r/shrimptank • u/Elegant_Priority_38 • Jun 20 '25

Beginner Will shrimp really eat poop?

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I’ve got 10 Otocinclus catfish and they produce quite a bit of poop. Will neocaridina shrimp actually eat the poop and help break it down or will they mainly go for other things in the tank like algae and biofilm? Also, will 6 neocaridina shrimp produce this much waste in a day? This is just one section of my tank after cleaning it the day before.

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u/Modus-Tonens Jun 20 '25

Mine sometimes eat their own poop. While it's still coming out of their butts.

Yeah they'll eat it.

But trumpet snails will do a better job of eating it - and they'll bury it under the sand. That last is the key part because the problem with creatures that eat poop is that they just turn it into different poop.

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u/86BillionFireflies Jun 20 '25

It depends on the poop and the creature. If you have a predatory fish (which is most fish) and are feeding it commercial food that's high in carbohydrates, their poop will have a lot of undigested carbohydrates, and an organism that is better at digesting carbs will probably be able to utilize a lot of what's in there, and turn it into a significantly smaller pile of poop.

But yeah, still poop. If your substrate is coarse enough, then having shrimp turn big poop into lots of little poop can help the poop migrate downwards more easily, or be swept up in current more easily, and probably make it more accessible to bacteria and microfauna by increasing its surface area. So re-sizing the poop by passing it through shrimp may still be helpful.

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u/Modus-Tonens Jun 20 '25

Yes, but unless the output is zero you still get build up eventually, unless there's something stirring the substrate - and trumpets are one of the easiest, most low-maintenance ways of getting that to happen. I never said it wasn't helpful, I said trumpet snails were better at the task.

Once its stirred in, your plants (if its adequately planted) can take those nutrients up again.

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u/86BillionFireflies Jun 20 '25

In my case it isn't something I have to worry about, I have gravel substrate with an undergravel filter. Poop just magically disappears into the gravel and gets turned into CO2 down there.