# Friendly shrimp fish



## JAXON777 (Jan 4, 2007)

Hello

I am in the process of converting my chiclid tank to a planted and I had a question for yall. I am planning on having shrimp and some ottos and maybe some sae's. If I want to breed shrimp should I wait on the fish and just do shrimp for a while or would these fish be alright with the baby shrimp. Also is the any other baby shrimp friendly fish I could put in with them. My tank is 100g and I plan on planting heavy.

Sorry for the long post
Any help would be great

Jax


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## erijnal (Apr 5, 2006)

Besides ottos and cories, and even then cories are questionable because members have reported cories sucking up shrimplets, all fish are going to try to eat shrimplets. Even Boraras brigittae, a fish that's about 3/4th of an inch long, will attack, kill, and eat shrimplets. You mentioned SAE's, but I don't have any experience with them so I can't say for sure if they'd leave your shrimp alone. If you're only going to add ottos though, go for it and add them in with your shrimp.

If you're not planning on keeping a school of any fish, I think you'll be fine adding them, especially in a tank of that size, and also because it's going to be heavily planted (lots of cover for shrimplets!). Just keep in mind that you will lose some of your shrimplets


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## Shrimp&Snails (Mar 27, 2006)

I would only keep shrimp with ottos and bristle nosed plecs with shrimp (I wouldn't keep a bamboo shrimp with a male bn again since he kept mistaking the shrimp as a rival and charging it). I wouldn't trust my corys....i've seen them go to work on some live tubifex worms.:boxing:


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## cydric (Nov 1, 2006)

Of course the otos would be fine in a shrimp tank. If you're going to be heavily planted then i don't see why you couldn't try a schooling fish of some sort. I have 7 harlequin rasboras in my 29g tank that has RCS, CRS, and an Asian filter shrimp and they don't bother a soul in there. Mainly because i have a lot of hiding room for the shrimp. 

I think if you put red cherry shrimp (RCS) in the tank with all that plant cover, you'll have successful breeding. 

I've heard that SAE's aren't that great of a fish to have in any planted aquarium but i'll leave that to someone who has experience with them.


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## JAXON777 (Jan 4, 2007)

Cool well it looks like I'll do ottos and Red cherry shrimp for now until I get a good population. That is if i can get them to breed!


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## Left Coast DJ (Nov 16, 2006)

The thing about not having any fish in a shrimp tank is you might get planaria!

DJ


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## southernflounder (Nov 5, 2006)

Left Coast DJ said:


> The thing about not having any fish in a shrimp tank is you might get planaria!
> 
> DJ


OK stupid noob question here. What's wrong w/ having planaria?


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## erijnal (Apr 5, 2006)

I don't think there's anything wrong with having them, some might just see them as disgusting worms. I personally didn't mind when I had a minor outbreak of planaria. Most of the time I couldn't see them anyway


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## southpark (Oct 9, 2006)

we keep about 30 cardinals and about 20 smaller tetra(i can't remember their name, they're like neons, but the red stripe is very faint, and they're very small, less than an inch long) with our cherry shrimp and they have left the adult shrimp alone as far as we can tell, the tank is heavily planted with HC about 2 inches thick and deep enough for the shrimp to hide in, and i've seen shrimplets moving around and several survived to grow into juvenile size so if your shrimp population is large enough and your ground/hiding cover is sufficient, and you don't put in fish that will attack adult cherries then you should be ok..

as always.. i'd recommend testing it out w/ some cheaper ghost shrimp or something for a while if you're worried hehe.. if all ur shrimp disappear overnight then you have a non-shrimp friendly fish..


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

one of those nice plastic fish you can get at walmart or target will be perfect.
They are very colorful and will not bother your shrimp at all... 

Otto's should be fine. If you have red cherry shrimp which are prolific breather you can try some of the micro rasboras with them and see how it works. Also some of the dwarf cories might work, not sure since I do not keep them with anything smaller than an amano shrimp. Provide the shrimp with places to hide.

-Pedro


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## cydric (Nov 1, 2006)

milalic said:


> one of those nice plastic fish you can get at walmart or target will be perfect.
> They are very colorful and will not bother your shrimp at all...
> 
> -Pedro


:heh:


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## fish newb (May 10, 2006)

milalic said:


> one of those nice plastic fish you can get at walmart or target will be perfect.
> They are very colorful and will not bother your shrimp at all...
> -Pedro


And to think now there are people promoting Walmart's fish.....      

LOL!

-Andrew


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