Shrimp Safe Fish

[Lennie]

Okay. I personally keep my orange sakuras in 29g community tank, and there are def babies surviving, but definitely not majority of them.

When I check shrimp safe fish online, I mostly see adult shrimp safe ones, as most of the fish will gladly eat the babies whenever they get an opportunity.

Also, the shrimp safe topic seems to have very conflicting opinions between people. Some say their CPD is shrimp safe, another comments theirs tear them apart, keeps attacking until they die, even bigger sized ones. Some say their endlers are fine in a planted tank, others say their females just eat them.

Setting densely planted tank setup aside, any fish that can be considered baby/juvinile shrimp safe? Maybe not %100 safe, but most likely to be safe?

What about pgymy cories, dwarf/chili rasboras, or any other that comes to your mind? 

My worry is feeding small rasboras. They are cute but only mid column eaters and eat either frozen/live food or crushed flakes from what Cory says. How hard is it to feed them? The smallest fish I've kept is pygmy cories and allI have to do is dropping a wafer. Really no experience on keeping small mouth fishes. Everything I keep attacks the food lol. 

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/cherry-shrimp-tankmates

I've read this one as well, but this is more toward the adult ones as well from what I understand.

Would love to hear some experiences.

Maybe something like 10 pygmy cories + 10 dwarf/chili rasboras with shrimp in a 33g? way too understocked, but maybe I can gradually increase it.

Cute shrimp pic from online:

[Lennie]

Update:

Just came from my LFS

From the possible smallest fish options, they had:

CPD

Pygmy cories

lamp eye killis

dwarf rasboras

green neons.

CPD were in the same tank with cherrys and I have seen one of them poking adult/juviniles only once in the tank. Probably would eat babies or small juviniles tho.

I ended up getting 10 pygmy cories, planning to move other 6 from my 29g to increase the school size to 16 in the following weeks. The more the merrier. They are my fav, so I thought why not give them a bigger school!

I’m not sure I liked dwarf rasboras in person. They look cool, but i feel like they would display better in a big group in smaller tanks. They are really really tiny, which is what you expect for shrimp safe ofc but they are very skinny aswell. At least pygmy cories get chubby a lil. Maybe I’m biased. A school of 10 was barely visible in a small 5g tank in the store.

Lamp eyes and green neons were looking really good and healthy. I guess lamp eyes may jump aswell? They were on a no lid tank in the lfs, which they normally always cover killifish tanks, but killifish at the end of the day. Do green neons can be tankbred?

Also I loved the look of panda guppy. I’ve never seen them before. But they were only being sold as a couple. Considering a couple maybe? Who knows

Edited February 2, 2023 by Lennie

[Procrypsis]

+1 on the Rasboras - I have Chili, Spotted, Exlamation point, Blue Axelrodi and Green Kubotai co-habitating with Tiger shrimp Caridina mariae and Neocaridina sp. They may go after tiny shrimp, but I have not witnessed that in my tanks. The shrimp are thriving and reproducing. My groups consist of ~10 individuals of each species of Rasbora. They are not all in the same tank - multiple 20L, 1@ 60 and 1@ 75 gallons.

Otocinclus and other dwarf plecos are safe as well. No issues observed.

Guppies hunt and eat tiny shrimp and harass adults - found that out the hard way.

My suggestions - give the shrimp a lot of cover - plants, rocks, wood (I like cholla) + larger sized substrate helps give the babies hidey holes.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Procrypsis
more info

[Lennie]

On 2/2/2023 at 2:37 PM, Procrypsis said:

Guppies hunt and eat tiny shrimp and harass adults - found that out the hard way.

Assumed pandas would be better as they are more on the endler size than normal guppys 😞

sad. but I agree that guppies are meanies.

Maybe Pygmy cory breeding project!! 😄

On 2/2/2023 at 2:37 PM, Procrypsis said:

+1 on the Rasboras - I have Chili, Spotted, Exlamation point, Blue Axelrodi and Green Kubotai co-habitating with Tiger shrimp Caridina mariae and Neocaridina sp.

At what tank size do you keep your rasboras at? I felt like they would be super lost in my 33g. I barely noticed them they are in the nano fish section at the store in a small tank. They were literally 1/3 of the juvinile CPDs!!! 😸 Also what do you feed them? Would love to hear! I asked my lfs and they said they are feeding micro food. They were out of frozen baby brine too sadly.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Lennie

[Procrypsis]

Rasboras can get lost in big tanks - unless you have a larger "school".

