Best fish with Shrimps

[EmreD]

Hello all,
I am planning to create a 60-70 lt nano planted ahrimp tank. Had some reading in the forum and external, most of resources say ember tetra is the best fish that can live with ahrimps peacefully.
Any ideas?

 

[mort]

The problem is that most fish will eat shrimp if given the chance and peoples experiences can be massively different. If you are lucky predation might just be the tiny shrimplets but many a fish that has been fine for others can turn into terrors. The best thing to do is get your shrimp population settled and breeding, in a tank with lots of cover in the form of fine leaved plants, before adding any fish.
The nano fish are less likely to be a problem and ember tetra are one of the best choices. You could consider some of the tiny boras like chilli or exclamation mark, emerald rasbora or pygmy cories but most believe otos are the only truly shrimp safe fish.

 

[Wolf6]

If you dont mind losing a few shrimplets there are lots of options. Kuhli's, small cory's, embers, green neon, smaller rasbora species like kubotai, and so on. In densely planted tanks you can add bigger fish too. In my main, which has a large colony of cherry shrimp I have a group of Hyphessobrycon sweglesi, they dont bother the shrimp either as far as I can tell. I've had colisa chuna and platy's in tanks with them too, they will sometimes pick on the smaller shrimplets but those escape just fine most of the time. On this site I even see tanks with betta's and some apistos/rams living together with cherry shrimp.

 

[mort]

^That's were things get complicated though as I recently read about someone, who added kuhli's and they were advised their shrimp would disappear, which they did. It was a shame as I was considering khulis but it seems they are far more predatory than I thought. I've seen the same with dwarf gourami and even the tiny species like sparkling (think @zozo had one of the small species eat his shrimp) or croaking are just as predatory.
On the flip side I've seen people keep rams and even clown loaches with shrimp and not notice to much predation. So every tank seems to be different.

I'll also add that things can change and I've noticed with my pencilfish that for years they got on fine but when I started feeding more live food and they began to readily breed, their behaviour changed and they started hunting the shrimps. I'm now at a point where I hardly see a shrimp in that tank anymore.

 

[zozo]

think @zozo had one of the small species eat his shrimp

I've indeed seen them chase after shrimps, i assume they will eat shrimp that fit their mouths. Also had Oreichtys sp. and seen them snack on adult shrimps. But it where Cherry shrimp ant they breed like rabbits. 🙂 If you provide enough hiding places for shrimps to hide where fish can't reach them. Then Cherry shrimp will breed fatser than they can be eaten.

I did in the tank my story refers to and all shrimp eating fish are long gone but it still has loads of shrimp. This tank contains a lot of wood with a lot of caves under it, it has a rather large cave labirynth to small for fish to enter. Bellow is an old picture still showing the wood, by now it's completely overgrown with anubias and no longer to be seen.

Thus from experience i can say, it kinda depends on your hardscape setup and how well it is suited to breed shrimps. If you take this into account you can have both, shrimps and shrimp hunters... They will breed fast enough to consider them a supply of free life food.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I'll also add that things can change and I've noticed with my pencilfish that for years they got on fine but when I started feeding more live food and they began to readily breed, their behaviour changed and they started hunting the shrimps.

I think live food is very relevant to this. The fish associate small items that move with "food".

cheers Darrel

 

[Wolf6]

^That's were things get complicated though as I recently read about someone, who added kuhli's and they were advised their shrimp would disappear, which they did. It was a shame as I was considering khulis but it seems they are far more predatory than I thought. I've seen the same with dwarf gourami and even the tiny species like sparkling (think @zozo had one of the small species eat his shrimp) or croaking are just as predatory.
On the flip side I've seen people keep rams and even clown loaches with shrimp and not notice to much predation. So every tank seems to be different.

I'll also add that things can change and I've noticed with my pencilfish that for years they got on fine but when I started feeding more live food and they began to readily breed, their behaviour changed and they started hunting the shrimps. I'm now at a point where I hardly see a shrimp in that tank anymore.

I've had kuhli's since day one with my shrimp. In my previous tank I sold over 150 shrimp after 2 years, and still kept about 30, and I'm probably nearing the 200 mark again now. If they eat them, and I've never seen it, then its in low numbers. Just make sure the shrimplets can hide in moss patches or carpets 🙂 I have both the striped kuhli and the brownish ones.

 

[Wolf6]

Hi all,

I think live food is very relevant to this. The fish associate small items that move with "food".

cheers Darrel

That is bound to make some difference, I mostly feed dried foods and frozen food, only occasional live food. That and a part personality 🙂 Most important is hiding spots though!

 

[mort]

Just make sure the shrimplets can hide in moss patches or carpets 🙂 I have both the striped kuhli and the brownish ones.

I'm not sure anything could hide from a khuli loach.

I was surprised when they said khulis would decimate a shrimp population, shrimplets yes, but I doubted adults. Seems is possibly somewhere towards the safer side with a little population control thrown in but a lot of conflicting reports out there still.

 

[Wolf6]

I'm not sure anything could hide from a khuli loach.

I was surprised when they said khulis would decimate a shrimp population, shrimplets yes, but I doubted adults. Seems is possibly somewhere towards the safer side with a little population control thrown in but a lot of conflicting reports out there still.

Yeah, I'm very surprised myself, having 6 kuhlis in a 70x50 footprint tank with heavy planting, never seen them even look at a shrimp. Tank is full of shrimp of every size. I always figured kuhlis were nearly blind, finding food by smell and touch, so how they would become such ferocious predators is a question I've not seen answered yet (and I wonder if there isnt a case of misattribution going on). It makes sense they dont rely on eyesight much given where they come from. Dead shrimp they would defo eat, they can find dead things and food pellets from miles away. Small shrimp that could fit in their mouths that they could detect I've no doubt they would eat as well, but those would have to be pretty slow, but adult shrimp? I doubt it... Is it possible the shrimp were already dead in the earlier report?

 

[Hufsa]

Ive had kuhliis with shrimp before with no problem. I would consider the allegedly ferocious shrimp eating kuhliis an outlier rather than the norm. They may inhale and eat a newborn shrimp if the shrimp doesnt jump away in time, but so would corys so they're not worse than them. The kuhliis are maybe 10% faster at hoovering than corys.
Id pay money to see a kuhlii attack an adult shrimp, that sure would be something.