A planted tank defeats honest counting. Shrimp graze inside moss, under leaves and behind wood, and any keeper who claims an exact headcount from looking through glass is inventing it. What you can build is a repeatable monthly snapshot, taken the same way each time, that shows whether the colony is growing, holding or slipping.
The monthly entry: five fields every time
Make the entry once a month, on roughly the same day, and give every entry the same five fields: the date, the full number of shrimp you can count in one photograph of the feeding area, the size groups present, the number of berried females you can see, and the number of fresh empty molts you find that day. Keep the fields in that order and leave none blank, writing zero where you found none, because a blank could mean either an absence or a forgotten check. Scope every claim to these entries: a monthly entry describes the colony on that day, under that method, and the trend across entries is the finding, not any single figure.
Taking the photograph the same way each month
Set up the count before you take it. Place the usual food in the usual feeding spot, wait the same ten minutes you waited last month, then photograph the feeding area from the same angle and distance. Count shrimp from the photograph on a screen rather than through the glass, marking each one as you go so nobody gets counted twice. Record that count in the photo-count field, and keep the photograph itself filed with the entry. A count that jumps because the food sat longer, or falls because the light changed, is a method problem rather than a colony problem, so note any change of method inside the entry for that month rather than quietly improving the system mid-stream.
Size groups and berried females: the breeding evidence
Record size groups as three bands: adults, juveniles and tiny shrimplets. A colony holding all three bands across consecutive entries is breeding steadily, while adults alone across several entries suggest young shrimp are not surviving, whatever the headline count says. Count berried females as those you can actually see carrying eggs under the tail, and treat that figure as a floor rather than a total, because plants hide berried females at least as well as they hide everyone else. A month with shrimplets appearing after months without them often traces back to a change in cover, feeding or tank mates, so read these two fields together before crediting any single cause.
Reading molts without overreading them
Count fresh empty molts on the log day only: the clean, translucent shells that lift off plants and substrate easily, rather than older shells already breaking down. A cluster of fresh molts in one entry can follow growth, breeding activity or a recent water change, and the entry's other fields help you judge which reading fits. Molts scattered evenly across entries, beside all three size groups, describe a colony shedding and growing in rhythm. Seek advice from an aquatic vet or an experienced invertebrate keeper if entries show shrimp dying with partly shed shells, or the photo count falls across several entries, because a trend like that can reflect water or mineral problems worth investigating.
Filed together in KinsLe's Pet Passport, a year of monthly entries shows the colony's direction at a glance, which no single heroic count through the plants could ever give you.