Cherry Shrimp

[cer]

How do you care for cherry shrimp? Could they go with ottos and a betta? Also are cherrys good for begginers? And if I can not find them at the LFS what is a backup shrimp i can get?:hmm3grin2orange:

[toddnbecka]

Oto's are a safe bet, a betta is another matter altogether. Some betta's will ignore adult shrimp, some will hunt them down relentlessly. Better to try a few ghost shrimp first, and see what happens.
Overall though, any shrimp you want to keep/raise are better off in their own tank. A 10 gallon will support a populaation of several hundred w/out any problems provided you set up and maintain it properly.

[cer]

What other fish will ignore shrimp?

[Lady Hobbs]

My tetra's even ate my shrimp. Perhaps neon's might not but shrimp babies are very, very small and just right for snacks for fish.

[Rue]

My cories left the shrimp alone...

[cer]

Ok what fish out of these three will leave the shrimp alone? Platies, swordtails and guppies.

[Rue]

I think you'd be safe with any of those too...

[Algenco]

Ok what fish out of these three will leave the shrimp alone? Platies, swordtails and guppies.


none, my white clouds even ate/killed cherries

[Rue]

Really?

I had platies and mollies in with mine...they left the shrimp totally alone.

I'm surprised the white clouds ate them...

Good to know...

[cer]

My platies are great fish. Will they work?

[korith]

Oto's are safe with them. I also have some red cherry shrimp with dwarf rasbora and they seem to be doing fine. Basically any fish that can fit the shrimp in its mouth will be considered dinner. Even some smaller fish will tear them apart. The baby shrimp are fairly small 2-4mm small! = fish food. If you give them enough bushy plants, or moss to hide out in then they will probably be ok. You can probably expect some loss, but might be able to keep a good population of them going.

I like red cherry shrimp, but if you can't get them, you could get some ghost shrimp instead. Ghost shrimp are a lot cheaper, here you can buy about 10 for a $1, and as much as 40-50cents for one. Ghost shrimp are larger and may survive a bit easier. Lot of people use them as feeders for fish.

Caring for them is easy, a regular water change once a week, they will eat pretty much anything, so will feed off food that falls to substrate, eat algae, veggies, anything. You could drop in half an algae wafer in every other day, and that would keep them happy. For red cherry shrimp, their colors really stand out when you got them in a dark substrate.

[Jacko]

They'll eat any young they find, and if you have full adult platies I wouldn't be surprised if they ate juvies too.

I'm thinking it has to do with instincts as to what fish will eat shrimp, in the wild platies, mollies and guppies wouldn't come across shrimp and would not know to eat them so untill they try it in a tank then they won't equate shrimp as food, they might eat them because they are hungry and it follows the "fit in mouth" rule.

Bettas and WCMM, danios and other asian fish are quite well known for eating fish and they originate from some of the same areas as shrimp so it is likely that they have an instinct to equate shrimp as food. Some bettas don't eat shrimp and that could be because of the large amounts of breeding done with them have washed out that trait.

I don't know how well this works but it seems to have been what's happened in my tanks. IME, my halfmoon, delta, double tail and more higher quality/specific bettas are less of shrimp eaters than my more regular VT.

Just a thought.:14:

As for backup shrimp, I agree with korith, ghost shrimp are always good choices, but be careful because you can get non-ghost shrimp in with a batch at the store, sometimes it's a baby FW prawn or a long arm shrimp or even amanos. Amanos would also be good, they are great algae eaters.

[korith]

As for backup shrimp, I agree with korith, ghost shrimp are always good choices, but be careful because you can get non-ghost shrimp in with a batch at the store, sometimes it's a baby FW prawn or a long arm shrimp or even amanos. Amanos would also be good, they are great algae eaters.

I've noticed that in the lfs here as well, they seem to classify lots of different types of shrimp as ghost shrimp. Realized this when I bought batch of them from a lfs, then when I added them in, realized they looked different from the previous ghost shrimp I had in there.

[cer]

I am just going to get a separate fish tank.

[aquakid]

depends

100% chance will not kill
ottos, cories, small plecos
75%
livebearers, bettas, rasboras,tetras, rainbow sharks, dwarf gouramis, crabs, large plecos
25%
tiger barbs, large gouramis,
less than 10%
cichlids, turtles, arowanas, predatory fish