and use these products sparingly at quarter dose and jump some weeks. Without any hill effects on the plants. And run the water over activated carbon a week per month to clear any unnoticeable toxins that could accumulate.

It is beneficial to fertilize plants in a shrimp tank, healthy growing plants consume more nitrogen and help a lot with Nitrate management. A full dose is in my opinion for heavily planted tanks where you cant see the back because of the forest. I would consider yours as moderately planted.

So far I haven't lost any shrimps since January, I have 4 berried ladies and a bunch of kids roaming around.

And for the first time in nearly all my life... Thanks to led lightning, the plants are doing really really well.

I was using the Seachem Flourish system and switched to NitroG ThriveC couple weeks ago, because Excel contains algicides that are not very good for invertebrates and shrimps, I wanted a good source of available carbon. it's really the one that makes a good difference in plant growth. And their product came up as one of the most used by serious aquarist in the hobby. So I'm giving it a try.

 

[StevenF]

Keep in mind that plant need copper to grow. If there is no copper in your tank plants will eventually die. Also shrimp have copper based blood, not the iron based blood in your body. Shrimp will also die if their food or water doesn't have copper. pLants need about 3ppm (3 microgramms per liter of water. Seachem supplies about .01 micro grams per liter. I never got good plant growth in my aquarium filled with RO water with Seachem. Seachem is also diffident in zinc, and nickel and the iron in it doesn't last long (about a day). Most other fertilizers are the same. I currently have a population at least 20 shrimp in my 5 gallon planted fertilized aquarium. I feed my shrimp seaweed sheets to insure they get enough animal specific nutrients that are not in most fertilizers.

To get good plant growth I had to make my own fertilizer and I found by experimentation that Blue dream shrimp (closely related to your Neo shrimp) had no problem with 20 ppm of copper in the fertilizer. they reproduced normally and behaved normally. I also tested my tap water and found it have 50ppm of copper in it. I never used it my tap water in my in my tank. However I strongly believe my shrimp will do fine with to at least 40ppm. copper. I have found no evidence that properly doseed fertilizer is harmful to shrimp.

The problem with fertilizer some people are not careful to insure their fertilizer dose is consistent and don't do enough water changes to to insure mineral levels in the water stay stable. When people have problem raising shrimp and cannot find a problem with their PH and nitrate levels. They go on line to look for an explanation and find a comment that copper is dangerous with no supporting experimental data to support that. But the believe it and spread this fake information. Note all tap water has copper in it due to copper pipes also most copper test kits are useless because they only detect copper down to about 0.1ppm. You need a lab test to measure copper down to 0.003ppm level needed in water. In my opinion most grime deaths are relived to not enough or too much calcium or magnesium.

 

[Flowerfairy13]

H

Keep in mind that plant need copper to grow. If there is no copper in your tank plants will eventually die. Also shrimp have copper based blood, not the iron based blood in your body. Shrimp will also die if their food or water doesn't have copper. pLants need about 3ppm (3 microgramms per liter of water. Seachem supplies about .01 micro grams per liter. I never got good plant growth in my aquarium filled with RO water with Seachem. Seachem is also diffident in zinc, and nickel and the iron in it doesn't last long (about a day). Most other fertilizers are the same. I currently have a population at least 20 shrimp in my 5 gallon planted fertilized aquarium. I feed my shrimp seaweed sheets to insure they get enough animal specific nutrients that are not in most fertilizers.

To get good plant growth I had to make my own fertilizer and I found by experimentation that Blue dream shrimp (closely related to your Neo shrimp) had no problem with 20 ppm of copper in the fertilizer. they reproduced normally and behaved normally. I also tested my tap water and found it have 50ppm of copper in it. I never used it my tap water in my in my tank. However I strongly believe my shrimp will do fine with to at least 40ppm. copper. I have found no evidence that properly doseed fertilizer is harmful to shrimp.

The problem with fertilizer some people are not careful to insure their fertilizer dose is consistent and don't do enough water changes to to insure mineral levels in the water stay stable. When people have problem raising shrimp and cannot find a problem with their PH and nitrate levels. They go on line to look for an explanation and find a comment that copper is dangerous with no supporting experimental data to support that. But the believe it and spread this fake information. Note all tap water has copper in it due to copper pipes also most copper test kits are useless because they only detect copper down to about 0.1ppm. You need a lab test to measure copper down to 0.003ppm level needed in water. In my opinion most grime deaths are relived to not enough or too much calcium or magnesium.

Hello Thank you so much for your response!
Good tip with the seaweed sheets, I will try and source some of those.
Also, I would be very interested in hearing how you made your own fertilizer, if you wouldn't mind sharing with me? Sounds like you really know your stuff!
I am finding fishkeeping really tough at the moment to be honest, I had some BIG losses in my other tank recently due to an infection. The information out there on what to do can be super conflicting and it's hard to know what the right thing to do is. At the end of the day I just want my tanks to be happy and healthy!!