# Shrimp safe fish?



## Fishlover02 (Feb 25, 2013)

I'm thinking about adding some pygmy cory catfish to my rcs tank, and I'm just wondering, will they eat the shrimp/shrimplets?


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## kevinli1021 (Sep 9, 2010)

All fish will eat baby shrimplets or try to chase them however most of the time they are too fast to be caught.

From my knowledge the list includes: galaxy rasboras (personal favorite), most tetras (neons, rummynose, cardinals, glowlight, etc... except for silvertip tetras they were aggressive and made all my shrimp hide), Siamese algae eaters, ottos (watch out high mortality rate upon transferring them always ~50/50 chance), most barbs such as cherry barbs (not tiger barbs however).

Aside from general community fish I do not recommend getting any fish larger than 3/4" size because they will force your shrimps into hiding. If you really want to be a risk taker then my only suggestion would be honey gouramis and pearl gouramis (only if your tank is highly planted) since they tend to swim near the surface and very seldom scavenge the bottom. They are also one of least aggressive gouramis. Do not try out dwarf gouramis like what I did it will not work 

Kevin


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Generally, Otocinclus are the only species thought to be totally safe with shrimp. They have never been seen to eat one, being fairly specialized algae eaters and quite small even full grown. But they compete with shrimp for algae, so that's something to consider.

Any other fish is liable to eat a baby shrimp if it will fit in the fish's mouth, and it manages to catch one. Many hiding places for shrimp help them avoid being eaten.

I kept Snowballs in a community tank with Danios, Kuhli loaches, Ghost shrimp, fan shrimp, Blue Claw Whisker shrimp, Corydoras, [ albino and one other species ]., Despite this, the population of Snowballs increased steadily. I am sure some babies were eaten, but I even had baby Ghost shrimp survive to adulthood in this tank, though not a great number of them. Danios are very fast fish, but they prefer to feed from the surface rather than the bottom, so rarely bother baby shrimp unless they are very, very hungry and start looking anywhere for food.

Kuhli loaches have small mouths, and don't seem to catch many baby shrimp, but again, I am sure they must have eaten a few.

So it depends on the fish, the shrimp's productivity and how the tank is arranged. You want lots of small hiding places, wood, rocks, dense plants, for shrimp to hide in. If you do that, small fish species are possible to keep, even larger than the so called nano size fish, if you are willing to accept modest to small losses of baby shrimps.

And I used to see the Snowballs out and about all the time, so they did not appear to be worried by the Danios, once they reached adult size. Baby ones I never saw until they reached about a half inch in size.. then they would come out and be seen as the adults.

Consider that all shrimp are prey in the wild, so hiding behaviours are natural to them, and they do get used to the conditions in their home once they've been in it awhile. The smaller the fish, the less it seems to worry them, but if the fish is a bottom feeder, it's more likely to eat babies than one that feeds at the surface or midlevels of the tank. Celestial Pearl Danios are mid level feeders, and don't really appear to notice shrimp at all.

Even Zebra Danios, at about two inches, did not cause adult shrimp to hide nor did the kuhli loaches, when they would come out at night to feed. The baby shrimp seemed to stay on the bottom until they'd grown quite a bit. They mostly feed on the biofilm, so if you have wood, they'll not only hide under it, they'll feed from the film on it. Same with rocks that have overhanging parts, and dense plants.

Sponge filters are also excellent, not only for filtration. They provide food for baby shrimp and adults, and babies can hide quite successfully in the sponge creases and underneath it, while having plenty to eat as they do so. Even a huge snail crawling on the filter won't make babies scurry away - perhaps they know it won't eat them. But fish swim by and they don't appear to care much, even when they are quite tiny still.


