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A few shrimp questions . . .

All tds meters measure conductivity as a proxy for tds. Actual tds determination requires gravimetric measurement by evaporating H2O and weighing the residues, a tedious method not commonly used.

I’ve seen mixing different color Cherry shrimp nicely done, male only, so they won’t breed but need to be replenished regularly.

I don’t fancy my chances in obtaining single sex shrimps from on online supplier. I think my best bet is as you suggested - get a few Amanos and some Cherry’s and see how we go. If the Cherry’s breed, I can assume they are sufficiently comfortable and consider adding 4 of another species.

Assuming that happens, and given my water conditions of 225ppm tap water, CO2 injection so pH in the 6.0-6.5 region (tap water 7.0), temperature around 25 degrees C - what other shrimp species might be worth considering?
 
Thanks for all the input guys. I have to admit to being a little confused.

So am I correct in my understanding that there are two main genus of shrimp:

Neocaridina - which includes Cherry and the various blue and yellows etc. These shouldn’t be kept together otherwise they’ll breed back to natural colourations?

Caridina - which includes Bee, Taiwan, Crystal and apparently Amano.

What I can’t seem to obtain is consistent information on is what the water requirements for each species within each genus - assuming it differs?

Can anyone point me to an online resource that is known to be accurate for the water requirements of each species?

I’ve kept Amanos in hard water in the past without any issues, and it looks like Cherry’s are fine in hard water as mentioned above. So are any of the other Caridina species suitable for similar water conditions, if the Crystal Red isn’t?
They can adapt to different water given time.Find local breeders whose water matches yr water profile.Also the shrimp come in different quality so cherries are easier than fire red which is easier than painted red.Generally the darker the colour for neos the more sensitive it will be.For crystals the more colour coverage on legs and more white and if they are pure red line or pure black line will be harder to keep.Most crystal reds are mixed with white or golden crystals to give them more "white".
 
I don’t fancy my chances in obtaining single sex shrimps from on online supplier. I think my best bet is as you suggested - get a few Amanos and some Cherry’s and see how we go. If the Cherry’s breed, I can assume they are sufficiently comfortable and consider adding 4 of another species.

Assuming that happens, and given my water conditions of 225ppm tap water, CO2 injection so pH in the 6.0-6.5 region (tap water 7.0), temperature around 25 degrees C - what other shrimp species might be worth considering?
Babaulti shrimp and tiger shrimp caridina. ;)
 
They can adapt to different water given time.Find local breeders whose water matches yr water profile.Also the shrimp come in different quality so cherries are easier than fire red which is easier than painted red.Generally the darker the colour for neos the more sensitive it will be.For crystals the more colour coverage on legs and more white and if they are pure red line or pure black line will be harder to keep.Most crystal reds are mixed with white or golden crystals to give them more "white".

Babaulti shrimp and tiger shrimp caridina. ;)

Thanks for the continued input. ProShrimp are half an our away from me, so I will probably take my son for a trip to go and see them over the Christmas break - they should have similar tap water to us (though they may use RO water instead - I will contact them to find out).

The Cherry shrimp on their website look a little 'anaemic', so I'll have to see if we can 'cherry pick' (pun intended!) some darker ones out if visiting in person. Failing that I may have to consider stepping up to the dark variants (Sakura or Bloody Mary) - though its an expensive risk at that price!
 
Thanks for the continued input. ProShrimp are half an our away from me, so I will probably take my son for a trip to go and see them over the Christmas break - they should have similar tap water to us (though they may use RO water instead - I will contact them to find out).

The Cherry shrimp on their website look a little 'anaemic', so I'll have to see if we can 'cherry pick' (pun intended!) some darker ones out if visiting in person. Failing that I may have to consider stepping up to the dark variants (Sakura or Bloody Mary) - though its an expensive risk at that price!
You welcome.Heard Proshrimp is good.If your tank is cycled and is about 15-20 gallons u can quite safely try the darker variants.Just dont overfeed ;)
 
The water in Leicester is very similar to Notts 200+ TDS , so you will be ok to keep neos
Amanos will be ok but will bully neos for food, so if mixing feed a smaller size food so they don’t do a runner with the shrimp pellet
I also keep tangerine tigers, but in their tank I dilute the tap water with filtered rainwater

Have a look at my tank...
https://www.ukaps.org/forum/posts/573945

I also have some shrimp sales threads with lots of pics

If you ever pass thru Leicester, give us a shout, welcome to pop in and have a look at the tanks

Steve
 
And as for fish, keeping small tetras, embers, neons etc and small rasboras in my experience have vey little impact on a healthy colony, they may take the odd small shrimplet

