Freshwater shrimp?

museumguy

museumguy

Active member
Sorry it is a little OT, but does anyone here have any experience with freshwater shrimp? I have an aquatic insect exhibit at my new place here in St Louis that I inherited that frankly kind of sucks and I want to redesign it and I was thinking a freshwater shrimp display would be pretty cool. I have lots of experience with salt water shrimp but no real freshwater shrimp experience.

Pretty much any fish seems to pick on the shrimp so it would have to be a shrimp or invert only tank which is fine. I've done some research and I have an idea for what species I'm thinking of gettling (Cherries, Tigers, etc) but I trust y'all's opinion and was wondering if y'all's (oops, theres the Missiourian coming out of me) had any experience with them or could give any insight.

Cheers,
Tad

PS, The saltwater hobby is very popular here, there are huge fish stores everywhere. I live 30 seconds from one that is the largest I've ever been to and I pass by others regularly that look twice as big. Makes me want to get a tank...
 
Hey Tad! Nice to hear from you!

Re: fw shrimp, I've kept Cherry and Amano shrimp but the ones we had weren't very colorful but ARE neat.

Currently we have a 2g species pico with just crystal shrimp in it. We have a cpl red/white ones as well a a black/white one. Theyre quite a bit smaller than the other varieties at only 3/4" long...they appear quite resilient and supposedly breed readily for home aquarists but in the 6 months we've kept them there has been no sign of that.

There is no heater in that setup...theyre evidently ok with temps between 60°-80°.

Good luck!
 
The girlfriend and I have had a community tank set up with ghost and Japanese algae shrimp. Just basic tetras and a pleco. We have had ghost shrimp live for years with no picking on them. I don't know that the eggs ever hatched but we have seen eggs in a ghost shrimp.
 
PufferNut said:
The girlfriend and I have had a community tank set up with ghost and Japanese algae shrimp. Just basic tetras and a pleco. We have had ghost shrimp live for years with no picking on them. I don't know that the eggs ever hatched but we have seen eggs in a ghost shrimp.
Click to expand...

Yeah, as adults most of them shouldn't be bothered by more docile fish but it is my understanding that most any fish will pick off the little babies and I hope to have them breed.
 
Regardless of what type of shrimp you are planing to keep my suggestion is to keep it to just single type and no fish. Some of the smaller types of shrimp don't live long and should be kept as a breeding colony. Most fish will eat their young and you will eventually run out of shrimp if kept with fish. Small shrimp are also difficult to see and are probably not best choice for public display. For larger shrimp that can be mixed with some fish look at bamboo shrimp. Another option is to go with crawfish. There are some really interesting choices.
 
bambo shrimp have pretty good size but as Gary has said the small ones would be nearly impossable to see . i like his idea of crawfish as they are indeed cool and there are some colorfull ones too .
Gary , you seem to have usefull information on every subject that includes water !
 
iamwrasseman said:
bambo shrimp have pretty good size but as Gary has said the small ones would be nearly impossable to see . i like his idea of crawfish as they are indeed cool and there are some colorfull ones too .
Gary , you seem to have usefull information on every subject that includes water !
Click to expand...

I do have information related to just about every subject that has to do with aquariums. But my name is not Gary.
 
Not to get too far off topic. My name is Gennadiy. Sometimes folks have trouble remembering it so people call me G. I'm cool with it. Funny thing is years ago it was suggested to me that I change my name to Gary.
 
i have a nice amount of them quite often but they are bumble bee , crystal ,cherry and tiger which are all very small as you know and then some bamboo shrimp and i just had some pretty cool orange crawfish . they get bought up very fast so i can never make a nice display of them as a whole although it would make an awesome display tank .
 
Thanks for the input guys.

G, it was my understanding from talking to some breeders that Tigers, Cherries and Suluwasi shrimp will all exist communally with no aggression or hybridization. Does your experience contradict this? Some people have claimed to have guppies in the tank with no issues but I think it is a bad idea and plan on going fishless.

It is a ~200g tank and about half of it is terrestrial habitat. I know the shrimp are tiny but I hope to get a lot of them so they show up, and I am going to have other organisms in the tank as well to round out the display. We currently have a nice colony of water striders on the surface which I think I'll leave and we are discussing something like hermit crabs or some sort of terrestrial reptile or amphibian for the land portion.

Thanks guys!
 
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