# Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp?



## Nick_593

Hi, are there any Dwarf Cichlids out there that you can keep with cherry shrimp (preferably new world)?
I'd like to keep some German Blue Rams, but the last ones I had ate the majority of the cherry shrimp in the tank. I'm looking for something else, possibly Keyhole Cichlids?
Any suggestions?

Cheers


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## OllieNZ

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

I think most cichlids, dwarf or not will make a meal of cherries. I got away with N. Brevis and Amanos, the amanos were nearly as big as the brevis though.


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## Antipofish

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

In a word, NO


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## Barbapappa

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

I have recently (4 weeks) been keeping a young pair of a. borelli "opal" with my adult crs. So far so good, although I am sure they will eat any young shrimp. They sometimes nip at the shrimp, which probably causes them some stress. I hope this is just a fase. Will keep you updated if you'd like?


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## Antipofish

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*



			
				Barbapappa said:
			
		

> I have recently (4 weeks) been keeping a young pair of a. borelli "opal" with my adult crs. So far so good, although I am sure they will eat any young shrimp. They sometimes nip at the shrimp, which probably causes them some stress. I hope this is just a fase. Will keep you updated if you'd like?



Eventually they will eat them !  I think its somewhat unfair to play russian roulette with the shrimp.  They are still living things.  If general experience shows it to be likely that the Apisto's will atack / eat the shrimp, why do it ?


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## Tim Harrison

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

I think that this is potentially a very interesting topic, not least since it involves social and cultural values of what is, and is not, perceived as acceptable behavior among the planted tank community.

I suppose it also depends on how an individual justifies their own particular brand of anthropocentrism.

For instance, is it more acceptable to place fish and shrimp in an open top aquarium in the full knowledge that some of them will inevitably jump out and meet a lingering and distressing death on the floor than to place shrimp in jeopardy of being predated by fish…

…and if so why??? 

...and should we really be asking how long shrimp will survive in the post...wouldn't a more appropriate question be - is it ethical to post shrimp at all?

Surely, all the above are variations on a theme of Russian roulette...so why do any of them?


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## AverageWhiteBloke

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

In broader terms is it ethical to keep any wild animal at all and what these days constitutes a wild animal? Most creatures have spent some time being transported from one place to the other which undoubtedly will cause a certain level of distress of being in an unfamiliar and possibly not ideal environment. Cows and sheep getting took to slaughter have limits and rights of how long to be in transport before being bolted in the head or electrocuted.

In my particular post "how long will shrimps survive in the post" wasn't a question of how long I could get away with but a genuine concern for the shrimps welfare which by default I had created by purchasing them in the first place. I was guaranteed they would spend one night but due to the postal system spent two nights. Ethically I had done everything in my power to minimise the travel time and made sure the tank conditions were exactly what they wanted and acclimatised the shrimp the best I could.

Fish in the LFS have been subjected to the same and then another journey when you take them home as well as the stress of endless strange faces looking at them in the shop. On the flip side of this I'm sitting looking into my shrimp tank with probably 30/40 different stage shrimp all feeding away and looking happy as Larry. I guess the small sacrifice the original stock made was good in the long term for the species and perhaps the more we have in captivity the less demand there is on wild stock.

As for putting them in with another animal that would probably eat it given half the chance then that would be a no. If we were to look at what's ethically correct I don't suppose the hobby would have got off its feet. Ethically the best thing for any species is to leave it where it is in its best environment free from unnatural predators and not try and replicate that environment with pumps, chemicals and fish it wouldn't normally encounter. But the, no more hobby!

Personally, for me, we do the best we can to keep our livestock in the best condition we can and let them live a long and fulfilled live (I guess) We may have to cause some discomfort now and again but I wouldn't have thought as much as being on the menu everyday in the wild. I general I think it's "ethically" ok. There's a big difference between causing some stress and deliberately putting an animal in an environment where there's a strong likelihood it will be killed. All calculated risk with the animals best interests at heart.


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## AverageWhiteBloke

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

Brings to mind a day I spent at a public aquarium near where I live. It displayed indigenous species to our coast line and had a lot of emphasis on preserving a lot of the species and looking after our coast. The highlight of the day for all the kids to watch was when they fed small crabs to the cuttlefish! Ironic that in one tank crabs were being kept in perfect conditions on display but in the next they were feeding them live to other invertebrates.


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## hinch

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

in nature everything is food for everything else. humans are the only species (so far  ) to take themselves out of the natural order of things and artifically put themselves at the top of the food chain


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## jack-rythm

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

I duno hinch... My kitten is pretty keen on eating me when I'm trying to relax...


