Algae Eating Shrimp?

[outofstep]

I'm intrested in buying some Japonica Amano(sp?) shrimp for my aquarium. I've heard they are great for algae eating.

Has anyone had any experiences with them? How many would I need for a 39 gallon tank? How does their bio-load compare to the bio-load of fish?

[BrianNY]

Indeed they are great for eating algae. Is your tank planted? What fish do you currently have? Many people have bought them only to discover they were feeding their fish a very expensive meal.

I've never thought much about bioload and japonicas. Most people that favor them have densely planted tanks with low bioloads.

[YuccaPatrol]

Bioload for shrimp is very low. They can be great algae eaters, but won't eat every kind of algae. I have cherry shrimp and they eat most anything except staghorn.

As Brian said, they often quickly become expensive fish food if you have anything that might eat them. I keep cherry shrimp and would not even allow a neon tetra to live with them because it would eat the babies even if it could not fit an adult in its mouth.

Any fish that can eat a small flake of fish food is not truly safe for shrimp with the exception of a very short list of fish that have very small specialized mouths for eating algae. Oto catfish are one of these.

But I love my shrimp and I have plans to keep them in a planted community tank, but to do this you need a long term plan. I bought 20 cherry shrimp last month and am keeping them in a shrimp-only 15 gallon tank. They are breeding already and I expect to have a couple hundred shrimp in the next 2-3 months. At that point, I will have a strong breeding colony and will be able to move some larger shrimp into my "peaceful" community tank without fear of having all my shrimp turn into expensive shrimp cocktail for fish.

I would suggest cherry shrimp over the amanos simply because you can breed them easily and must buy every single amano you plan on stocking.

[PsiPro]

Here is some more info: http://www.thefishwiki.com/Amano_Shrimp

Amano shrimp are very very hard to breed, I have been trying for some time and have yet to bring a single batch to maturity. Cherry Red shrimp will breed in your tank so even if you have the rare fish attack, they can surivie given proper hiding conditions.

Amano shrimp are lager then Cherry Red also, and therefor are more compaitable with more fish. Many fish can can eat a shrimp, don't becasue of who knows why. I used to keep shrimp in my community tank and they did fine, untill I added puffer fish.

But like they said, expensive snack.

If you want some, almost, free Cherry red shrimp (http://www.thefishwiki.com/RCS) check out my other thread in the Trade / Barter forum.

[outofstep]

My biggest fish are 2 Gold Gouramis. Second is Congo Tetras. I'm worried about the Golds once they become full grown, about 6"

[PsiPro]

A full grown gold Gourami will likly make a snack of amano.

[ct67_72]

I have or had 2 amano's. one is large and seems to do wuite well. the small one has been missing for some time. allthough they hide well. (I do suspect the very large angel in the tank) but everytime yo ulook at this guy hes eating something.very cool. seems to clean up vrey well