The 60 has ~ 30 chili's and exclamation points (along with 2 frog plecos and several otocinclus) and I like to see all of the activity. The 20L's have ~ 10 axelrodi and ~10 spotted - and yes, they are much more visible in the smaller tanks.

The Neo shrimp have bred to the point in the 60 that I have to cull every few motnths just to manage the population. They out compete the pleco's for food if the numbers are too great.

Rasboras feed on just about anything flake (Tetra and Sera) or small pellet (guppy food). I also supplement with BBS ~ once/week.

[Remi de Groot]

General rule: if it fits in the mouth, it will get eaten. On purpose or by accident. But some fish are definitely more aggressive then others. But if the main goal is breeding I wouldn't add any fish.

I've spoken a breeder on Vivarium this year that kept his caridina shrimp with longfin albino ancistrus.

[Lennie]

On 2/2/2023 at 3:40 PM, Procrypsis said:

Rasboras can get lost in big tanks - unless you have a larger "school".

The 60 has ~ 30 chili's and exclamation points (along with 2 frog plecos and several otocinclus) and I like to see all of the activity. The 20L's have ~ 10 axelrodi and ~10 spotted - and yes, they are much more visible in the smaller tanks.

The Neo shrimp have bred to the point in the 60 that I have to cull every few motnths just to manage the population. They out compete the pleco's for food if the numbers are too great.

Rasboras feed on just about anything flake (Tetra and Sera) or small pellet (guppy food). I also supplement with BBS ~ once/week.

Great info! Thank you very much. That responds the question  marks on my head regarding rasboras.

 

On 2/2/2023 at 3:42 PM, Remi de Groot said:

General rule: if it fits in the mouth, it will get eaten. On purpose or by accident. But some fish are definitely more aggressive then others. But if the main goal is breeding I wouldn't add any fish.

I've spoken a breeder on Vivarium this year that kept his caridina shrimp with longfin albino ancistrus.

Yea. I definitely agree. Main goal is not breeding only shrimp tbf, just making sure they breed over time, preferably much more than my sakuras in 29g. Because pretty sure at this point, how much moss, hiding spot and plants you have, they find a chance to eat most babies in a community tank if you have bigger sized tetras/fish. That's why I wanted to keep this one with considerably very small fish but with bigger  school size and kinda understocked, cause I got a shrimp from a reputable breeder this time. I've added 10 pygmy cories today, planning to increase it to 16 by transferring the 6 from my 29g to this one maybe next week or so based on parameter readings. Even 16 will be really understock in this tank tho, they look so small there. I will see how it goes!

Yeah I've heard BN and clown plecos being shrimp safe, but thought it was only adult shrimp again. My L199 never touches adult shrimp too.

Thanks for letting me know Remi!🙂

[SandBkeeper]

On 2/2/2023 at 2:52 AM, Lennie said:

What about pgymy cories, dwarf/chili rasboras, or any other that comes to your mind? 

My 20 gal long with bloody mary shrimp has exactly that! I have 7 pygmy cories and 17 dwarf rasboras. I only recently got the rasboras, so I can't say for certain they are 100% shrimp safe, but they definitely can't eat the adult shrimp that are bigger than them lol. The pygmy cories have no interest in the shrimp also. Keep in mind I keep them all in a very heavily planted tank, so I don't see the pygmy cories very often. However, the rasboras are very active and will come to the front of the tank whenever anyone approaches. I won't worry too much about feeding them, I've been giving them powdered flakes and they go crazy everytime they get fed plus have full bellies always😃. 

 

Here are some pictures

[Lennie]

@SandBkeeper Looks beautiful!! They have a character but they are very tiny!! 😄.

Do you feed them crushed flakes/ frozen bbs too? Or what do you feed?

 

If I didn't get shrimps before, I would end up getting fire red apistos. The 1m:2f were looking amazing today at lfs😄 

 

[Guppysnail]

On 2/2/2023 at 2:52 AM, Lennie said:

My worry is feeding small rasboras. They are cute but only mid column eaters and eat either frozen/live food or crushed flakes from what Cory says.

