The struggle with amano's constantly escaping, tank lids and gas exchange

[corymbosa]

pH - should be in the 7.2-7.6 range
GH - 5
KH - 2
Ammonia/nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10-20
Water change - 25% weekly
Tap water - Treated with seachem prime
Substrate - Aquasoil topped with seachem flourite
Other tank inhabitants - A betta that doesn't chase or attack the shrimp (when I observe them), but god knows what happens when the lights are off
Food - Plenty of food for the shrimp - Diatoms, algae
Water aeration - Plenty of surface agitation
Hiding places - Heavily planted with gaps between rocks and wood
Temperature - Standard room temperature around 28 degrees C in the day
Acclimation steps - Drip acclimation for 4 hours before placing them in the tank
Timeline of them escaping - They were fine for 5 hours after placed in the tank, but overnight one jumped out (My dog found the body). The following day all of them were fine, but during the night all 3 jumped out (I found 2 bodies on the ground)

The problem I have now is that my amano shrimps are escaping the tank even though water parameters are 0 ammonia and nitrite and low nitrates. The tanks are low-tech tanks with openings the size of 29x26cm and I was thinking of getting a glass panel the size of 28x25.5cm to prevent my amanos from escaping.

Would the 0.5cm gap on the sides and back be sufficient for gas exchange?

 

[Konsa]

Hi
I had this issue in the past too.
Found out the hard way that amanos due to their size prefer larger tanks and are unsuitable for nano sizes.My tank was mature so doubt is water chemistry.
I will suggest to go with Neocardina and Cardina shrimps or get a lid for the full size of the tank (no gaps arround the edges) and drill hole IN THE MIDDLE of it for gas exchange.
As far as algae crew goes you can try couple of Horned Nerite snail.They are on the small size for Nerite snail and do wanders in cleaning tanks.
Regards Konstantin

 

[zozo]

Yup, Amano shrimps deserve to be rebaptised into Houdini Shrimps because they are very adventurous and true escape artists. They will find the smallest gap if there is one. They are not quite suitable for open-top tanks all tho the reports are various, in some cases people experience them to stay put others report them escaping all the time one after the other. And so did I, they seem to have the capacity to learn from and mimic each other. If one gets the feeling to go wandering off others will follow. I had them in an open-top tank with a HOB filter and after a while, they somehow discovered this filter contains a lot of tasty goodies and so I regularly found an Amano shrimp in the filter. And the only way to get in, is crawling up over the glass into the streaming water or coming from the side balancing the glass top rim as a cord dancer. I've never seen them do it but had to take quite a few shrimps out of the HOB filter. And there are about 20 others I picked up dead from the kitchen floor that never made it back to the tank. Then I stopped buying Amano shrimps ever again.

, you can't hear it, but the others shrimps bellow seem to be cheering "Go, Harry! Go!!"

 

[Sam66]

If they are not swimming at the surface or directly in the flow and only escape at night I think you can rule out water parameters and maybe suspect the Betta is harassing them once the lights go out.

My ones tend to swim a lot more than other shrimps so would probably prefer a larger tank.