New bamboo shrimp

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Maillis

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Apr 9, 2004
Messages
176
Location
Florida
I just bought a bamboo shrimp (1.5-2"), my first shrimp ever. Anything I need to do to make sure he doesn't die, or are they pretty easy to care for? Right now he's hiding in one of my pieces of driftwood, the wood is vertical and when you look at it from above its sort of in the shape of a C so it's hollow in the middle. He's hiding in there with my 5-6" sailfin pleco at the moment, and the pleco doesn't seem to mind. Hopefully he won't eat the shrimp.
 
im sure it wont. i replaced my bamboo shrimp that died on sunday. their really cool fish. err shrimp. wait i got it yesterday. or the day before. it hasnt adapted yet so its not fanning. i havent found out how to feed it but im sure theres enough in the water for it to eat
 
I would suggest against running any type of diatom filter (as this would essentially pull out all the little things they feed off of). My semi-aggressives rarely bother the shrimp and usually move out of the way for it.

Some have suggested "micro-foods" but my shrimp did not care for Hikari "First bites" so that is definitely not a good choice. Often it seems (from what I have read) that when they are full size you should not have more than probably one per 20 gallons of tank size and having a mature planted tank gives the best chances of successfully keeping this shrimp. The microbial food sources are often found in planted tanks...

Krap- what caused the death of your first one?
 
At my LFS they had about 40 in a 10 gal and they were all healthy: BUT they fed them bloodworms. I saw them eating them. I heard that they even eat flakes off the bottom. I'm thinking about getting a couple for my guppy tank but I'm afraid they might eat the fry.
 
i dont know. i think it jumped out once ot 2ce and i think it was out for about like 15 mins each time. (if it was 2ce) it was doing well the day b4 it died and when i woke up and looked he was laying on its back.
 
If he kept trying to escape that could signal a water quality issue, perhaps a little too much of some metal like copper? A little time out of the water shouldn't bother a shrimp too much, I've heard of crayfish crawling up onto land and walking short distances to other water bodies. Or it could have just starved to death.
 
yeah crayfish... mine got out of the icebox thismorning and my grandma tried to kill it because she thought it was a spider. it lost 1.5 antennas but its okay.

i think it most likely starved because i dont know if i should crush up a shrimp pellet or what
 
nick_schembri said:
At my LFS they had about 40 in a 10 gal and they were all healthy: BUT they fed them bloodworms. I saw them eating them. I heard that they even eat flakes off the bottom. I'm thinking about getting a couple for my guppy tank but I'm afraid they might eat the fry.

They may have had them labelled as bamboo shrimp but they do NOT eat blood worms or flakes. They will pick through the gravel on occasion (good reason for me to be lazy about gravel vacuuming). Bamboo shrimp are filter feeders. You may have seen any number of other shrimp...but 40 in a 10 gallon is hard to imagine since these shrimp will get to be a little over 3 inches in length and I always see them sold at the 2-3 inch size.
 
Both of mine are larger than that. Don't forget to put iodine in the water for their molting process. Kent makes 2 kind. Add 1 drop per 5gal.


Kim
 
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