Shrimp ID

I never intended to keep any shrimp of any kind, but i ended up with a couple of hitchhikers when I bought something else at one of the GSAS meetings. I put them in my pleco growout tank and didn't think they would last long. Well now I have several of them swimming around all over the tank!

Are these red cherry shrimp?
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How do you do water changes without sucking them out?? I do large water changes on this tank at least three times a week and I'm having a real problem with that!

Betty those are red cherry shrimp. The solid red ones are female and the red striped ones are males. They are pretty hardy. As for water changes I only have mine in a 10 gallon planted tank and they only needa 20 % water change a month with not gravel vac since my substrate is flourite. Anyways good luck. Those shrimp are great cleaners.

They are pretty cool!

At least you did not get unwelcome hitchhikers.... New post would read 'help me get rid of all these snails'

Thanks, czeiszler. I thought that's what they were. Unfortunately I don't have a good tank to keep them in. They are in with bristlenose plecos who keep this growout as clean as it can get. I've noticed that the shrimp are not afraid at all and come out to eat when I feed the plecos. They are reproducing, so they must be finding enough to eat.

They are also not afraid of me or the siphon and come right up to explore. I've had to change the way I do things to keep from siphoning them out the window or down the drain. The babies are so small, there's no telling how many got sucked out.

DMD, there were snails also! There are already lots of little ones all over the glass.

Sorry about the snails. Hey at least you got some cool shrimp out of it! These guys are in demand and you could make a few dollars on the side.

If you are using a regular siphon you can buy a pack of loufas(body sponge) from the dollar store and stuff them into the end of the siphon and that should catch any shrimp that could get sucked into the siphon. GL

I'm going to give that a try. It's going to be tricky -- it needs to be porous enough to take the poop out and leave the shrimp. Thanks for the idea.

Good idea CZ.

@Betty - my shrimp run away from the siphon, so maybe yours will to in time? Good Luck! and please let us know what ends up working for you

I hope so! Thanks and I'll update when I try it.

no problem betty I hope it works for you. The loufa will catch the poop. I use this method to clean my guppy tank when there was a ton of babies in it to minimize them getting sucked out.

Well, I tried the loufa and a few other items to screen the end of the tube, but nothing worked. It was good at keeping the shrimp from getting sucked up, but the poop wasn't getting removed either, so I've been siphoning into a bucket and netting out any shrimp that I find. With this being a pleco tank, I do large water changes a few times each week and this isn't going to work long-term. It's taking a long time to do the change and I find myself putting it off. So I need to move those shrimp out of there. (They are still really curious and swim around the vacuum tube. They crawl around on my fingers and hands and are always in the way!)

My question now is -- is a 2.5 gallon tank large enough for a bunch of cherry shrimp?

I have read that you can have 6+ per gallon as long as your filtration is adequate

I've kept way more than 6 dwarf shimp (caridina and neocaridina) per gallon in some of my 10g shrimp tanks without issue. Once you get to a certain number the colony tends to self-limit due to lack of availability of food; I haven't run into any water quality issues due to too many shrimp, but I also keep heavily planted tanks.

Plus, if you get too many and you get tired of selling them, they're free food for your bigger fish. Too bad I don't have any bigger fish...

I am sorry the loufa didn't work. It was worth a try. GL moving the shrimp.

my tank is a 10 gallon planted tank and I have alot of shrimp in there. I have been thinking about doing a 55 gallon planted tank and making it a shrimp tank.

The loufa did work to keep the shrimp from being sucked out! But the pleco poop was just too much.

Thanks for the responses. I think I'll give the 2.5 gallon a try and see how it goes. I don't have the space to permanently set up another 10 gallon.

what are you feedin thoughs BN's? looks like they love it!

That was an avocado pit with a little flesh still left on it. I tossed it in there to see if they would eat it and they did. It sure made a mess of the water though!

I think your shrimp will do great in a 2.5. A guy I know keeps his shrimp in a breeder net inside a larger tank and they seem fine. He just throws in flake food and has them in Java Moss.

I put some of the shrimp into a 2.5, but the majority are still in the pleco tank and they are just a nightmare. They won't stop reproducing! They are all over everything and make it so hard to do maintenance on the tank. I have some baby albino bristlenose that the father is about to let out of their nest and I'd like to be able keep this tank cleaner.

Here are a few that swarmed this rock from another tank when I put it in for them.
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Munching on green beans.
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Reproducing... Do they ever stop!!
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Hooray for shrimp!

Congrats on successful RCS keeping. And yes, a shrimp colony is self-limiting once food becomes scarce. Average shrimp size will decrease and the colony should stabilize. As long as your plecos can get their share of the food before the shrimp do, you don't have a problem. Otherwise, build a simple shrimp trap and yank them.

I use a mini plastic wine bottle with the top cut off, flipped around, and reinserted with some food in the bottom and a bunch of smaller-than-shrimp holes drilled in it so it doesn't retain air. This has enabled me to catch TONS of malawa shrimp. Just make sure the entrance isn't big enough to admit fish...

Or throw in something to eat them

They are a big pain when it comes to gravel vacing... until you decide you don't care about how many shrimp you send to certain doom.

good job on keeping them alive they are firly hard to find down here

I got mine off ebay (2 batches, each around $20 or so), and one from aquarium paradise for $6 probably 3 years ago. I love RCS - easy shrimp and very pretty

I might have to check with Aquarium Paradise and see if they want some of mine. I never intended to keep shrimp and have no setup for them. I do feel terrible vacuuming them up so I vacuum into a bucket and net as many out as I can and put them back into the tank. I've also given some to the betta. He's crazy about them.

I went to the GSAS auction this weekend and couldn't believe how many shrimp were for sale. I wish I had known they were so popular and I would have donated them all!

Aquarium paradise will give you a fair price maby .25 a piece but they will only buy so many because for most people they are just expensive feeders.

If you do take them to AP let me know i would love to meet up and get some before he makes them expensive and i can even give a little $ if you do.I couldnt take more than 15-20.

aquaman95 wrote:If you do take them to AP let me know i would love to meet up and get some before he makes them expensive and i can even give a little $ if you do.I couldnt take more than 15-20.

Same Here

Im not the only person without down here wow...now i do not feel so lonely

I'm still rebuilding my rcs population. I have them in 4 tanks now so it shouldn't take long Everyone should own shrimp!

ahaha i sell my Tiger shrimp to 2 different LFS near me ^_^.


Love having shrimp..everyone should own them!!!! ^_^ cant wait to add more to my collection.

Kaosu wrote:ahaha i sell my Tiger shrimp to 2 different LFS near me ^_^.


Love having shrimp..everyone should own them!!!! ^_^ cant wait to add more to my collection.

Lots of us don't have shrimp because our fish eat shrimp.

Naso2 wrote:

Kaosu wrote:ahaha i sell my Tiger shrimp to 2 different LFS near me ^_^.


Love having shrimp..everyone should own them!!!! ^_^ cant wait to add more to my collection.

Lots of us don't have shrimp because our fish eat shrimp.

..all my fish eat them as well..they have there own tanks^_^

I keep saltwater shrimp but I have had neon tetras kill shrim lots bigger then them. Personally I cant justify buying a tank under 20g and refuse to donate that to shrimp.

None of my fish eat them, it seems, at least not enough to kill off all of them. Granted, just about all my fish are tiny (or have tiny mouths). Every tank I have with fish also has shrimp.

Most of my fish eat shrimp too, with the exception of the plecos.

I'll let you know if I decide to get rid of any.