CPD 

I started my shrimp with juvenile CPD’s. They are now invasive in all 12 of my tanks and Wayover populate. This picture is just a small portion of my shrimp. 10 minutes after I put food in the tank with celestial pearl Danio and German blue rams.

People don’t watch rasbora’s closely enough when there’s food in the water and they’re always mid-water column people think they only eat mid water. Rasboras are micro predators. If you don’t overfeed them and you watch, they hunt every nook and cranny of the substrate. in the wild things aren’t always floating mid water. They feed by hunting small organisms on the floor of the pond or wherever they are. I’ve been breeding celestial pearl danios for a few years now. When my shrimp population got too big, I would wait two or three days to feed , the CPD’s would eventually hunt the babies but not enough to curve the population explosion start your shrimp first then I add your Rasboras if that’s what you choose. 

once your shrimp, colony is establish and going, it is very hard to wipe them out. Like I said, my German blue rams are not even keeping my shrimp population in check. I have six honey Gourami’s that are full size in a tank with shrimp and I still have to pull shrimp out and give them away regularly. Here’s a picture of some of them in with the honey Gourami’s.

when Fish say shrimp, safe on many of them, there are more shrimp, safe options available. But the shrimp colony has to be well established first if you add the shrimp second or at the same time, the colony won’t be able to establish itself. I hope this information helps. But on the same turn if you add like an angel fish or some other super predatory fish, it’ll wipe out your population no matter what.

PS 

I can give you a list of 5-6 different granules mine love to eat. For the first 2 years I bred them my CPD never saw a live or frozen food source 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Guppysnail
Never use speech to text for a post 🤣🤣🤣

[SandBkeeper]

On 2/2/2023 at 9:35 AM, Lennie said:

Do you feed them crushed flakes/ frozen bbs too? Or what do you feed?

I feed a very very crushed up flake, almost like a powder. I haven't tried bbs or live food yet, but I might in the future. If I do I'll let you know how it goes!

[Lennie]

Many thanks @Guppysnail

Noted for CPDs!

they were in the same tank with dwarf rasboras and I've seen something that looked like ich symptom only on two fish, so I couldn't be sure about them as I was confused about getting them already. It really is a struggle to find fish medicine here except seachem series and aquarium salt. So I wanted to play safer there. I will keep searching for more, but comments on CPDs were confusing me a lot. So thanks again for sharing your experience.

Definitely planning to let shrimp establish a colony this time. I understand where people come from about introducing them later in a seasoned tank after fish for sure, but I personally don't think it was really successful in my 29g rn even tho noone bothers any adults whatsoever. The shrimps got are not in a size Pygmys can eat right now I bet, they are small juviniles. Let's see how it will roll.

On 2/2/2023 at 6:10 PM, Guppysnail said:

I can give you a list of 5-6 different granules mine love to eat.

Sure thingy, I'd love to hear more.

I keep catappa leaf & sometimes aldercones in the tank. My plan was to wait more, but there is lots of biofilm and stuff growing on rocks, catappa leaf and woods and the breeder guy had only last colony on stock, as he mainly breeds expensive caradinas. So yea, got them earlier and out of the plan. They seem to be grazing nonstop tho, both on biofilm and food I drop.

In addition to leaf and a.cones, I have Hikari crab cuisine and a herb/protein mixture professional shrimp food from the breeder. And any fish leftovers/wafers drop to bottom ofcourse.

 

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Lennie

[TheSwissAquarist]

Some small rasbora should work well. Chili, strawberry, or neon green are great candidates. 

[Lennie]

@TheSwissAquarist Green neons like lower ph just like normal neons it seems. Rachel O'Leary says max 7. Mine is 8.0-8.2 :') 

Meanwhile I keep my rummy noses with this ph and they are very healthy. Are neons more sensitive than rummy noses? 

All those years in the hobby, and I haven't kept any type of neons before 😄

Edit: they seem to be very fragile when I searched in some Turkish forums, even more than otos. They are commonly wild caught I guess? If so, That is a pass for me

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Lennie

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 2/2/2023 at 6:01 PM, Lennie said:

keep my rummy noses with this ph and they are very healthy. Are neons more sensitive than rummy noses? 

If they’re working fine, then it should be OK, as their ranges overlap in the wild. 

[Andy's Fish Den]

As the old saying goes, don't trust that a fish won't at least attempt to eat if it will fit in their mouth.

