# Shrimps



## bobtail

Algae's arch enemy the shrimp . 

I have enlisted the help of 25 Glass shrimp won on ebay for Â£2 to nurse my plants through the worst of my algae growth whil the plants are getting established.

And I must say they are fascinating like an upturned rowing boat racing around my tank having knitting competitions with thread algae.


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## Matt Holbrook-Bull

I absolutely love shrimp, they work soooooo damn hard its amazing.. i put 5 tiny ones in my tank about 3 months ago and ive not seen them since! only my one oldy is visible, but theyre so tiny.

i want some bumble bee ones, they look so cool


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## JamesC

I brought 8 cherry shrimp just over a year ago and I find them fascinating to watch. Their numbers have increased many fold now and they always seem to be out and about feeding. When I first brought them they had a hint of red to them but they are now a lovely deep red colour. Well worth the money.

James


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## Barney

I got 12 cherry shrimp at the weekend and they have all pretty much vanished now. I occasionally see one come out but they all seem to live in the plant on the right of my tank. Very cute and interesting to watch 

I want to get a couple of filter feeding shrimp but accord to PFK they dont do so great in planted aquariums as they need a higher oxygen content


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## Masquette

Hi - ya (I'm a newbie!)  

I really want to get some shrimp too - just waiting to bind a home for my larger fish as the'd get eaten if I put them in right now!

I'm really surprised that the Cherry shrimp breed in your tank though - I thought they required brackish water?  If there's no special requirements its definately the way to go.  Do they eat algae as well as other shrimp species?

M


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## fishgeek

cherry shrimp along with bee and crystal and probably others , do not have a planktonic larval stage
they effectively are like live bearers and produce exact small replica shrimp that an live in normal water

it is amano and other that have a larval stage like brine shrimp that need to migrate to higher salinity waters to devlop into adulthood

andrew


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## Masquette

Ah - thanks Andrew.  That's really useful - I'll efinately look into that.

Do these shrimp require any special diet, or are they happy with scavenging bits of fish food etc?

Also how does the algae munching potential of these shrimp compare to the japonica/amano shrimp?


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## fishgeek

sufficent numbers of hungry shrimp will get through softer algae really well

they will quite happily steal whole sinking wafers, blood worm and almost anything else they can get their little claws on though

so in a well feed tank they are less effective
biggets problem is probably the tendency of fish to thik of them as food.. i tend to have shrimp +/- cory tanks only


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## Masquette

Thanks for your help.

I remember my parents had a lovely tank full of cardinia japonica, loads of cardinals, and various other bits, but then they put an angel fish in and disaster hit...I felt very sorry for the guys.

I'm trying to re-home some of my fish at the moment - an egg laying angel fish, and possibly a red tailed shark and sucker loach, with the aim of switching over to a combination of shrimp and head tail lights.

Really looking forward to keeping shrimp eventually. 

M


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## Moss Man

I had 5 Amano shrimp, and they seemed to be doing well, they shed their skin frequently (which is a good sign), but sadly they all died within a few days. Later I realsised it was the Flourish excel I was dosing, which kills them. A while ago I bought 2 more (and stopped dosing excel), they seem fine now. I don't have to supplement my shrimps diet with dry foods, there's always plenty of algae in the tank already!

Next I plan to get some Cherry shrimp and hopefully they'll breed.


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## thumbless

Interesting thread BTW.
I have problems with Algae as well, i bought 2 Amano shrimp from a local fish store for Â£2.00 each so i think Bobtail was very lucky getting 25 glass shrimp for Â£2.00.
Orderd some shrimp from http://stores.ebay.co.uk/gogosnails yesterday so i am waiting for them.
The 2 Amano i bought, one was a poser and out all the time, the other hid behind the filter outlet, squashed up against the glass, thought it was dead till i gave the pipe a rattle, now it is less shy and comes out of the plants occasionally.
Amano need brakish water, Cherry shrimp are ok, what about tiger shrimp as i read earlier that they like slightly acidic water, i killed 4 ottos and a german ram with leaving my CO2 on all night, silly boy.
So i do not want any more fatalites, The ottos were least resiliant .
By the way i am a newbie and require all the help i can get LOL


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## Emmabeth

I think i need to invest in some shrimp that i can breed, the amanos i have are lovely (and fun to watch the crazy little multilegged catfish pellet robbers...) but expensive and ive been round the 'breed things involving lots of tanks and tiny food' merry go round with angelfish... not going there again.

Shame because my amanos are frequently berried up! Think there are only two or three males and about 15 girls.... heehee!


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## beeky

I've got 3 amano shrimps in my 2' tank, one very big one and two that are about half the size. I'd had them about 6 months and been dosing Excel every two days for about a month, maybe more. Everything seems fine at the moment. When I feed the fish the shrimps come out and fly through the water grabbing a flake on the way!

