I'd like to get some fresh water shrimp for my tank but I'm worried about them getting eaten by the fish. What fish need to be avoided when keeping shrimp? I have a peaceful community tank (not cichlids or large fish. Thanks
Lance M. said:Ghost shrimp are good scavengers that get 2 inches
Whicker shrimp (I've also seen them called blue-clawed shrimp) are just bigger ghost shrimp that get around 3 inches and may attack things
Wood shrimp are filter feeders that get around 3 inches
Vampire shrimp are filter feeders that get 6 inches
Cherry shrimp stay small at 1 inch so they are most likey to be eaten by things like ctafish
Amano shrimp get 2 inch and are good algae eaters
I have ghost shrimp, amanos, and two vampire shrimp. They are all peaceful. For the whisker shrimp, I say that they might attack things because I've had them before and they somehow killed a trapdoor snail and several ghost shrimp, but other people say they're peaceful so this is my experience with them.
Crayfish get large and will attack fish if they have the opportunity to. Watch out for shrimp you can't identify or haven't heard of. Many small prawns are listed as ghost shrimp or other names like freshwater lobsters or something and they get very large and kill other things.
they're nasty shrimp..they eat my small African cichlids...also shrimp pellets half their size!
i was the proud owner of "Louie" i had to give him to a friend of mine because he more than outgrew my 30 gallon tank. i would recommend keeping it alone unless you want it to kill everything. i had a 10" florida gar in the tank momentarily until i got my 55 gallon setup. it was for a very short time. two days later the gar was prawn food.he also ate a pleco, two snails, and my rafael cat. his normal diet was feeders and he loved shrimp pellets. Louie was definitely an awsome shrimp though. i gave him to my buddy to put in his 75g, and on my birthday Louie died . he was about 14" of body and about 8" of claw, by far the coolest aquatic pet that i have ever owned.
I have a blue prawn and
can verify it will catch and eat anything it gets it claws onto. The
LFS failed to warn me about this and I foolishly did the "there's only
one, I should grab it before it's gone" kneejerk purchase. It ate nine
tiger barbs, a whiptail catfish, a skunk, a beta[sic] and even a 6" bala
shark. Did I mention this loss was all in about the first three weeks?!
They're extremely agressive and complete hogs. I drop in three algae wafers and he'll find all three and attempt to eat them simultaneously, even bullying the Pleco to give up the one it's working on. Now Mr. Snappy is my population control tool for my pair of Convict Cichlids, added after massive fish losses when I opted to go with agressive species. The convicts, pleco, skunk and remaining balas all know to steer clear of him. Convicts seem rather peaceful in comparison. I would NEVER get another prawn should I loose[sic] Mr. Snappy.
Veneer said:Do the "whicker[sic] shrimp" you spoke of look like the "blue prawns" depicted here (scroll down past the "Ivory Shrimp" to the images above the heading of "Long-Armed Blue Lobsters")? If so, they are Macrobrachium rosenbergii and neither "get around 3 inches" nor generally (as adults) stay "peaceful". ]
Lol. Nice citing on quotes and for the mispelling the added "[sic]". The whisker shrimp were small prawns labeled as "Blue-clawed shrimp" in my lfs. And the first link you have shows exactly what they are when they're small. When you get them they are usually around 2-3 inchs but most people don't keep them long after that (maybe in a species tank though) because they are active killers. I have heard of one that was two feet long and kept in a pond inside a lfs.
Lance M. said:When you get them they are usually around 2-3 inchs but most people don't keep them long after that (maybe in a species tank though) because they are active killers. I have heard of one that was two feet long and kept in a pond inside a lfs.