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## hinch

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*



			
				jack-rythm said:
			
		

> I duno hinch... My kitten is pretty keen on eating me when I'm trying to relax...



mine too but she usually just ends up eating her own tail


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## jack-rythm

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

 Or the new carpet


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## gmartins

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

hmmm... how many people die from infection diseases? Are you really sure you're on top of the food chain?

Food chain is an old view. It's called food web now due to the complexity of species relationships.


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## jack-rythm

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

check you out


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## roadmaster

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

I believe it is ..instinct,evolution.
Fishes will feed on food's readily available, shrimp's would be on the menu.(why would they not?)
I keep cherry shrimp's in 80 gal community tank with small tetra's and have seen/expected some predation (is natural).I keep a large colony of these shrimp's as well in 29 gal on their own.
when I need to replace those that are getting few in number's from the community tank,I simply fetch some from the 29 gal ,and also fish out those from canister's and pour em back in the tank.
On a side note,, I struggled with appisto's and feeding until the tiny shrimplet's were introduced. The appisto's love em.
I am also a card carrying member of PETA (people that eat tasty animal's).
Were it not for supplementing my food's with fishes, and wild game that I catch/hunt,I would be very thin indeed.


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## Ed Seeley

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*



			
				Nick_593 said:
			
		

> Hi, are there any Dwarf Cichlids out there that you can keep with cherry shrimp (preferably new world)?
> I'd like to keep some German Blue Rams, but the last ones I had ate the majority of the cherry shrimp in the tank. I'm looking for something else, possibly Keyhole Cichlids?
> Any suggestions?
> 
> Cheers



To get back on track the only cichlids I could find that didn't decimate the Cherry shrimp population in my tank were Bioteocus sp.  However they were very timid and delicate and I lost them all eventually.

I put Apistogramma agasizzi in there as they had small mouths but they did reduce the shrimp population.  I would avoid any cichlid with a decent sized mouth (like A.cactuoides) and stick with slim, small mouthed species to reduce the size of the shrimp they can eat.  You might want also to look at Dicrossus spp. and Taenicara spp.

As to the ethics of them eating the shrimp, every food you feed contains many shrimp, other crustaceans, fish etc. that were all caught from wild ecosystems, killed in often inhumane ways and then processed and shipped (further increasing their carbon footprint) to make your food.  Shrimp grown and bred in your own tank that have fed on algae and other unwanted products in there is perfect food in comparison IMO.


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## AverageWhiteBloke

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

It is a strange one though when you think about it ed. Interesting subject, at what point does essentially food become any different. Like the crabs I mentioned earlier. Someone was making an effort to keep them in good condition, feeding them well and maintaining their tank and I've no doubt would have been a bit upset if they came into work one morning and found one dead.  Yet they were also feeding them to the cuttlefish fish.  

I wonder how much they cost also comes into it.   There are probably loads of Rcs dying in peoples tanks everyday and no one is that fussed but if someone lost 1 of 6 blue tigers or whatever they had just paid 100's of pounds for it would be all over this board and some poor punter would be up all night with air stones and water changes.  Pretty much the same animal with a bit of selective breeding.


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## AverageWhiteBloke

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

Keeping on topic, In my experience the majority of fish will have an inquisitive peck at anything that moves. It's whether that peck can kill it or it will show enough interest in keeping up the chase. Some fish can also acquire a taste which wouldn't normally conflict between the species.


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## dw1305

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

Hi all,


> I would avoid any cichlid with a decent sized mouth (like _A.cactuoides_) and stick with slim, small mouthed species to reduce the size of the shrimp they can eat. You might want also to look at _Dicrossus_ spp. and _Taenicara_ spp.


. The _D. maculatus_ I have are very catholic in the good tastes, much more so than any of the _Apistogramma_ spp. I've kept. They didn't have a go at the adult shrimps, but now I've had them for 9 months the tank is Cherry Shrimp-less. I've never kept _Taenicara_, but I would expect them to eat shrimps as well. 

Like Ed says if you really want to see shrimp carnage, add something like an adult _A. cacatuoides_, it was like a scene from the best of David Attenborough, but much too gory to show on BBC1. They only thing I can liken it to was when I saw a Chameleon eat a Cricket at Bristol Zoo, lots of chewing and legs everywhere.

cheers Darrel


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## Ian Holdich

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

Yep agree with darrel, I added a cac to my tank air wiped an entire shrimps colony of about 100 in 2 days...

Last week added 2 electric blue rams to my tank and they haven't touched any yet. There are plenty of places that the shrimp can hide and go. We'll see...


