Is a 5 gallon tank to small to Sucessfully Keep Red Cherry Shrimp and Some Fish?

I have no exsperince with any of these but pt member msjinkzd of msjinkzd.com keeps and sells them. She's very helpful and informative (been talking with her about a future dwarf puffer fish buy, along with a few other fish). I'm sure she can give a confidant answer on compatability of species and acceptable tank sizes.

Id go with a 10gallon if your planning on having the shrimp with the fish. If you go with the 5 gallon then id go with only one or the other. In my experience galazy rasboras do not attack shrimp and will leave them alone. Chili rasboras I can see always activly looking for food and have not seen them eating shrimplets im sure they would, ever since removing them from my one of my shrimp tank, the population has grown a lot lot faster.

I have a 10 gallon with red cherries and least killies and all doing well.

While the size plays an important role, the footprint of the tank is more important for the fish, given the water quality is up to par. A longer but shorter tank would be more suitable then a shorter but taller tank of the same water capacity / volume.

If you have that option, bigger is (almost) always better.

With RCS and CPD (galaxy) you could also not need a heater, depending on your room temperature.

v3

I have a 6 gallon with 3 oto's, 2 amanos, and 8 cherries. They been together for about a year now and very active. You can go with a 5 gallon tank but I would recommended a 10 gallon if you're looking to start a cherry colony.

CPDS aren't as shrimp safe as I thought. I had 12 adults wipe out an entire colony of Blue pearls in 2-3 weeks. The only fish safe for shrimp is Ottos. Also didn't you post this is shrimp section too?

I keep shrimp with plecos and dwarf corys. But not in a 5 gal. You need at least a 10 gal, larger would be better and many plants for the shrimp to hide. A 5 gal is not large enough for otos as you should not keep just one oto. They are social fish and need company of their own kind. In a 5 gal you can keep shrimp and a nerite or mystery snail. CPDs will eat shrimp. Adult shrimp are ok with all dwarf corys but tiny shrimplets are food for the corys. In a heavily planted tank enough of the shrimplets should survive to keep a colony of RCS going as those breed fast enough. I would not do it with less prolific shrimp. BNs, clown plecos, rubberlip plecos etc are all fine with shrimp, but all need a much larger tank.

A 10 gal would be a safer choice, just because the larger the volume of water, the more stable.

That being said, you could probably do a small school of dwarf rasporas with RCS in a 5gal tank, as long as the RCS have plenty of hiding spots (such as big clumps of moss).

Oceangirl said:

CPDS aren't as shrimp safe as I thought. I had 12 adults wipe out an entire colony of Blue pearls in 2-3 weeks. The only fish safe for shrimp is Ottos. Also didn't you post this is shrimp section too?

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Ottos are the only truly shrimp-safe fish. I thought male Endlers would be small enough to not harass my shrimp, but they killed a very expensive carbon rili male. Now the very expensive female has no one to breed with