Keeping fish with shrimp

[fishsandwitch]

Many threads asking can this fish be kept with shrimp. The truth is that the only 100 percent sure shrimp safe fish are otos.

Some people say that threadfin rainbows cannot eat shrimplets because their throats are so small. I cannot confirm or deny this. Other fish may hunt shrimp to varying extents. Most fish will eat shrimplets. Some will ignore all shrimp and others will eat all shrimp. If it can fit in a fishes mouth, there is a good chance it will be eaten.

That being said, one can keep fish with shrimp anyway. Many people are able to keep small fish such as dwarf rasboras or even tetras with shrimp. The type of shrimp makes a difference as well. In most cases, a tetra cannot eat an Amano shrimp.That same tetra can eat a red cherry shrimp.

A good first step to take if you want to keep fish and shrimp together is to try some ghost shrimp with the fish first as a test. If the fish are good with ghosts, then there is a chance they will be good with other shrimp. Please note that this is not a foolproof test either! You need to make sure that you start with healthy ghost shrimp because otherwise they might have died from a reason other than getting eaten. There are many species of ghost shrimp as well, some large some small, so this is really a very rough test. In my opinion, it is still worth trying.

One more thing to consider is that just because a fish cant eat a shimp, that does not mean that it cant bite legs off and harass the shrimp. This will cause a lot of stress and maybe death. Thanks A Hill for reminding me to put this note in.

Tetras and other similarly sized fish such as small rasboras or danios GENERALLY will eat shrimplets but not adult shrimps. Some people report them being safe even with shrimplets, but there is a good possibility that they just don’t notice the small shrimplets being eater.

Medium sized fish, such rainbow fish or apistos may even eat full size shrimp. Again, some people report them being safe even with shrimplets, but there is a good possibility that they just don’t notice the small shrimplets being eater.

Large fish, such as Angelfish, usually will eat full sized shrimp. Some people report otherwise. This is NOT the norm. I don’t recommend trying it.

Another thing to consider is the type of shrimp. Do you care if a few cherrys get eaten? There is a good chance that the population will grow even with some losses. Less prolific shrimp, such as high grade crystal red shrimp, to me, are not worth the risk. Sulawisi shrimp are so expensive and small. Dont even try fish with them

Some specific fish that seem to come up often are
-Corydoras
Corys will most likely ignore shrimp, and a good chance ignore shrimplets. To be safe, I recommend dwarf corries. Full grown corries may catch on that shrimp are yummy. At that point they might eat a ton of your shrimp.
-Loaches
Some are more safe than others. Clown loahces probably are not safe. Khulis probably are.
-Discus and apistos
Simply probably wont work. Some people report otherwise.
I will add fish more as I have time

Good luck!! Fishsandwitch

[fishsandwitch]

Here are some user experiences.

Spypet (banned)
“For the past 2 weeks I put six M&F 2cm RCS in my densely planted
nano size 60 fish member community tank and all six have survived.
Here are the list of fish I keep in this 30g tank you can use
as reference when choosing your shrimp and fish community;

dwarf cory - Corydoras hastatus
bumblebee goby - Brachygobius aggregatus
danio - Chela dadyburjori
botia - Yasuhikotakia sidthimunki
porkchop rasbora - Trigonostigma hengeli
Endler's livebearer guppy - Poecilia Reticulata * MALES ONLY *
dwarf sucker-mouth catfish - Otocinclus affinis

I first removed this fish due to it's persistent predatory tendency;
dwarf sparkling gourami - Trichopsis pumilus

I should note that shrimp were regularly seen out in the open, but
preferred to spend the majority of their time deep inside my plant cover.
since all these fish gladly eat my live brine shrimp, it's certain they will
eat any shrimp fry they can find, with the exception being the Otto's.

New Experiment: I put a single cory and goby in my RCS breeding tank
with many shrimp fry of various tiny sizes. This tank has many micro
organisms I hope these fish will clean without eating the fry all up

Update: After 2 weeks, the cory and goby ignored even the smallest of
my shrimp fry, so I'm satisfied that they are as shrimp safe as my Ottos.
they cleaned up some moving organisms, and ate live Brine shrimp I put
in the tank, yet they still did not disturb even newborn 2mm shrimp fry.”


Hiro says killies go for shrimp


Lumpyfunk says
Enders are moderatly shrimp safe, I have them with mine and shrimp population has increased, but I have seen a larger female take down a 1/2 inch shrimp.


Roan art says I've Amanos with my Boesemani in my 75g and no problems. However, when the Goo obos get a little bigger, I'm sure they will start hunting them down.

Ghost shrimp -- I've had these with several kinds of rainbowfish: Boeseman's, Flame, Millenium, and Crimson-Spotted, also with platys, plecos, neon and glowlite tetras, kuhlii loaches, clown loaches*, silver dollars, rasboras, rummy nose tetras and even a Hammer's Cobalt Blue lobster -- no problems.

