thinking of getting shrimps

[houndour]

Hello,

I've been umming and erring about shrimps for ages. I asked my lfs for advice, but who knows if they were telling the truth.

I have quite a heavily planted 19 UK gallon tank with Sand as substrate.

Fish:
2 dwarf gouramis
3 botia striata (still quite small)
5 cory metae
3 guppies

The lfs said I couldn't have the shrimp I wanted (I don't know the name of the ones they had) they were about an inch in length, almost see through. She said they grew to 2 inches but that depended on tank conditions. She said my botia would eat them.

The ones she said I could have were HUGE. They were 10 cm at least and looked like shrimp that you eat I didn't like them much. No offense.

I keep hearing about Armano shrimp (?) they eat algae right? I think I might struggle to find any, altho I'm willing to hunt around for them.

So could I have shrimp in my tank, and how many?

Thanks,
Sam

 

[smithrc]

Hi sam - i had the same concerns about our fish eating shrimp when we decided to get some...

We went for the amano's as we wanted them for our planted tank to help out with algea control

the are great scavengers and once the settled and got a bit bigger they are out foraging all the time

the are about 1.5 - 2" now and have the size to be quite funny... they now have the habit of diving out of hiding places and grabbing algae wafers and swimming off with them - while being chased by the other fish

we have 8 in our new 350l. and i have seperated 3 to try breeding them. (they wern't cheap when we got them so its worth a go)

we were told 12 for our 190L tank and they were fine in there. More wouldnt be a problem.

our main concern was our clown loaches... well they havent touched them - we now have 7 clowns upto 4" and the shrimp steal food from them

 

[The-Wolf]

I have cameroon armoured shrimpAtyopsis gabonensis in my tank with many species of botia, the shrimp are way too big(6"+) for the loaches to bother them.

here is a pic of one of them

 

[houndour]

wolf that is like the shrimp the lfs said i should get. it's HUGE. I couldnt possibly have that in my tank...I'd never dare put my hands in the water again!

I think the amano shrimp in the one i want. will think about it some more.

thanks