# Shrimp Friendly Fish



## taikiat (Jun 26, 2006)

Is there such a fish which is:
small, doesn't eat shrimplets, schools, and feels comfortable in a heavily planted one feet cube?
if all eat shrimplets its alright, but can they live with adult shrimps? like cherries, yamatos, etc..


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## jstageman (Mar 6, 2006)

To my understanding, the only fish that would fit your original parameters would be Otocinculus. Any fish that could fit a shrimplet in it's mouth (pretty much any fish, period) will eat them.

Most if not all small tetras or rasboras can coexist with adult shrimp. I'm partial to Rummynose Tetras, personally, as they actually school as opposed to the less cohesive, shoaling behavior of most of the other popular 'schooling' fish.


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## raven_wilde (Nov 16, 2005)

Quite a few people will tell you that no fish is entirely safe with shrimp, and to some extent this is probably true... all fish will likely snap up some shrimplets. However, I have had success with fish/shrimp cohabitation as long as two factors are considered: 
1. the fish have small mouths... like neons, or micro rasboras... given the size of the tank you are planning you will likely be after small fish anyway, so this is good... these types of fish would likely not bother adult shrimp at all (definitely not the yamatos), and would do minimal damage on any cherry shrimplets.
2. the tank is densely planted with the right plants... as in mosses, hairgrass, or maybe a nice carpet of HC or glosso... plants that grow in tight, dense, formations will give the baby shrimps plenty of places to hide, ensuring that some of them make it to maturity... even in my 30 gallon ram tank I have some success with cherry shrimp because they have a good patch of java moss to retreat to.
So, any of the smaller tetras would probably work, neons, cardinals, green neons. If you can find them though, micro rasboras (boraras maculata) would probably be the best... they are super-small, bright red, love to school, and would probably do little damage to your shrimp population... yamatos, cherries, or otherwise.


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## Burks (May 25, 2006)

Pretty much anything with a mouth will eat baby shrimp. My Neons don't bother the three ghost shrimp I have, even when the shrimp were 1/4 their current size.

Like Raven said, good hiding places will keep your shrimp alive.


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## Capt. (Nov 24, 2004)

I've kept adult amano shrimp with platies and endler's livebearers. Amanos get to be a pretty good size. I would guess that you could even keep adults with apistos and rams. Of 5 large amanos, only the largest was able to survive in a krib tank. It lived for about six months with them I think.

Right now I have cherry shrimp with a school of cardinal tetras. I'm not sure about this combination though. I lost a pretty high number of shrimp early on and am not sure why. It's possible the fish ate them. That's the risk you take putting small shrimp with fish. There are 3 or 4 larger cherries in the tank now that have been doing fine for a while.


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## Tiapan (Jun 14, 2006)

i have kept a variety of tetras and othe fish with both amano and cherry, i have had dwarf cichlids in the tank (borellii) with them not messing with amanos and didnt catch them messin with cherries but then again they didnt really breed that well so who knows but i think the answer is to put just adult shrimp in a tank and keep a separate shrimp breeding tank just to keep a good supply


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

*Absolutely no eating of shrimp whatsoever.*

Otos
Any of the Cory's

*Possible deaths with baby shrimplets, but fine with larger shrimp.*

Endlers
Cardinal/neons
Some small mouth tetras

-John N.


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## taikiat (Jun 26, 2006)

i guess i'll take the chance with smaller fish then. anyway my tank should be pretty densely planted so I hope the shrimplets have a chance.


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