In my blue neo tank I currently have 3 types of nano rasbora, blue axelrodi, chilli and maculatus?
All take no notice of shrimps
My ottos take little notice of my shrimp, laying in the feeding dish with the shrimps
Keepi guppies and endlers with caution, I found the females are more likely to predate or pester shrimp, male endlers seem not to bother shrimp in my experience

Steve
 
You welcome.Heard Proshrimp is good.If your tank is cycled and is about 15-20 gallons u can quite safely try the darker variants.Just dont overfeed ;)

Yes, tank i
The water in Leicester is very similar to Notts 200+ TDS , so you will be ok to keep neos
Amanos will be ok but will bully neos for food, so if mixing feed a smaller size food so they don’t do a runner with the shrimp pellet
I also keep tangerine tigers, but in their tank I dilute the tap water with filtered rainwater

Have a look at my tank...
https://www.ukaps.org/forum/posts/573945

I also have some shrimp sales threads with lots of pics

If you ever pass thru Leicester, give us a shout, welcome to pop in and have a look at the tanks

Steve

Thanks for the offer Steve, much appreciated. Leicester is only a quick hop down the M1 for me. What shrimp do you have available for sale? (Feel free to PM me if it's more appropriate).


And as for fish, keeping small tetras, embers, neons etc and small rasboras in my experience have vey little impact on a healthy colony, they may take the odd small shrimplet

In my blue neo tank I currently have 3 types of nano rasbora, blue axelrodi, chilli and maculatus?
All take no notice of shrimps
My ottos take little notice of my shrimp, laying in the feeding dish with the shrimps
Keepi guppies and endlers with caution, I found the females are more likely to predate or pester shrimp, male endlers seem not to bother shrimp in my experience

Steve

I must admit I hadn't considered Rasbora - even though I used to keep Harlequins back in the day!

What is the species in you tank photo here, they look really nice and might be a good suggestion to my son instead of Guppies? They look like they are pretty active ( rather than hanging in a shoal - if one can determine that from a photo) - one of the things that drew my son to the Guppies was their constant movement about the tank in the LFS, whereas the tetras commonly just 'hang' in mid-water in a shoal.

203d5eb2-c0af-4fce-962a-09aeb943eebc-jpeg.jpg
 
They are endlers livebearer, like small guppies, very active, lots of colour variants , there is only males in the my shrimp tanks
Females in separate tanks

I can give you a starter group of black bar endlers
2 males and a group of females

Steve
 
They are endlers livebearer, like small guppies, very active, lots of colour variants , there is only males in the my shrimp tanks
Females in separate tanks

I can give you a starter group of black bar endlers
2 males and a group of females

Steve

Ah right - do the males not bother the baby shrimp then? This thread has kind of put me off adding live bearers?

Many thanks for the offer of the fish, let me come back to you on that, as we probably won’t be ready to add those until the middle to end of Jan. Ideally though I’d just want males as we won’t really have the facilities to house fry.
 
I’d give Pro Shrimp a shout - always nice to support your local shops - and your son would probably like the visit

(FWIW I don’t think their shrimp are expensive :) they seem to offer a nice selection and may have some locally bred stock available as well)

Female guppies are constantly pregnant so that may contribute to their somewhat ravenous appreciation of shrimp ;)
- not to mention the size difference ... though if you search out breeding/show quality guppies (my experience is with Asian breeders) they can be rather a different fish (gorgeous colors in both male and female, nice temperament, not eating their offspring even in the shipping bags, less likely to have Columnaris)
I really like guppies for kid tanks - they are lovely bright constantly moving (& non-hiding) entertainers - if you start with a good quality trio (2 female : 1 male) offspring overruns should be easily moved on (though obviously more complicated than just picking up several pretty boys ;))

Rather than Amano type shrimp, I’d just add in a few Clithon corona snails (fun to watch and still no eggs in my tank :cool: )
 
Y
I’d give Pro Shrimp a shout - always nice to support your local shops - and your son would probably like the visit

(FWIW I don’t think their shrimp are expensive :) they seem to offer a nice selection and may have some locally bred stock available as well)

Female guppies are constantly pregnant so that may contribute to their somewhat ravenous appreciation of shrimp ;)
- not to mention the size difference ... though if you search out breeding/show quality guppies (my experience is with Asian breeders) they can be rather a different fish (gorgeous colors in both male and female, nice temperament, not eating their offspring even in the shipping bags, less likely to have Columnaris)
I really like guppies for kid tanks - they are lovely bright constantly moving (& non-hiding) entertainers - if you start with a good quality trio (2 female : 1 male) offspring overruns should be easily moved on (though obviously more complicated than just picking up several pretty boys ;))

Rather than Amano type shrimp, I’d just add in a few Clithon corona snails (fun to watch and still no eggs in my tank :cool: )
Yep guppies are large.Either amanos or neos.U can also keep otos safely with shrimp.If u want snails ph should be at least 7 or u might have dissolving shells.
 
