# Shrimp in community tank



## geisterwald (Jul 18, 2016)

If you have enough hiding spaces, it's possible to maintain a colony of shrimp. They might not explode like they would in a shrimp-safe tank but you can grow a group. To curb your losses, you could put shrimp in first and grow a large colony before introducing any fish that would eat them (I've never done this myself so I'm not sure if the second part is entirely sound logic, but I have seen successful colonies in community tanks, the trick does seem to be lots of hiding spaces).


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## Ameisen (Sep 8, 2013)

What's the trick in introducing more hiding places in a way that doesn't detract from the look of the tank? I'm terrible at aquascaping - I think I lack that 'artistic flair' (being an engineer).

Pre-introducing them (after cycling, and if I use aquasoil after a month as that ammonia kills) and forming a colony beforehand was something I'd thought of. Could take some time for a colony to develop well, though.

I'm still teetering between going for 'good-quality shrimp' and close to 'feeder-quality' shrimp - could get more of the latter for the same price (and establish a larger colony), they'd be less obvious targets, and probably more hardy, but obviously wouldn't look as nice when they _are_ out.


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## geisterwald (Jul 18, 2016)

Ameisen said:


> What's the trick in introducing more hiding places in a way that doesn't detract from the look of the tank? I'm terrible at aquascaping - I think I lack that 'artistic flair' (being an engineer).
> 
> Pre-introducing them (after cycling, and if I use aquasoil after a month as that ammonia kills) and forming a colony beforehand was something I'd thought of. Could take some time for a colony to develop well, though.
> 
> I'm still teetering between going for 'good-quality shrimp' and close to 'feeder-quality' shrimp - could get more of the latter for the same price (and establish a larger colony), they'd be less obvious targets, and probably more hardy, but obviously wouldn't look as nice when they _are_ out.


Like I said, I've never done it myself, only seen people who have so maybe someone else has better advice, but I'd think just a big scraggly piece of driftwood with lots of little holes, and then a veritable forest of stems and leafy plants, and some moss as well. You'll probably also do better if you only stock fish that will nibble at the shrimplets but not actively hunt adults. I'm sure it can be done with both though. 

I'd go for a good low-to-medium quality strain of shrimp myself, a low-grade yellow, orange, or blue neo (like blue pearls) maybe. I'd say cherries but I fear they'd lose their red pretty quickly in a tank where the most obvious ones were being picked off by hungry fish unless you were culling (and maybe you're planning on it); the other neos breed more true as far as I know.


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

geisterwald has sound advice.


When my SO decided to get into shrimp keeping, he had a 90+ gallon tank with a dojo loach, 3 black kuhli loaches and a BN pleco. There were other fish in the tank previously, but they had been moved to other tanks or had passed on. Tank lightly planted (had small to large anubias plants) with several 'medium' sized pieces of driftwood in it. A lot of open space. Except for the dojo loach terrorizing the shrimp (never saw it catch a shrimp), it seemed like the shrimp did ok in the tank. Except, we kept losing shrimp (they simply "disappeared") and with as many berried females as we had, never saw shrimplets - for the most part. What ones we did see never made it to adult-hood. A possible major factor in this could have been due to incorrect water parameters (too soft).



Now have a shrimp only tank and a community tank. The community tank (30 gallons) has the 3 black kuhli loaches, 1 striped kuhli loach, 3 amano shrimp and a small population of cherry shrimp. All the plants that were in the larger tank were transferred over to the 30g and it also has a moss ball and hornwort. We had, at most, 1/2 a gallon (ziplock bag) of hornwort that we added to the tank. It has more than doubled! So we had a floating mass of hornwort that the shrimp love! Since the amanos are breeding and I'm attempting to try and raise them (1st attempt failure, on second attempt now), I've bagged up all the hornwort except for 1 plant. That one plant is still pretty "large" (although not as large as another one I separated out!). The rest of it is currently sitting in two 1g bags filled up halfway or so and floating in the aquarium.

Amanos hatch out as larvae, or zoes, not miniature adult versions like cherry shrimp do. They float around in the water column when the light is on, or rest at the bottom with the light is off. I figured the best chance of gathering zoes, I would probably need to severely reduce the size of the floating forest (just in case they were getting stuck in there and I couldn't find them...) so I could more easily gather them. (since one of the females has, I think, dropped her eggs for the second time in a row, the loaches are probably getting a very special treat....)

I do have cherry shrimp in that tank of all ages, from newborns to adults. Tank is lightly planted.





If you plan on doing a medium or heavily planted tank with a lot of driftwood, and you start off with shrimp first and get a colony established first prior to adding any fish, then you should be fine! If you really want to get the colony started quickly, I would recommend at least 20 shrimp, although you may be able to find deals for 50-100 shrimp, too! Just, try to make sure you buy USA bred shrimp and not imported ones!


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## Ameisen (Sep 8, 2013)

Are there tricks to aquascaping while also providing places for the shrimp to hide? I'm terrible at aquascaping in general, and am having difficulty envisioning that.


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

Use a lot of moss and dense plants? Floating type plants can also be a good addition.


I am not an aquascaper myself, so my tanks don't look nice at all! Here's what some other people have done...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/KharmaKazi/4ftShrimpTankRH22-11-09.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/edbXIVt_TU8/maxresdefault.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o283/crayonboi/Shrimp-tank-140308-10.jpg
http://i47.tinypic.com/kw28o.jpg


Some ideas on products that will provide hide-outs.
https://www.discobee.com/collections/woods-leaves-natural-products/products/cholla-wood
https://www.discobee.com/collections/woods-leaves-natural-products/products/teddy-bear-cholla-wood
Shrimp Accessories - Shrimp Caves - Han Aquatics


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## Yukiharu (May 3, 2014)

I'm an engineer as well, and despite being good at drawing I can't do landscapes to save my life. I bought a lot of lava rock and started a thread in the Aquascaping section. Unfortunately I had to add the water before finishing the final details but it definitely looks way better than what I had set up (which was quite frankly awful).


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