# Red Cherries disappearing?



## krak256 (Sep 6, 2007)

I can't seem to find my shrimp in my tank. I would say my tank is pretty heavily planted. I recently just bought seven more shrimp, to bring up a total of 24 in total. Looking in the tank today, I only saw 2. Other than that, I never see any.

I have 5 guppies, 2 swordfish, 2 honey gourami, and 10 cardinal tetras. Do you think any of them are eating the shrimp?

I also have been using Tropica Aquacare liquid fertilizer. Does that contain enough copper to kill the shrimp? 

My test kits give off the readings:
PH: 6.8
Nitrate: 20 ppm
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0.1

Am I doing anything wrong?


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## Halibass (Jan 28, 2007)

I think most of your fish are capable of enjoying cherry shrimp snacks. Shrimplets have little chance, larger ones have a better chance, but your gouramies might make short work of them too.


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## A_Shea (Jun 2, 2007)

It could be the fish but only if the shrimp are small enough for them to eat. i just recently put all of my shrimp, about 70 of them, in to my 55 gallon *Heavily* planted tank and looking in i only see about 10 at a time if i look really hard. They are just small and hard to find. My fish only bothered the really small baby ones, which i knew was gonna happen. all i have is about 15 glowlights


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## Mud Pie Mama (Jul 30, 2006)

krak256 said:


> I have 5 guppies, 2 swordfish, 2 honey gourami, and 10 cardinal tetras. Do you think any of them are eating the shrimp?


YES!

guppies: yes
swordfish: yes
honey gourami: yes
cardinal tetras: yes-baby shrimps

Another thing with shrimp the intake strainer on your filter may need to be covered w/ a pre-filter sponge or nylon mesh. When I first started with a shrimp only tank I pulled five out of six adults from inside my HOB Aquaclear.


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## Mud Pie Mama (Jul 30, 2006)

A_Shea said:


> all i have is about 15 glowlights


glowlight tetras?: *2"* maximum

swordfish: *5"* at maturity

And I've seen some huge female guppies!


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## krak256 (Sep 6, 2007)

I guess I should give up on having RCS in my tank then...


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## southerndesert (Oct 14, 2007)

I have a community tank with guppies, corys, ottos, RCS and GS and they actually live quite well together. The tank is heavily planted and the fish leave the shrimp alone for the most part, but baby shrimp are so tiny even a half grown guppy will not pass one up if they can catch it. I seldom get more than a few out of a hatch that ever show up as young adults in this tank. My shrimp only tank makes plenty of replacements for me though.

The community tank is in the living room, folks and kids love seeing the cherries hanging out in the plants so I keep some in there. When you actually see how small the shrimplets are you easily understand why few make it in a community tank... 

I too started with a community tank, added shrimp, read up on shrimp, became addicted, now have 3 shrimp only tanks and plans to build a rack. The little critters are fascinating and terribly addictive.

Bill


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## kimo (Apr 21, 2006)

Mud Pie Mama said:


> YES!
> 
> guppies: yes
> swordfish: yes
> ...


Guppies?... My female (and males) guppies are huge and they don't bother the RCS at all, even the newborns. Swordfish or and kind of Gourami would be a different story all together.
:bathbaby:


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## mpe1329 (Sep 1, 2007)

I just cleaned my Eheim yesterday and found 12 cherry shrimp still alive at the bottom of the filter. I wrapped a whisper filter bag around the intake when I replaced the filter.


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