What's the best Shrimp for my situation?

[RightTurnClyde]

I have a 29 gallon, moderately planted tank. Lots of java moss, a java fern, an Anubias, Water Sprite and Brazilian Pennywort. A rock cave, and a lava rock with a tunnel through it. Pool filter sand substrate.

I currently have 1 Silver Molly, 5 Zebra Danios, and 10 Cardinal Tetras. My anubias is getting a lot of algae on the leaves (I've heard they're known for this.) I'd like to get a couple good algae eating shrimp to help keep things clean, but I'm worried about the Molly possibly seeing a small shrimp as a meal. It's a female and she's never shown any aggression to the other fish in the tank. In fact, she acts like they aren't even there.

So after all that info, what are the best algae eating shrimp for me? I like the look of Red Cherry Shrimp, but I hear they like to hide a lot and I'd like to actually see them out and about doing their thing. Amanos seem like the best algae eaters, but I don't want to deal with all the waste they produce. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

 

[Mcgolg76]

If you get 10 red cherrys you should be fine. If you have enough plants should be safe. Babies will mostly get eaten but a few will remain hidden in plants. Not sure how Molly will act since never owned one

 

[venymae]

You could try ghost shrimp. Mine ate algae much better then the RCS. Just one womans experience though. They are also bigger and CHEAP. So you could "test" to see if your molly goes after them. They are harder to breed though.

 

[RightTurnClyde]

Interesting. I had ruled out ghosts because I thought they did NOT eat algae that much. There is so much conflicting info out there in this hobby!

 

[RightTurnClyde]

Can ghosts get aggressive? I've seen some posts where people say their ghosts have laid in wait and killed guppies or neons as they swam by. My cardinals are still pretty small, I don't want them attacked.

 

[venymae]

Interesting. I had ruled out ghosts because I thought they did NOT eat algae that much. There is so much conflicting info out there in this hobby!

So I know ghost larva feed exclusively on algae and bio. You are supposed to keep them in a green tank. My ghost's were put in with some crazy green algae covered plants and I could see the green going through their body, so either they ate it, or I'm crazy and imagining things. don't know about aggression though.

Edit: so I also didn't give them an alternative food source (I wanted that algae gone darn it!) so it might be that they prefer other foods over algae, but will still eat it when it's what they have. I don't know that, I was just thinking.

 

[KidFish]

Ghost shrimp will not kill guppys, my friend has a good 15 ghost shrimp In a guppy tank, hasn't had one death, and his is only mildly planted

 

[Bigzmey]

If you get 10 red cherrys you should be fine. If you have enough plants should be safe. Babies will mostly get eaten but a few will remain hidden in plants. Not sure how Molly will act since never owned one

Not with mollies. Molly would pick them all clean. They did in my tank even with plenty of java moss ...

 

[Autumnsky]

Try turning your light off in the middle of the day for a couple hours, and or reduce your light on period as a possible solution for the algae, also some floating plants.

Otherwise, I think it would be very iffy for Cherry shrimp, unless they were very cheap, I wouldn't put any valuable ones in there. As for Amanos and any shrimp, they love all kinds of foods, they are scavengers. I don't think they would create much of a bioload for you with about 5 of them. Less than one Molly that's for sure. I would go with Amanos.

 

[RightTurnClyde]

Good stuff. Thanks everyone. Sound like the cherries are out. Since they're so cheap, I think maybe I'll start with a few Ghost Shrimp and see how they do. I'll ask my LFS if they can get Amanos too.