On the other hand, fish that I have kept successfully with neo shrimp include several varieties of corydoras. I have had thriving populations of shrimp in my pygmy, weitzmani, and A. spilotus cory breeding tanks. I've also kept endlers and limia perugia with shrimp and not noticed any babies being picked off. I have not had any other  fish with shrimp, but I would think if their mouths are smaller, they would be good. 

[lefty o]

my shrimp were safe with my CPD's, however the cpd's found the eggs a delicacy and would rip them off the female shrimp.

[Lennie]

Thanks @Andy's Fish Den!

I've seen male endlers being safe while bigger sized females can be likely to eat them, except adult ones. Endlers were really pretty at the store, but livebearers scare me a lil. My mind is still on those cute panda guppys >_>

On 2/2/2023 at 9:49 PM, Andy's Fish Den said:

. I have had thriving populations of shrimp in my pygmy, weitzmani, and A. spilotus cory breeding tanks.

Amazing to see you had a chance to have pygmys and shrimps together, as they are my fav fish 🙂 Now I feel better keeping them together.

On 2/2/2023 at 10:10 PM, lefty o said:

my shrimp were safe with my CPD's, however the cpd's found the eggs a delicacy and would rip them off the female shrimp.

Okay that sounds horrible. I guess there is a point until a fish develops a taste for something. Goodbye CPDs.

[nabokovfan87]

Green neons should be fine. There's a lot of fish like that, in terms of mouth size, that almost prefer to have flake food over anything because it's easy for them.

The other side of the coin here is to have places for the shrimplettes to hide and.be secure. Usually this is going to be moss, rocks, etc. The goal being that if they can hide and graze, they would, and that increases survivability more than worrying about anything else.

[Lennie]

On 2/3/2023 at 3:40 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

 

Green neons should be fine. There's a lot of fish like that, in terms of mouth size, that almost prefer to have flake food over anything because it's easy for them.

The other side of the coin here is to have places for the shrimplettes to hide and.be secure. Usually this is going to be moss, rocks, etc. The goal being that if they can hide and graze, they would, and that increases survivability more than worrying about anything else

 

Thanks. I will consider green neons then, I’ve checked online and it seems they can be tankbred. My ph scares me a lil tho.

Yea there are lots of hidden places between woods and rocks in this new tank. I haven’t got mosses this time because well, They are like detrius sponges. I know shrimp and fish like it especially for laying eggs and such but idk, it is a pass for now. Also in my 29g there is lots of plant cover, cave, rocks and overgrown elodea and mosses where fish can’t enter in for sure, but I don’t think it is enough. The shrimp has been there since last summer, and I don’t see any increase in adult size that much, even tho everything is very peaceful with adults in day time. If the babies were surviving I guess I would have tons by now since last summer as they shouldve been big enough to be easily seen

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by Lennie

[nabokovfan87]

On 2/2/2023 at 11:08 PM, Lennie said:

My ph scares me a lil tho.

Yeah, I understand that....

Max is ~7.

What about the kabutai rasbora instead? Up to 7.5

[Lennie]

On 2/3/2023 at 12:33 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Yeah, I understand that....

Max is ~7.

I've seen this one 😞 I always search for her videos when I'm looking for a species spotlight!

But @Irene mentions she keeps them at 8.0.

I'm considering lamp eyes too as Rachel O'Leary says they aren't jumpy like other killis and she usually keeps no lid tanks too

On 2/3/2023 at 12:33 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

What about the kabutai rasbora instead? Up to 7.5

I have never seen them irl. I don't think we have them here, althought normal sized schooling fish are available commonly.

 

Also not relative to this topic, but I've seen a survivor for alum dip it seems. @Irene, They've survived the 4 hour method on my case obviously, lucky meee 😄

Well,,,, is this a normal baby ramshorn? or a mini one? I will keep them in a snail tank if it is a mini I guess. If it is a normal ramshorn, I may let them stay in the main tank. Would love to hear opinions as Ramshorns are the ones I've never kept before.

Here are the pics:

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by Lennie

[nabokovfan87]

I'd have to check PH, but my other favorites are the dwarf rainbow species. Pseudomugil gertrudae Being one I might get sooner rather than later.

If your PH is 8. Given it's shrimp, you should be able to get it down slightly really easily to that 7.5 range. Botanicals and wood should get you really, really close.

