You clean algae off glass without stressing cherry shrimp by treating the algae as part of the colony's food supply, not just a smear to remove: a soft pad, short passes, a check for climbers before every stroke, and one pane deliberately left green. Cherry shrimp spend their day grazing biofilm and algae off hard surfaces — including the glass you are about to wipe — so the goal is a tank you can see into, not a sterile one.
Look for Climbers Before Every Pass
Check the pane for shrimp before the pad touches it, because cherry shrimp wander the glass constantly and a grazing shrimp sits almost flat against the surface, easy to miss behind a film of green. A pad pushed over a shrimp can crush it or tear it from the glass, and even a near miss sends the colony scattering into the plants for hours. Work in short passes, glance at the next patch before you wipe it, and if a shrimp is parked there, clean somewhere else and come back when it has ambled off. Never nudge a shrimp aside with the pad — a shrimp that chooses to move is a calm shrimp.
Soft Pad Only, and Never a Shared One
A soft pad is the only tool that belongs on cherry shrimp glass, because blades can catch a shrimp at the glass edge and, more quietly dangerous, any pad or cloth that has ever been used with household cleaning products carries residues a shrimp colony cannot tolerate. Keep a pad that lives only with this tank, rinse it in removed tank water, and store it dry between sessions. Where hard algae spots resist the pad, soften them with repeated gentle passes over several days instead of one aggressive scrub.
Leave One Pane as a Grazing Strip
Leaving the back pane uncleaned is a deliberate feeding decision in a cherry shrimp tank, not laziness. The algae and biofilm on that glass are grazed around the clock, and they matter most to the smallest shrimplets, which feed almost continuously and cannot compete at a feeding dish. Back-pane algae also gives newly molted shrimp — soft, hidden, and vulnerable for a day or so — a food source they can reach without crossing open ground. Clean the front for viewing and one side if it clouds, and let the back stay green; the colony will be visibly busier for it.
Clean Little and Often, Not Rarely and Hard
Small, frequent glass cleans suit cherry shrimp better than occasional deep scrubs, because each session then disturbs only a slice of the grazing surface and a few minutes of the colony's day. A couple of minutes on the front pane twice a week keeps viewing clear while the shrimp barely register the pad as an event. Time the session away from a fresh molt cluster if you can see one — several pale, empty shells on the substrate mean many shrimp are soft and hiding, and that is a morning to leave the glass alone entirely.
Watch the Colony's Response Afterwards
A cherry shrimp colony shows you within the hour whether the cleaning was gentle enough: shrimp back out grazing the plants and glass means the session passed unnoticed, while a colony still hidden well after the pad left, or shrimp gathered at the surface, means something about the session — pace, pressure, or a contaminated pad — went wrong. Surface gathering especially should prompt a water test, since shrimp head upward when water quality dips. If the response was poor, lengthen the gaps between sessions and shorten each one until the colony stops reacting.
Logging the pad-only, leave-the-back-pane routine in KinsLe Care Teams prevents a helper from helpfully polishing away the grazing strip the shrimplets depend on.