Yes, tank i


Thanks for the offer Steve, much appreciated. Leicester is only a quick hop down the M1 for me. What shrimp do you have available for sale? (Feel free to PM me if it's more appropriate).




I must admit I hadn't considered Rasbora - even though I used to keep Harlequins back in the day!

What is the species in you tank photo here, they look really nice and might be a good suggestion to my son instead of Guppies? They look like they are pretty active ( rather than hanging in a shoal - if one can determine that from a photo) - one of the things that drew my son to the Guppies was their constant movement about the tank in the LFS, whereas the tetras commonly just 'hang' in mid-water in a shoal.

203d5eb2-c0af-4fce-962a-09aeb943eebc-jpeg.jpg
In that case your son probably wouldnt like shrimp they are not that active and just graze around with an occasional shrimp swimming around.Maybe just keep guppies?And choose healthy ones.No clamped fins hovering near water surface no sign of disease.And dont buy if the tank has unhealthy fish in it.
 
I’d give Pro Shrimp a shout - always nice to support your local shops - and your son would probably like the visit

(FWIW I don’t think their shrimp are expensive :) they seem to offer a nice selection and may have some locally bred stock available as well)

Female guppies are constantly pregnant so that may contribute to their somewhat ravenous appreciation of shrimp ;)
- not to mention the size difference ... though if you search out breeding/show quality guppies (my experience is with Asian breeders) they can be rather a different fish (gorgeous colors in both male and female, nice temperament, not eating their offspring even in the shipping bags, less likely to have Columnaris)
I really like guppies for kid tanks - they are lovely bright constantly moving (& non-hiding) entertainers - if you start with a good quality trio (2 female : 1 male) offspring overruns should be easily moved on (though obviously more complicated than just picking up several pretty boys ;))

Rather than Amano type shrimp, I’d just add in a few Clithon corona snails (fun to watch and still no eggs in my tank :cool: )

Thanks for the pointers. Having read a bit more, Endlers might be a better way for us to go, being a smaller fish than guppies. We did see some tiny ones (presumably juveniles at around 10mm long) a few weeks back at the LFS (a beautiful black with a gold stripe), though I didn't realise what they were at the time. I'm not sure about adding females, 'pretty boys' as you put it lol might be the best way to go rather than dealing with tiny offspring.

Y

Yep guppies are large.Either amanos or neos.U can also keep otos safely with shrimp.If u want snails ph should be at least 7 or u might have dissolving shells.

Thanks for the tip - I didn't appreciate that snails had such an intolerance to a lower Ph - does that not exclude them for almost anyone with a high tech tank? We were planning on adding a couple of Zebra Nerites, so may have to rethink that.

In that case your son probably wouldnt like shrimp they are not that active and just graze around with an occasional shrimp swimming around.Maybe just keep guppies?And choose healthy ones.No clamped fins hovering near water surface no sign of disease.And dont buy if the tank has unhealthy fish in it.

Oh he loves the shrimp, as do I, they are truly fascinating to watch, so we'll definitely be having shrimp in one form or another. His attraction to guppies was just seeing them in the LFS. If you think through the eyes of a 7 year old that has never had a tank before, and you visit your LFS and see a tank full of guppies going crazy up and down the glass, next to a tank full of tetra hanging largely motionless in the water column, which one are you going to get excited about! I have explained to him that behaviour of the tetras will be different in his own tank, and he does love the look of Cardinals so they will likely be our mid-water fish of choice I think.

We may add a few Otos with some Cory Habrosus as I've read they shoal together in the wild, a different LFS near us has some lovely looking striped zebra Otos that I'd not seen before - I've only ever kept the Affinis type in the past.

There are too many nice fish, that's the problem - at only 60 litres we have to watch our stocking levels! We can handle a high stock in terms of filtration (the Eheim 2028 is rated at about 21x at 1260l/h - though I appreciated real world flow will be a fair bit lower, we should still be well over 10x) and we have the facility to auto-water change 25% daily if we ever felt the need (though will start with 25% 2-3 times a week) - but I don't want the tank to look in any way crowded, so we'll add gradually in species and review as we go.
 
Thanks for the pointers. Having read a bit more, Endlers might be a better way for us to go, being a smaller fish than guppies. We did see some tiny ones (presumably juveniles at around 10mm long) a few weeks back at the LFS (a beautiful black with a gold stripe), though I didn't realise what they were at the time. I'm not sure about adding females, 'pretty boys' as you put it lol might be the best way to go rather than dealing with tiny offspring.