The other method is to simply add a bag of something like Amazonia to the back corner of the tank and buffer the water down. Same affect.

[Irene]

Yup, I had no problems with the green neon tetras at high pH, and I think they'd look amazing with the orange shrimp. You can always talk to your local fish store and see what pH they are currently living and if they've had any troubles keeping them alive. Had no idea that snails could survive the alum treatment! I wonder if it crawled above the water line?

On 2/3/2023 at 2:50 AM, Lennie said:

I've seen this one 😞 I always search for her videos when I'm looking for a species spotlight!

But @Irene mentions she keeps them at 8.0.

I'm considering lamp eyes too as Rachel O'Leary says they aren't jumpy like other killis and she usually keeps no lid tanks too

I have never seen them irl. I don't think we have them here, althought normal sized schooling fish are available commonly.

 

Also not relative to this topic, but I've seen a survivor for alum dip it seems. @Irene, They've survived the 4 hour method on my case obviously, lucky meee 😄

Well,,,, is this a normal baby ramshorn? or a mini one? I will keep them in a snail tank if it is a mini I guess. If it is a normal ramshorn, I may let them stay in the main tank. Would love to hear opinions as Ramshorns are the ones I've never kept before.

 

 

 

[Lennie]

On 2/3/2023 at 9:47 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Botanicals and wood should get you really, really close.

never worked for me probably due to having my kh always top level in tests. I used alder cones, catappa leaf, lots of driftwood, made weekly %20 water changes with half tap water half RO water. The lowest I've always ever seen was 8.0 😄 Without any effort, it is again sitting on 8.0 to 8.2 anyway. At this point botanicals are just shrimp/snail food for me and potential tannin sources. Maybe if I dump them like a blackwater tank, I may notice some effect. But holy moly, kh does not even drop in this new aquasoil tank. I've added alder cones today, and catappa leaf sometime ago, kh dropped to 19 from 20. Ph was 8.0 still. Shocking 😎

I've never observed any health issues with my fish until today, even with species like rummy noses and sterbais, so I've decided to stick up with my tap water and acclimate fish for at least an hour or sometimes more, as they only spend like 5-10 mins in bag when I get them from my lfs. 

I guess I will add more fish soon for the 10 pgymys as a dither. They are active and all but I think they do better in the existence of other fish. They like their own school, but other fish makes them more relaxed from what I've observed I've tested the water and haven't seen anything weird. They are pretty small in size anyway, so probably established filter is dealing with 10 pygmy bioload just fine.

On 2/3/2023 at 9:47 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I'd have to check PH, but my other favorites are the dwarf rainbow species. Pseudomugil gertrudae Being one I might get sooner rather than later.

Sadly the only ones they had other than pygmys and small in size were lamp eye killis, green neons, dwarf rasboras, endlers, panda guppys and cpds. They were out of stock for some like ember tetras. I'm closer to green neons and lamp eyes rn, assuming panda guppys don't work. Rachel O'Leary says they lamp eyes aren't really prone to jumping like other killis, as she also keeps no lid tanks in general.

They had lots of medium sized schooling fish but I'm gonna keep it smaller this time I guess.

And those rainbows you mentioned look great. Wish we had them here :').

--------------------------------------------------------------

On 2/3/2023 at 10:06 PM, Irene said:

Yup, I had no problems with the green neon tetras at high pH, and I think they'd look amazing with the orange shrimp. You can always talk to your local fish store and see what pH they are currently living and if they've had any troubles keeping them alive. Had no idea that snails could survive the alum treatment! I wonder if it crawled above the water line?

Green neons were pretty healthy and active at store, I often see my lfs carrying them. I always get my fish from there assuming we have same water parameters due to being really close to each other in location, and never had problems with the fish I got from them before. But I will make sure their ph/parameters are the same with mine just in case, as neons seem to be more fragile when it comes to ph/parameters!

Also about the snail, I really don't know tbh. I've always been following your alum method and never had issues before. This is my first time as well! (except MTS, as you have also experienced). Maybe it survived as an egg? I usually alum dip, then wash the plants a lot and even one by one to get rid of eggs, and make them sit in declorinated water. I suspect it survived from an egg as it has been almost 3 weeks since I've planted and set up this tank and it really is a tiny one. 😄 As long as alum dip kills all types of nasties, I'm okay with snails!:D

Edited February 3, 2023 by Lennie