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## AverageWhiteBloke

*Re: Are there any Dwarf Cichlids suitable with Cherry shrimp*

It could be down to how much sense the shrimp have as well. Even rams will go head to head with a lot bigger fish. If the shrimp keep out of their territory or learn to keep out of danger areas.  I have had spawning rams attack my hand before.  Cichlids will attack anything when spawning.


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## Nick_593

Thanks for the suggestions on this thread, and the topic received far more attention than I expected.
I've kept Rams with cherry shrimp in the past, which cut the numbers of cherries down so much that I rarely saw them any more. So I couldn't appreciate them really, but they did recover with an explosion in numbers once the Rams were taken out.

I trialled a couple of keyhole Cichlids in the tank for a week, but had the same result, so I've taken them back to the shop.

The ethics of this scenario was mentioned in the thread, and I wont really go into it much as I think everything has been said. While agreeing on animals welfare and responsible animal husbandry, personally, I don't see any problem with keeping cherry shrimp with something that might eat them. Daphnia spp are commonly fed to fish, which is essentially the same as a cherry shrimp being eaten, as they have fundamentally the same nervous system. They don't feel 'pain' or 'fear', or any other anthropomorphic idea that may be suggested. Should cherry shrimp be spared purely because of their aesthetics? ..This reminds me of a major conservation issue to do with funding the sustainability of Panda populations on the planet, which costs hundreds of millions of US dollars, while more fundamental species, many ecosystem engineers and essential to the health of an ecosystem, even the planet, are left neglected, purely through what people prefer to look at.

The only problem with this type of issue would be if we were taking rare species out of the wild and having a detrimental effects on their natural populations, disturbing the innate balance of an ecosystem. Thankfully, the cherry shrimp we have in our tanks, breed sufficiently enough to keep a health population within the network of the aquascaping hobby. We could all question the ethics of the hobby, but I think this has all been mentioned.

With regard to Cichlids and cherry shrimp, I suppose its balancing what you want with what's compatible in a make-shift ecosystem. Cichlids are quite carnivorous, and they are one of the only fish I like to keep, as I'm not too enthusiastic about having fish in my tank, and prefer growing plants and aquascaping. I prefer to have the cherry shrimp over Cichlids too, if I had to choose, as they are good algae eaters in numbers, thus doing some good in the tank and appearing more like a natural ecosystem, breed like crazy which makes the whole 'ecosystem' appear more interesting to me, and give good scale to the tank, making the tank more interesting to look at.. I think if you want to mix Cichlids with cherry shrimp, you wont really appreciate the shrimp being in there, thus there isn't much point in having them together. Thanks for info on potential candidate Cichlids, but I think, through my now trailed experience, and the general response to their compatibility, the answer would be no.


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## AverageWhiteBloke

> With regard to Cichlids and cherry shrimp, I suppose its balancing what you want with what's compatible in a make-shift ecosystem. Cichlids are quite carnivorous, and they are one of the only fish I like to keep, as I'm not too enthusiastic about having fish in my tank, and prefer growing plants and aquascaping. I prefer to have the cherry shrimp over Cichlids too, if I had to choose, as they are good algae eaters in numbers, thus doing some good in the tank and appearing more like a natural ecosystem, breed like crazy which makes the whole 'ecosystem' appear more interesting to me, and give good scale to the tank, making the tank more interesting to look at.. I think if you want to mix Cichlids with cherry shrimp, you wont really appreciate the shrimp being in there, thus there isn't much point in having them together. Thanks for info on potential candidate Cichlids, but I think, through my now trailed experience, and the general response to their compatibility, the answer would be no.


+1 On pretty much all you said there. I am currently building up a RCS colony in a small tank at work with the intention of at some point putting them into my main 30galls set up at home. Problem here is it has a pair of Kribs in there. The kribs hold a special place as they are the only two left of many successful spawns all of which kept my LFS stocked for a while as well as providing many hours of interesting watching. They have been in there since they were eggs but after a dispute where they spawned but one of them I suspect ate the young they seem to not really get on that much. I'm waiting for them to go naturally as they must be around 2/3 year old at the moment.
I'm prepared to risk 10 good size RCS in the tank as the RCS breeding is going so well. I did have some Amano shrimp in the tank and the Kribs never seemed to bother them at all. I think all six of them shrimp just eventually died of natural causes but you never know! If the Kribs decide to have a go at the RCS I won't put anymore in. Like mentioned I would prefer a healthy colony of shrimp in my main tank than a pair of cichlids. Once the Kiribs go my next venture is going to be a mix of shrimp and some interesting small mouthed live bearers I think.


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