* Clowns WILL chase them, and any fish that is smaller than a tetra, but I usually see this during feeding time and I'm almost positive it's because they can't tell the difference between a flake or a worm and a small fish. I think they have really bad eyesight


Kayakbabe reports
I have cherry shrimp breeding successfully in my planted community tank.. started with 30 now have about 300 in all size classes from newbies 3 mm to 1.25 inch long old dark red females

10 Otocinclus various sizes up to about 1.5 inches
5 Japonica Shrimp aka "Amano Shrimp" 1.5 inches
20 Cardinal tetras pretty large ones
5 Zebra Danios (glofish cultivar)
6 Corydoras Sterbei
12 White Clouds
10 Brilliant Rasboras

When I first put the 30 baby Cherry shrimp into my tank, I didn't have a lot of cover and I did have two Dwarf Neon Rainbow which picked at the baby shrimp. I had all the other fish on the list above though.. everythign did fine except the neon rainbows. I didn't give the neon rainbows a chance to eat them in ernest and took them out into another tank. I haven't bothered to reintroduce them to my show tank... but now the H.M and E. tennelus have really tight matts of roots that provide cover for them. The newer 1-5 day old baby red cherries hang out in that stuff. The momma shrimp seem to know to go there when the eggs are hatching. They hover over or in the tightly massed plants and the babies drop down into it. I'm thinking it would probably be okay to reintroduct the neon rainbows now especially since I've got an estimated population of around 300 cherry shrimp now and cover for them. I don't mind if a few get "sacrificed" so long as some survive to adult hood.

I follow the "if a fish can stick it in it's mouth" it will try to eat it rule of thumb... so knowing I was going to put shrimp in my tank, I stuck to smaller mouthed fishes.. and detritivores.. and also fish which have eating habits that don't coincide too much with the shrimps like the danios which are top feeders, the tetras and rasboras are open midwater feeders... it's worked pretty well. The corydoras sterbei are a smaller variety of cory.. they get to be about 2 inches long.. and they don't bother my other fish or shrimp at all. When I feed hikari sinking wafers.. I even see the cories and shrimp feeding off the same wafers at the same time.

I've been thinking of getting some snail eaters - gots tons of baby snails that I pick out all the time.. but I"m pretty sure anything that would like to eat snails would like to eat baby shrimp too... so unless someone know of a snail lover that hates shrimp type of fish.. I"ll just pick them out

And I've keep a planted tank with cherry shrimp for 3 years now. I do have a lot of dense cover planted areas where shimp babies can hide. Where it is hard for larger fish to get to the babies. so I have lots of babies surviving in my tank. I keep dwarf neon rainbows, brilliant rasboras, cardinal tetras, white clounds and otocinclus with the shrimp. I know my shrimp are thriving as I often take about 30 of them out of the tank at a time and exchange them for credit as my local fish store. I beleive the key is having lots of plants and dense planted areas that babies hide in. Other than that, I feed normally with floating and midwater food and also throw in Hikari 'shimp' pellets (which my shrimp love to eat). I beleive the key is having cover for the babies to hide in.


TheTeh says
Warning!! Do NOT DWARF GOURAMIS (Sparkling/croaking gouramis) with shrimps, they attacked my tiger shrimps until they die!! Boraras brigittae, endler, Otos, Apple snails, Corydora habrosus are ok in my experience.


A good point A hill has is “I think it also depends on what type of shrimp it is... my ghost shrimp dont get bothered by my rummy nose tetras in the 55g, but im going to be taking them out before i put cherries in...”
Crazie eddie says
I put platy fry (about 12) in my 29 gallon RCS tank. The fry were way smaller than most juveniles, so I figured the fry would leave the shrimps. I made sure the fish/shrimps were well fed, with FBW, flakes, zuchini, algae discs, etc. I noticed the fry would eat away at dead shrimp. As the fish got bigger, I noticed no shrimplets or even new borns. When the platy got closer to adult size, I noticed the RCS did not freely swim around in the tank. I think they were fearful of the platy predators. When I removed the platies, my RCS started to multiply again.

I now put cardinal tetras in the tank. I did see a cardinal chase a shrimp, but it (cardinal) stopped after the quick burst

Fishscale says
Cardinals will eat shrimplets, but not adults. Dwarf puffers are a gamble. They will either ignore the shrimp or tear them apart and perhaps not even eat them (they can be mean little critters). I keep adult diamond tetras in a tank with a cherry population (not my shrimp tank, but they are still breeding). The population grows very slowly because even though it is heavily planted, when I do water changes or any kind of maintenance, I flush the shrimp out of hiding, and the tetras have a feast on shrimplets. Rainbowfish will definitely hunt shrimplets, perhaps even adults. I had a molly that I donated back to the LFS because it was not eating any algae and it was highly aggressive. Probably the single most shrimp unfriendly fish I have ever had.