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## Fishlover02 (Feb 25, 2013)

Well, I have 1 otocinclus catfish in the tank (a ten gallon btw) already. In terms of other small fish, I tried adding a trio of endler livebearers once, in three days the rcs population went from 100+ to 20. Now, in a combination of being in the area (I'm rarely in Scarborough), the fact that Big als had them in, and they were fairly cheap, I ended picking up 3 amano shrimp (went into the tank today, I've been looking for them forever), a half dozen pygmy cories, and a half dozen kuhli loaches. The fish went into other tanks of mine. The cories I really would not be concerned about in there, they're so small o.o. the kuhlis, they will probably be moving to my 55 once it's been re-scaped. I'm only moving one of the two groups into there (just to clarify ). Fishfur, the tank is moderately planted, but doesn't really have much of a hardscape besides some flat stones, though like my 55 gallon, it may get a fresh re-scape soon, and in doing so would be gaining some more hiding spaces for the shrimp.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I'm not surprised Endlers ate shrimp.. I've seen mine feed eagerly from the tank bottom, mid levels and the surface, so they don't seem to have a strong preference about where their food is. Whereas the kuhli loaches certainly are bottom feeders, and cories are as well for the most part. Pygmy cories may feed in midlevels, as they tend to swim there.

Even the Amano shrimp will eat baby dwarf shrimp, which is to say, Neos like the cherries, or crystal and bee shrimp. So will Blue Claws, but so far as I saw, they don't necessarily appear to hunt them actively, it's more as if when a baby shrimp happens by, if they are hungry they'll grab it.

When I first got my snowballs, I had them in a breeder net inside the main tank. Never thought to cover it, didn't realize that a] baby shrimp can climb out and b] other critters will find a way in. A Danio, a Blue Claw and a Ghost shrimp all found their way into the breeder net and consumed a large number of the very juvenile Snowballs. I thought they might all have been eaten, but I later discovered, when they reappeared as half grown juvies, that they'd climbed out and hidden in the tank. They were better off in the tank than they were in the net, as it turned out.

But Otos are safe, certainly. It is always a bit of a gamble with most fish and shrimp, how well they get on and what may eat something else.


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## Fishlover02 (Feb 25, 2013)

Fishfur said:


> I'm not surprised Endlers ate shrimp.. I've seen mine feed eagerly from the tank bottom, mid levels and the surface, so they don't seem to have a strong preference about where their food is. Whereas the kuhli loaches certainly are bottom feeders, and cories are as well for the most part. Pygmy cories may feed in midlevels, as they tend to swim there.
> 
> Even the Amano shrimp will eat baby dwarf shrimp, which is to say, Neos like the cherries, or crystal and bee shrimp. So will Blue Claws, but so far as I saw, they don't necessarily appear to hunt them actively, it's more as if when a baby shrimp happens by, if they are hungry they'll grab it.
> 
> ...


well, neither fish species will go in there until the tank goes through it's re-scape (adding more plants, hiding places etc), in terms of the amanos, if they do cause an issue I can move them to another tank as well. I do feed enough though, so I'm not too concerned, yet. As well, I'll be adding a couple more otos to the tank.


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## default (May 28, 2011)

I'd take the amanos out, useless in a shrimp tank - they're great for community/planted and even alittle more aggressive tanks to control algae, leftovers, and dead matter.
However in a shrimp tank, they're too aggressive when it's feeding time - they'll steal and transport the food a thousand miles away.
And since you don't need to control the algae, save the algae for your other shrimps that can actually reproduce in frehwater.
I'm surprised you had a hard time finding them, they're almost always in stock at Bigals, AI, and the shrimp stores - it's harder to find ghost shrimps than these guys nowadays.

However for fish, I keep Pygmy cories, Otos, and chili rasboras with my shrimps(crystals, painted reds, red nose, rilis).
They feed together and there's never any aggression, and I'm pretty sure kuhlis would be fine as well, they some times can't even see the food infront of them, they're awesome.


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## bob123 (Dec 31, 2009)

As far as barbs go I would advise against them, I added some cherry barbs to the shrimp tank and over night shrimp were gone.


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## Fishlover02 (Feb 25, 2013)

default said:


> I'd take the amanos out, useless in a shrimp tank - they're great for community/planted and even alittle more aggressive tanks to control algae, leftovers, and dead matter.
> However in a shrimp tank, they're too aggressive when it's feeding time - they'll steal and transport the food a thousand miles away.
> And since you don't need to control the algae, save the algae for your other shrimps that can actually reproduce in frehwater.
> I'm surprised you had a hard time finding them, they're almost always in stock at Bigals, AI, and the shrimp stores - it's harder to find ghost shrimps than these guys nowadays.
> ...


