Bamboo shrimp

[Fishstuff45]

Hi i always thought shrimp looked cool and at my lfs they had bamboo shrimp. I looked online but couldnt find much. Does anyone know what they need for care and feeding?
Thanks

 

[Sake]

These are filter feeding shrimp, so you need to have live plants, decent flow that the can reach, and a mature tank. I believe it's 20 gallons for 1? Anyone remember? You can crush up some food for them and squirt it directly at their fans to supplement their diets, but I've never tried that myself, so I'm not sure how it would work. That's just about all that I can recall on them.

 

[rkilling1]

I've had them in the past and will never purchase them again. They need special care for feeding. You need to ensure you are providing them some type of micro food to consume. In our tanks, having the micro food avalible all the time is not good for the rest of the tank.

 

[absolutangel04]

I have had them and I love them. I do think that bigger tanks are better for these guys because they like the current. You can get by with a slightly smaller tank if you keep it super clean and do supplemental feedings of invert food or baby bites.
Basically all the ones available in stores are wild caught and it can be hard to find a nice, healthy one. Look for a shrimp that is sitting with its fans out filtering. That's the best sign of a healthy shrimp.
I have kept them in my community tank with angels, tetras, rams, and such. I have never had an issue with other fish picking on them, but especially nippy fish should be avoided as tankmates. Avoid overly aggressive tankmates too.
If there is more you would like to know, let us know. I have kept them and so has a member named siva as well as a few others on the forum.

 

[Sake]

Hey absolute, thanks for reminding me about this point...If you see one picking alot at the gravel or whatever substrate you have, that means they are looking for food, you may not be feeding enough.

 

[Autumnsky]

Bamboo Shrimp are really fun to watch. I have had three in 2 years, presently have one.

Big deal is to keep good water condition. Also a well established and well cycled tank (mature as previously mentioned)

Two previously were lost as a result of going on vacation and coming home to bad water and overfed fish.

This third one almost died (also after vacation) but I was able save him due to supplemental feeding almost every day water changes with Stress Coat /keeping water quality good. His filters were damaged from the messed up water and he couldn't filter with them. He walked around like an over sized water flea.

We kept him alive through the weeks til he molted and started using his filters again. He is now very shy and hides much more often than before I will be getting a buddy for him to hang out with pretty soon. They don't seem to care if they have a buddy or not but they often will sit in the current next to each other filtering and it looks cool to see them.

Agree that feeding them well can make a mess in the tank. I plan to use the baster style method to add additional nutrition to my target! Looking for a special really long one - haven't had time for that project yet.

The one I have now is in my guppy grow out tank which I think works because they get almost powdered food for the babies so the Bamboo shrimp can get the extras! I probably won't be keeping baby guppies much in the future so that is why looking to get the really long baster thing.

The one I have now has only been with me for 6 months. My longest living one was 11 months.

Going to order online some Hikari Shrimp Cuisine complete nutrition. Presently the tank gets an assortment of Hikari Micro Bites and sinking bottom feeder tabs and small twice weekly additions of Spectrum Thera +A, Shrimp pellets occasionally and used to give Hikari Freeze Dried Blood Worms but I am crazy allergic to them I found out.

 

[Fishstuff45]

Sounds like to much work lol. Maybe when im more accomplished with some of the harder to keep fish i'll try these guys out. Thanks for all the helpful comments