I will continue to update, add to and revise this thread. Any suggestions just pm me or post here. But I prefer pm to not clog this thread up.

Thanks and good luck! Fishsandwitch

[waterfaller1]

Awesome..!

[fishsandwitch]

Thanks! I wanna keep improving it and then hopefully a mod/admin will make it a sticky

[ikuzo]

nice research. i vote for sticky!

[nonamesleft47]

I have been able to confirm that both Cherry barbs and A. australe killies are killers, even at small size. One batch of moss that I put in my shrimp tank had a good bunch of Cherry barb eggs in it. I knew about the eggs and wanted to raise a few. The tank is so heavily planted I didn't notice fry until they were 1/4 inch long and my supply of small shrimp took a nose dive. Fished those guys out and put them in the turtle tank (don't worry, they're still there, the turtles are hatchlings).

I picked up a batch of plants at an auction and floated them in my shrimp tank, the shrimp population had rebounded and was making progress. These plants had A. australe killie eggs in them and I've been hunting them down and catching them out ever since. I know at least 6 hatched and I've caught 4 of them and put them in another tank. They also actively hunted down the small shrimp and while they were in the tank I had few females berry although the killies didn't seem to bother the large shrimp.

I have endlers and threadfin rainbow species tanks that contain cherry shrimp, the shrimp are always out but are not old enough yet to breed but I suspect the young would be easy pickings.

[fishsandwitch]

Good info!

[A Hill]

Not bad information, but there is another 10+ page thread I keep bumping up for people. Why not just add to that?

Another thing.

Ghost shrimp aren't a good test for a bunch of reasons. One reason is they're much larger than pretty much any dwarf shrimp. Second off they're usually about to die when you get them so if the fish are fine with them you won't ever know because dead shrimp are always eaten. Third, ghost shrimp aren't always the same, some may get prawns etc.

One last thing to consider.

STRESS.

It kills people and shrimp. Just because a shrimp can't fit in the mouth of a fish doesn't mean it is safe. I've watched fish just nip at the shrimp then taking all their appendages off. Granted, they didn't eat it whole

All in all as you said and I've been saying along with many others ottos are the only 100% safe fish with shrimp. Another OK bet is dwarf corry cats. Full sized corry cats have been reported hunting shrimp once they figure out they're good food.

-Andrew

[fishsandwitch]

Originally Posted by A Hill

Not bad information, but there is another 10+ page thread I keep bumping up for people. Why not just add to that?

Because there is no one clear post in that, and you have to read through so many pages in order to learn just as much. This is much simpler and easy to read.

I know ghost shrimp are not perfect, but I think they are worth trying. It can save your better shrimp from getting eaten. I will edit the OP though to make this more clear how they are not a perfect test.

[fishsandwitch]

Originally Posted by A Hill

STRESS.

It kills people and shrimp. Just because a shrimp can't fit in the mouth of a fish doesn't mean it is safe. I've watched fish just nip at the shrimp then taking all their appendages off. Granted, they didn't eat it whole

All in all as you said and I've been saying along with many others ottos are the only 100% safe fish with shrimp. Another OK bet is dwarf corry cats. Full sized corry cats have been reported hunting shrimp once they figure out they're good food.

-Andrew

Yeah, I will edit the OP and make a note about stress as soon as I have time. I did mention that dwarf corries are ok.


Thanks for the suggestions that is what I am looking for and this is really kind of rough at this point.



EDIT-
I did some editing to the OP, and will continue to add and change as I get suggestions and have time to do a revision.

[A Hill]

To be perfectly honest ghosts aren't a good test at all these days.

Especially if you can get Cherries locally. Or a few from someone for shipping. At say $5 for a few its not too much cheaper and much more accurate.

Just thinking some more...

About the other thread. Paitence is THE MOST important thing in this hobby. IMO if you can't take the time to read the whole thread or at least a few pages of it if you want to have a shrimp tank with fish or a fish tank with some shrimp there is a decent chance you're not going to have success.

-Andrew

[fishsandwitch]

Originally Posted by A Hill

To be perfectly honest ghosts aren't a good test at all these days.

Especially if you can get Cherries locally. Or a few from someone for shipping. At say $5 for a few its not too much cheaper and much more accurate.

Just thinking some more...

About the other thread. Paitence is THE MOST important thing in this hobby. IMO if you can't take the time to read the whole thread or at least a few pages of it if you want to have a shrimp tank with fish or a fish tank with some shrimp there is a decent chance you're not going to have success.

-Andrew

I think there is a lot left to be desired with the other thread, and I think clear, concise info is valuable although I do partly agree with you.

[fishsandwitch]

no one else has anything to add?

[fishsandwitch]

bump

[sea-horsea]

bmp