Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

It seems that we've recently noticed some tiny Cherry Red Shrimp in our tank. It appears that they are babies. Are these toiny creatures at risk of being eaten by bigger shrimp and / or fish? We have a community tank with some Corys, a Pleco, Platies, different kinds of Tetras, and African Lampeyes. Your advice is appreciated.

Cherry shrimp won't eat their babies, but the tetras will if they find them.

You may want to provide a lot of hiding spaces and plants so the shrimp can stay out of hungry mouths.

In general, almost all fish will eat shrimp or baby shrimp if they fit into their mouths. Only a few fish with specialized mouths and feeding habits are safe with shrimp.

YuccaPatrol is right, you do need plants to let the shrimplets hide. The fish that are safe with the babies are your corys and possibly the pleco. Hopefully you will see some of the shrimplets grow to adulthood. You might want to think about starting a shrimp only tank if you want to breed your shrimp.

Actually corys eat live food so aren't really suitable with tiny shrimplets.

Bristle nosed plecs and ottos go fine with them.

Yes, it is a great idea to set up a shrimp-only tank for breeding.

As an example, right now I have 2 tanks of cherries: one is a planted show tank, the other is a bare bottom breeding tank filled with java moss, and I am setting up a third one that has a substrate consisting of about 15 magnolia leaves as an experiment.

My breeding population has not grown quite big enough that I can begin moving shrimp over to my more peaceful planted fish tanks. At some point, I will have enough surplus adult cherries that I can see if my other tank inhabitants will leave them alone (They've left ghost shrimp alone in the past).

However, I would not put my only breeding shrimp in with fish that could eat them or their babies if I wanted my shrimp population to increase.

yucca,
I'm just about to go get some magnolia leaves out of my backyard to soak a bit....let me know how your experiment goes! I think I'm going to lay a few over a normal substrate to see what happens when I start my shrimp only tank next month.
Like you, I'm also looking forward to giving adult red cherries a try in my 55g primary tank once I have a good group in the shrimp only setup. I've had some ghost shrimp in there for 5 months with no issues so far....luckily my tetras seem to be too lazy to shrimp hunt!

hoddit,

Just to let you know how the magnolia leaf experiment is going after 3 days. The water turned brown from tannins after two days and some of the leaves had a translucent white film growing on them.

Interestingly, my pH did not change significantly despite the significant visual change in the color of the water. Measured pH was 7.2 and my 6 other aquariums typically range between 7.0 and 7.4.

Today, the translucent film has disappeared. I will be waiting at least another 2 weeks before adding shrimp to this tank.

Thanks for the information on shrimp that I posted about above. I am excited about the prospect of breeding cherry shrimp. They are very expensive here in Japan. Another type, the red & white ones, are extremely expensive here. Some of the rarest ones of that variety can run as much as over $120US per shrimp! The more white they have on them, the rarer they tend to be. Cherry shrimp are still expensive but don't fall into that category!

We seem to have bred some very soon after buying them. We were lucky. Perhaps they were expecting before we got them.

Hi capper, and congratulations with breeding your shrimp. You were talking about the expensive crystal red shrimp (CRS) which are also expensive here in the US. I am happy with my cherry shrimp now but may raise some CRS in the future. Hope you enjoy your shrimp and keep us updated on your progress

Actually no, they're called Bumblebee shrimp I believe. We just bought 4 of them on sale at one of our local fish shops. We put them in our 6 gallon tank which only currently house 4 small platies and 2 Otocynclus Corydoras catfish. We have a llot of plants and wood in the tank and they mainly hide behind it. I am hoping to re-structure the tank so that they are more visible. I was thinking about changing our stones to "soil-type" stones and sloping the ground up towards the back. We recently added some sod which would make for a great playfield for the shrimp.

The restructuring sounds like a job that will keep you busy and involved for a while, please keep us updated . Also be careful as your fish may try to harass your shrimp and make it difficult for breeding . Hope your tank turns out to be healthy and remember to enjoy