# African Filter Shrimp (Vampire Shrimp) Atya gabonensis Care



## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

nice! do you have pics of them?


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## infolific (Apr 9, 2016)

Docock said:


> They do great feeding off of my other fish food. I feed four different types of foods and make sure it is real fine so they can filter it out of the water.


Do you crush flake food? Your post inspired me to try just that and I think it worked, but it'd be nice to hear that you've been having success with it.


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## Gabonensis Fan (Aug 15, 2017)

Hello All,

I have also had these shrimp for about six months and they are the favorite of my community planted tank (not planted but lots of unplanted plants). I experimented by making the tank slightly brackish (1.001 sometimes1.002) and the vampire shrimp really appreciate that a lot and they became more active. I believe the vampire shrimp would likely like it more brackish but I need to be considerate of the other fish). They like company from their own species so with more than one they will be happier and more active. I feed them phytoplankton in addition to whatever is already floating in the tank (I should get zooplankton too). As they are a filter feeder they need a large mature tank with lots of flow and only very peaceful tank mates. Mine always stay in front of one of the powerheads and even crawl on it. Dont get them if you cant provide the right habitat.

There has been one succesful case of these being bread in captivity. If you google Atya Gabonensis Breeding you will find the information. I hope more people bread these and eventually comercially breed them as they are truely an amazing species but having them inhumanely caught in the wild by electric shock then shipped half way around the world is not sustainable. Breeding in captivity the way it was done looks like a tonne of work, but perhaps as more people do it they will learn how ways to simplify the process.


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