Rainbow fish and ghost shrimp

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goldstar8

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Dec 17, 2016
Messages
22
Location
South Carolina
Hi everyone. I have 2 tanks at home, a 29 gallon in our family room and a smaller 10 gallon in the kids' room. The smaller tank has a couple of glofish danios and tetras, a small platy, a corycat and African dwarf frog along with 3 ghost shrimp. The shrimp have been thriving in the tank for the past month.

My 29 gallon has the same types of fish plus a couple bosemi rainbows, turquoise rainbows, and 2 dwarf rainbows. I keep putting ghost shrimp in this tank too but they don't survive. I see the bodies on the bottom of the tank. I have seen the rainbows eat the dead shrimp, but I haven't seen them kill any of the shrimp. Could the rainbows actually be killing and eating my shrimp? I don't mind...just would like to know for sure so I can possibly give them a treat once in awhile. Thanks!!!
 
I don't know much about your rainbows, but I used to have RCS in a tank with Australian Rainbows, and they co-existed fine. When a shrimp expired for whatever reason shrimp expire, however, the corpse didn't last long before it was eaten. If you have a dwarf frog in your larger tank, it may be killing your shrimp while attempting to eat them. Those frogs seem to have voracious appetites.
If you want to treat your rainbows, why not try some brine or mysis shrimp once in a while? The cost will be much less in the long run than buying live ghost shrimp.
 
The frog is in the smaller tank and coexists with the shrimp ok. They seem to ignore each other. I just can't figure out why shrimp die within 24-48 hours after I put them in the big tank. The only difference between the stock is the rainbow fish in the larger tank. I change the water in both tanks at the same time so I don't think that's it.
 
I've never had good luck with ghost shrimp. Whenever I buy them, they seem to die quickly. If you want to breed them for fish treats, maybe you could try only ghost shrimp in a small tank. RCS aren't much larger than ghost shrimp however, and in my experience, they're much hardier.
 
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