I noticed recently that they were behaving very strangely in that the two smaller ones would crawl over the big one - one on top, the other underneath. Then they'd split up, do there own thing and then come back together again 10 minutes later. The next day one had moulted. Has anyone else noticed this?


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## colonel mustard

I hope to be putting some in my new planted tank  
quite excited, it will be the first time that i have ever kept shrimp!!!


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## fishgeek

ona not quite related shrimp question,  do any of the panted people add nitrate to tanks wiht shrimp in?

have they seen shrimp breed in this situation?

mine are not doing anything in the fertilised tank.. not dying not breeding ,other tanks they are prolific
just wondering

andrew


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## planter

Hi Shrimp fans!

A recommendation for you - 

I bought some cherry shrimps recently as well as some JBL Novo Prawn (shrimp food).
In a short space of time my shrimps have coloured up and are responding to the food really well.  As a bonus my fish seem to ignore it after an inquisitive peck. Im sure my shrimps are doing well as a result of  feeding a specific diet.   

Just picked up some crystal bees will be intersting to see how they do on the new grub!


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## Matt Holbrook-Bull

thanks for the tip  ive had awful trouble trying to keep shrimp alive, ive often wondered if its my hard alkaline water.. or some part of my maintanence schedule they dont like..

i might try this food, see if it makes a difference


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## Ray

Moss Man said:
			
		

> I had 5 Amano shrimp, and they seemed to be doing well, they shed their skin frequently (which is a good sign), but sadly they all died within a few days. Later I realsised it was the Flourish excel I was dosing, which kills them.



I had a similar experience, they were such wonderful dudes, why did they die? I feel bad for them - what did I do wrong?!  

How much copper can these guys handle - I noticed my traces fert contains copper but it says "100% safe for shrimp" on the packet - how can that be - I've even heard that you should not use hot water to fill your tank for fear of getting copper out of the pipes?

Or do my guppies just have a go at them after a skin change when they are soft and juicy?


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## JamesC

My experience of shrimp is that they are pretty tough as long as water conditions are very good. I've five times overdosed excel for three days with no obvious effect on shrimp and also three times overdosed for one week with no probs. There is copper in the traces but I've never really noticed it causing a problem even when I double dosed it under EI. If you look at the amounts of copper in Tropica's formulation you'll notice it actually has quite high amounts compared to the other traces and also AE's trace mix. London tap water is extremely hard with a GH in the mid twenties and KH in the mid teens but yet shrimp seem to do fine, although they seem fairly reluctant to breed. The addition of an almond leaf seems to help. This guy lives pretty close to me and breeds his tiger shrimp in just plain old London tap water - http://www.theteh.com/html/extreme_macro_closeup.html. Some fantastic photography on his website so well worth a look.

Some people do seem to have probs with excel and traces so I'm not saying that they are safe, but I've never noticed any problems. My cherries breed so much that my tank is now becoming overpopulated. I feed my shrimp on JBL Novo Prawn, Hikari Crab Cuisine and Hikari algae wafers.

James


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## daniel19831123

I used breed loads of cherry shrimp and I've sold loads through ebay as well. Now I'm back into this hobby I wanted to venture a little further into plant keeping and shrimp breeding. Ideally I would like to grow nice compact HC and downoi in a low tech tank and breeding High grade CRS in them! But I think I will start off with some lower grade CRS maybe an S grade CRS first. Once I know for sure my water suites them I will start getting SS Hinomaru grade CRS and breed them. Anyone else here breeding high grade CRS?


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## Ray

Is there anything concrete we can do to measure "water quality" for shrimps (or some fish, like Chocolate Gourami for example) or any rules of thumb?  Is it water changes?  RO?  Or just having a long established tank?  Or do we just blame the water when shrimps get sick because we can't see them get ill like fish?


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## daniel19831123

Well basically the water really. They are much more prone to heavy metal toxicity, temperature changes and ammonia and other NH compound. 4 degree changes in the temperature might be alright for some fish and might even trigger spawning. Do the same for CRS and some will literally die in front of you. So in the end of the day the bigger the tank the more stable the ecosystem in the tank and the less casualty you will see.


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## Superman

I think I might be looking at getting some shrimp once my planted tank gets going.

On the photos I've seen they do keep everything clean, whereas my apple snail and BN plec do leave a bit of green about.

Do shrimps get on with BN plecs?


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## daniel19831123

I've dosed excel in 5 times the recommended dose for 2 week + and haven't seen any shrimp dying. Occasional spike in ammonia would have easily cause the shrimp to die.


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## TDI-line

Superman said:
			
		

> Do shrimps get on with BN plecs?



No problem, mine both breed in the same tank too.


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## Joecoral

can you keep amano and cherry shrimp in the same tank?


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## ulster exile

I do - both do fine as far as I can see.


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