Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I have been looking for more information on my new vampire shrimp (Atya gabonensis) to make sure I do whatever is best to help them thrive in my aquarium. Unfortunately, the information is scarce and I failed to find anything useful in their care. I did manage to find some misleading information from people that seemed to be guessing that they might be "aggresive," which seems unlikely.
I have them in a 75 gallon planted tank and have been adding micro foods daily in addition to my normal "focus" feeding regimen for my other fish. Basically, I add very little food to this tank (2 shrimp pellets, 1 bottom feeder pellet, and a tiny bit of very small fish food) as it has 5 very small fish in it and 2 of those are small bottom feeders. I have yet to observe any type of filter feeding from the shrimp and have only seen one of them grab a dead leaf and chew on it. The size of the tank seems to be a negative when trying to get small micro foods to the shrimp since the food tends to disperse in the tank.
Does anyone have any direct experience with these exotic and interesting shrimp? I would be interested in hearing about your experience so that I might do the best job I can with them.
-Aphyosemion

Hi there,

You may want to visit Aquamaniac's invertebrate forum: http://www.aquamaniacs.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=22

I know there're several keepers of Vampire Shrimp there, and I'm sure they'd be happy to share their experiences.

These shrimp have the exact same requirements as Atyopsis species, commonly known as "Wood Shrimp", "Singapore Shrimp" or "Bamboo Shrimp." If you can manage to get some water movement into the tank, that would be great. They will filter microfood items already in your tank out of that. If you cannot provide water flow, then they will be happy picking food off of the ground. Normal flake food is fine.

And yes...they are completely peaceful and don't hurt anything, although they do "kick" with their front legs once in a while to "get space" if other animals get too close.

Mustafa