 Well, I'd move them to my 55 gallon tank, except I'm concerned that my angels may make expensive snacks out of them. As well, every time I go in to big als or the other lfs's they're all out, mind you I'm not in the lfs's every week . Finally, in terms of the fish, I'm glad to hear someone has no issues with the pygmy cories as they're going in there in the long run, and the kuhlis will go to my 55 or 30 gallon, as I'll be pushing the fish load if I were to add them.


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## Fishlover02 (Feb 25, 2013)

bob123 said:


> As far as barbs go I would advise against them, I added some cherry barbs to the shrimp tank and over night shrimp were gone.


Thanks for the advice (to everyone), as far as barbs go I have none and I'm not going to be getting any. That sucks on the shrimp loss though!


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Fwiw, I had some hastatus cories, which are similar to pygmy cories, same size, different species. They got on well enough with some Snowballs I had in their tank, but unfortunately I did not have them very long, so I can't say for sure how much impact they'd have had on the shrimp long term. A new food I tried killed the cories and several loaches as well, and I've not been able to find any more hastatus since.

I may settle for pygmy cories at some point, but not until I am certain I'll never find hastatus again. They're very attractive little fish, and swim in the mid levels, like pygmies do. But so long as they're well fed, I would think they are not likely to consume many baby shrimps, simply because they don't spend all their time on the bottom. And kuhli loaches, so near as I can see, really don't go after shrimp either.. they are much more likely to swarm over an algae tab.


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## Fishlover02 (Feb 25, 2013)

Fishfur said:


> Fwiw, I had some hastatus cories, which are similar to pygmy cories, same size, different species. They got on well enough with some Snowballs I had in their tank, but unfortunately I did not have them very long, so I can't say for sure how much impact they'd have had on the shrimp long term. A new food I tried killed the cories and several loaches as well, and I've not been able to find any more hastatus since.
> 
> I may settle for pygmy cories at some point, but not until I am certain I'll never find hastatus again. They're very attractive little fish, and swim in the mid levels, like pygmies do. But so long as they're well fed, I would think they are not likely to consume many baby shrimps, simply because they don't spend all their time on the bottom. And kuhli loaches, so near as I can see, really don't go after shrimp either.. they are much more likely to swarm over an algae tab.


A new food killed them... what food was that? and well, I'll give the pygmy's a try, if they go well, then maybe the kuhli's can join them.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Yeah. This was last summer. A gel type, and I forget now what brand it was. It was for herbivores, and technically, for marine fish. But the ingredient list had nothing on it I don't see on every FW fish food. It was the format that was different, not the ingredients. First night I fed it, next day, many dead fish. Very depressing.

Tank parameters were ok, nitrite was just beginning to show, thanks to so many dead fish, but other than that, nothing untoward in the water. I had to assume the food was the cause, being the only new thing in the tank. 

I posted about it at the time, in case anyone else had run into issues with it. Nobody had. I learned some others used it too, and also for FW fish, and had no problems. Maybe I got a bad package, or some contaminant. I tossed the rest out, on the better safe than sorrier principle. 

It was on sale dirt cheap, a buck a pack, because it was at its expiry date. Most stores do this with food reaching expiry and typically it causes no issues. Why this one did I will not likely ever know.


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## mr_bako (Dec 23, 2010)

*shrimp tank fish*

i've seen my friends breed bkk and blue bolts in a tank with galaxy and chili rasboras plus panda loaches and otto cats without much problem.

But his tank had more then 60% plant coverage.

I've kept pygmy corys with 2 week old baby shrimp and they grew up fine without many missing.

i will throw on into my tank and see if the babies go missing this week 

If it was my own tank and I wanted to breed shrimps.
I would put 0 fish.

If it was a show/planted i would only trust. Most tetras and rasboras under 3cm full grown, panda loaches, kuli loaches, pygmy corys, ottocats, butterfly loach, and small mosquito fish.

I have german blue rams in with my long nose shrimps and they get along fine


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## Mykuhl (Apr 8, 2013)

I have a dozen painted fire reds in a 20 gallon long with a pair of apistos and a few purple pencilfish. These shrimp reproduced and I have seen several juvies out in the open feeding pretty much along side the fish and the fish don't bother them. This has only been happenning recently and only with a few of the juvie shrimp, I don't see the adults out in the open hardly at all. I guess the juvies are more daring. This is in a tank with quite a bit of cover, provided by planted driftwood, a cave a couple of large almond leaves on the sand bottom and and the top covered with floating plants.

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