Thanks for the tip - I didn't appreciate that snails had such an intolerance to a lower Ph - does that not exclude them for almost anyone with a high tech tank? We were planning on adding a couple of Zebra Nerites, so may have to rethink that.



Oh he loves the shrimp, as do I, they are truly fascinating to watch, so we'll definitely be having shrimp in one form or another. His attraction to guppies was just seeing them in the LFS. If you think through the eyes of a 7 year old that has never had a tank before, and you visit your LFS and see a tank full of guppies going crazy up and down the glass, next to a tank full of tetra hanging largely motionless in the water column, which one are you going to get excited about! I have explained to him that behaviour of the tetras will be different in his own tank, and he does love the look of Cardinals so they will likely be our mid-water fish of choice I think.

We may add a few Otos with some Cory Habrosus as I've read they shoal together in the wild, a different LFS near us has some lovely looking striped zebra Otos that I'd not seen before - I've only ever kept the Affinis type in the past.

There are too many nice fish, that's the problem - at only 60 litres we have to watch our stocking levels! We can handle a high stock in terms of filtration (the Eheim 2028 is rated at about 21x at 1260l/h - though I appreciated real world flow will be a fair bit lower, we should still be well over 10x) and we have the facility to auto-water change 25% daily if we ever felt the need (though will start with 25% 2-3 times a week) - but I don't want the tank to look in any way crowded, so we'll add gradually in species and review as we go.
21 times is quite overkill.I had sulawesi snail shells dissolving in my tank.If ph is lower than 6.5 its gonna be a real prob.If between 6.5 and 7 can try one nerite.Hmm the fish u like would only go well with amanos.
 
21 times is quite overkill.I had sulawesi snail shells dissolving in my tank.If ph is lower than 6.5 its gonna be a real prob.If between 6.5 and 7 can try one nerite.Hmm the fish u like would only go well with amanos.

21x is overkill, but they never hit their rated output, and by the time we add an inline heater, and inline CO2 diffuser, it'll likely be down around the 10x mark.

As for the fish choice, why do you say they will only go with Amanos? I appreciate all fish will try and eat newly hatched and baby shrimp, but surely Cardinals, dwarf Cory's or Endlers pose no threat to adult Cherrys?
 
21x is overkill, but they never hit their rated output, and by the time we add an inline heater, and inline CO2 diffuser, it'll likely be down around the 10x mark.

As for the fish choice, why do you say they will only go with Amanos? I appreciate all fish will try and eat newly hatched and baby shrimp, but surely Cardinals, dwarf Cory's or Endlers pose no threat to adult Cherrys?
Amanos are bigger.They wont eat adults but the adults may hide especially if there are less than ten cherries.A planted tank will let them hide and breed though but u may see them less than u would like to.
 
- at only 60 litres we have to watch our stocking levels!
Have you seen Green Neon Tetras? Fairly similar to Cardinals, but substantially smaller.
Smaller even than regular Neons, plus also they are usually healthy, whereas most regular Neons available are very poor.
 
One quick tip I thought sensible came from a bloke who successfully combined shrimp with moderate sized fish, i.e. fish that would definitely eat shrimplets but probably not adult shrimp: He established the shrimp first using a pile of roughly walnut sized pebbles as a 'hatchery/shrimplet nursery' on one side of the tank. He had various anubias and java fern attached to some of the larger pebbles so it didn't look at all bad. This created such a solid and impregnable sanctuary for the shrimp to breed, the colony grew despite what must have been quite heavy predation after the fish were introduced.
Some years later when he dismantled the tank he discovered that the shrimp had established an extraordinarily complex 'warren' (for want of a better word) within the pebbles.
I'm not keeping any shrimp at the moment, but when I do, a large pile of pebbles is top of my list.
 
1. I'd like a bit of variety, so was thinking of having maybe 4 x small Amano, 6 x Cherry, and 2 x Crystal red. Does that seem an acceptable quantity for a heavily planted 60cm tank? Or should it be more/less?

2. Fish will be added in due course (Platies, Guppies and Cory's and maybe 4 x Ottos - my sons choices), starting with the guppies which will be added at the same time as the shrimp - I've read all these species are compatible with shrimp - would everyone concur?

Hi @Wookii

I recently read that the only safe fish to have with cherry shrimps is the Otocinclus. I think I know where I read that so let me check it out. I had Celestial Pearl Danios (CPDs) with my cherry shrimp and I have good reason to think that the CPDs ate the tiny shrimplets.

JPC
 
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