How Many Cherry Shrimp Can I Have In 15g?

[DreamertK]

Pretty straightforward question. The only thing is that the tank is square shaped and not long with no other occupants.

I kind of want to do a nano plant tank with shrimp, I'm still thinking it over and will definitly fishless cycle before adding the shrimp.

 

[Mikey1]

6-8

 

[DreamertK]

Thanks.

 

[tribalbrit]

I have a mix of cherry and crystal reds at least 50, probably more. They are in a 46 litre along with 6 ember tetra and 5 pygmy cory.

And they are all fit, healthy and breeding like rabbits.

 

[the_lock_man]

6-8

To start off with, maybe, they'll breed like rabbits and you'll end up with gazilions. I bought 10 just under a year ago from a private breeder, and he gave me a few shrimplets extra. Having just moved them from one tank to another, I moved over 30.

 

[DreamertK]

Oh man. Would it be cruel to put a few with my gourami's? Is it hard to sell the offspring?

 

[the_lock_man]

The gouramis may decide they're a tasty midmorning snack, especially if yours are one of the larger species. That's one reason why I moved mine, was to remove that risk.

With regards selling the offspring, there's 4/5 people regularly advertise them for sale in this forum's classified section. I have yet to try that myself, or to sell them at my local LFS, but they should be relatively easy to move, but don't expect to make a fortune from selling them.

 

[Baccus]

Depending on the gouramis size they will more than likely eat any shrimp or shrimplets they can find. Even my sparkling gouramis that where to small to eat an entire cherry shrimp, picked at the shrimp until the shrimp died from shock/ stress and lack of limbs.

If you get high quality cherry shrimp you should be able to sell them relatively easily, but low grade are hard to move unless you sell them in bulk deals.

Personally if I was you I would try and get some of the more unusual coloured types of cherry shrimp like, Rili, yellow, Yellow Rili, Chocolate or black, these colour patterns are not common and in more demand than the common red.

 

[DreamertK]

Thats why I wanted a seperate plant tank for them, but I've also heard that shrimps stop breeding when there are too many in the tank?

What characterizes high quality? The amount of coverage of red on their body? The amount of red in their coloring?

I havent seen any Rili or black on the market, but they definitly sound interesting!

 

[Baccus]

High quality such as Fire red cherry shrimp have perfect red colouration over their entire bodies including their legs.

The other colours and patterns available in cherry shrimp are usually sourced from private breeders. The real beauty of most of the other colour morphs is that they are pretty much as easy to keep and breed as the standard red.

Just to give you an idea of some colour morphs here are some of my own cherry shrimp
Yellow cherry

My first naturally occuring almost red rili

Chocolate or black

And a selection of reds

 

[DreamertK]

I assume it's bad if different colorations are kept together as they'll breed together?

Is chocolate the same as black?

Awesome pictures.

 

[sadguppy]

You could fit hundreds in a 15g, no problem. They are teeny! Start off with 10 or 15 and they should soon give you a nice population. They are great little critters!

 

[DreamertK]

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Baccus]

Yes the various colour morphs will all cross breed because they are all the same species. The trouble is in letting them all cross out willy nilly you will generally eventually end up with almost wild coloured cherry shrimp which are rather plain and dull.

As for the black cherry, well mine started out as black but has now gone more of a chocolate colour. He is being used in a breeding program I am trialing at the moment with a couple of my darkest red females.

 

[DreamertK]

That explains a lot.

So the blacks became more chocolate from breeding with the reds?