Freshwater Shrimp?

[moose9]

im looking to get some FW shrimp for a 10gallon to clean up algea and whatnot, i know they are not harmful to fish but there are guppies in the tank, if a shrimp got a chance would it attack a guppy fry?, especially since they rest on the bottom of the tank at night

 

[pwrflpills]

Well, what shrimp are you considering? The only shrimp that I think would be a danger to your fish would be FW prawns. They are big and aggressive, but fairly rare in LFS.

Your basic LFS Ghost Shrimp is no threat to any of your fish. But they only eat certain kinds of algae and you need a small army to make a dent in your algae. I have those in my 20gal and I also have a 5gal with 9 Red Cherry Shrimp in it. The only threat involving them is that they are very small so the fish are a threat to them, especially when they are young. If you only have guppies, there should be no problem. I think they are the most prolific algae eating shrimp, but again you need a lot of them. One problem is that they are very expensive (I paid $2.50 per shrimp with a 10 shrimp minimum + shipping) from petshrimp.com and the was the cheapest deal I found online. But they arrived alive and all lived for quite a while until I had my first casualty this week after having them for a couple months. The guy that runs that was also helpful answering some of my questions.If you're willing to cough up a decent amount of cash for a much more interesting shrimp those are cool.
Check your local store.

 

[Tiffi]

Many people have problems keeping the regular ghost shrimp alive. I assume it's because they are not bred for longlivity and health but to be a snack for bigger fishes.

You can look at petschrimp to see what shrimp you like best. There are some really cool looking shrimp out there, they are very interesting to watch and with guppies no problem to keep. You could also eat amano shrimp. They are not so colorful, but the very best algae eaters. They even eat detrius (waste products) in the tank, Plus they are slightly bigger than cherry shrimp and are not as easily compared to a fish snack.

You need to make sure your water is copper free. Copper might kill them faily quickly.

 

[Jaybird]

I have bamboo shrimp in my tank and maybe only one ghost shrimp left. The two bamboo shrimp filter particles from the water and have been fine, but the 10 ghost shrimp that I bought ended up being snacks for my keyhole cichlids.

If you just have guppies, then the shrimp would be fine. I wouldn't think that guppies would be able to eat, or kill, the shrimp.

 

[moose9]

im not worried about my fish eating them, i was thinking if a shrimp could get ahold of a guppy fry would it eat it? i went down to big als today and they had wood shrimp for 8.99CND, and another shrimp(cant remeber the name) for 12.00, a little expensive, esspecially if you need an army, ill stick with plecos i guess, picked up a rubber lipped for 5 bucks

 

[pwrflpills]

i was going to mention the wood shrimp, which at my local Petsmart they are calling them "Marble Shrimp", but they aren't algae eaters. Like Tiffi said, they filter the water. So, they are big and cool, but they won't change your algae situation. But they are cool. They are also expensive (US$12 at my local Petsmart. Anyway....

 

[lovemybarbs]

the ghost shrimp are like 30 cents a piece at petsmart.