# Best plants for shrimp



## Krambo (5 Aug 2016)

Afternoon,  anyone out there got suggestion for plants to use in a sprimp breeding tank?  It will be 150 lt and I would like to house many types (different colours)


----------



## dw1305 (5 Aug 2016)

Hi all, 





Krambo said:


> plants to use in a shprimp breeding tank?


Plenty of moss.

cheers Darrel


----------



## rebel (6 Aug 2016)

susswassertang or mini pelia are also good.


----------



## zozo (6 Aug 2016)

If you want to see some shrimp babies, put some Fontinalis antipyretica in the flow near the surface waving in the stream.. They realy love surfing plants in the flow, i see my baby cherries all the time in there together with the teenagers. So small about a mm in size, impossible to get a clear picture of it.. But i'll give it i try..

Nope only some teenagers, but with the naked eye it is filled with little pink specs, deep in the moss..  Because it waves all the time i can see it, but the camera barely pics them up, don't have enough light for a ultra fast shutter at the time.





The moss also loves it, lots of light and lots of flow, even in low tech it grows very weedy.. More co2 close to the surface..


----------



## SinkorSwim (7 Aug 2016)

Have to echo the java moss, if you have the space get a good 9 x 9 of it, it provides cover and a food source. If you cant live with the messy aesthetic try using moss as the foliage of a mini tree, I'm sure I've seen them for sale somewhere if you'd rather buy than craft one yourself.


----------



## Krambo (7 Aug 2016)

Thanks guys. 
Would I need I co2 system or can I pull this off without?


----------



## SinkorSwim (7 Aug 2016)

If your talking about moss, aneubia and ferns, no co2 needed. If you want to attempt carpet plants then yeah you'll need to consider it.  In saying that every plant benefits from co2, and you can if you want but I started simple and branched into co2 after getting the shrimp established.


----------



## SinkorSwim (7 Aug 2016)

And I've just re read your OP, with regards to the many coloured shrimps. .
I would strongly suggest you keep to one colour per tank, neo caridinas do interbreed and the babies of say a blue jelly and a red Sakura would revert to their natural state, IE brown. 

Different grades of reds within their own class are fine and you'd see more red shrimp babies.


----------



## SinkorSwim (7 Aug 2016)

this HTML class. Value is http://nanocaridina.

This has charts I think. .


----------



## Krambo (7 Aug 2016)

So if I wanted blue tigers they would all have to be blue tigers?


----------



## jameson_uk (1 Oct 2016)

Any thoughts on the best way to present moss?  My main tank has it tied to the top of some driftwood as a big tree but I guess shrimp want moss low down.
Do they actually like moss (algae) balls too?

Anything other than moss?  Would I be better off going for foreground / carpeting plants than fast growing stems?
I see many have Anubias in their shrimp tanks, is this just because it is easy to get hold of and easy to grow or are they good for shrimp?

Looking for reasonably low maintenance plants to go in a 30cm cube (Aqua One Apsire 22 from P@H).  (and possibly something a little more interesting that just moss, java fern and abubias)


----------



## zozo (4 Oct 2016)

jameson_uk said:


> Any thoughts on the best way to present moss?  My main tank has it tied to the top of some driftwood as a big tree but I guess shrimp want moss low down.
> Do they actually like moss (algae) balls too?
> 
> Anything other than moss?  Would I be better off going for foreground / carpeting plants than fast growing stems?
> ...



As long as it is dense they love to crawl through it and shrimp fry will hide in it.. It doesn't matter where it is shrimps are everywhere from top to bottom, they will find it.. As the picture above shows, that is moss nearly floating at the surface very close to the filter outlet and it constantly waves in the stream, it is constantly full with shrimp fry, barely to see with the naked eye.. Shrimps love higly oxigenated streaming water. Also the roots of floating plants are regularly visited by shrimps... And yes the realy like Clodaphora algae balls, hair algae is one of their main diet amont others..


Anubias is just an easy to grow low light plant doing best in the shades (hence it's name Lord of the underworld), but since it is put everywhere around the tank it tends to grow green spot algae if it recieves some direct light, shrimps again are the cleanup crew for this algae too. 

For the rest regarding shrimps, they are not picky about plants, but anything dense with small leaves has their preference..


----------



## sciencefiction (4 Oct 2016)

Shrimp surely love hiding in moss but in a shrimp only tank I wouldn't worry about "best plants". The moss gets very messy and it acts like a sponge in a tank, gathers all the debris. It's hard to shake off baby shrimp from it too if you want to clean it or throw away the excess. When alone in a tank the shrimp active and will perch on any type of plant or decoration. The type of plant will not affect the amount of baby shrimp...

If you want to house different colours of shrimp, they must be different species that like the same water conditions. Otherwise they will interbreed and you'll end up with odd colours that may or may not be desired.


----------

