# Sorority with shrimps?



## baylee767 (Nov 5, 2010)

Can I put shrimp in a sorority? My tank is 10 gallons and will have 5 females. It's also going to be heavily planted and have lots of hiding spots. I'm looking at RCS Because they are a hardy species of shrimp that get large enough that the fish can't eat them. How many shrimp could I get if I added some? And these are my plants:

http://www.shop.plantedaquariumscen...wonderful-lawn-or-floating-plant-riccia23.htm (I'm tieing it down)

http://www.shop.plantedaquariumscen...a-densa-EASY-plant-turtle-food-ancharis06.htm

http://www.shop.plantedaquariumscen...n-Mat-Microsorum-pteropus-30-Leaves-jamat.htm

http://www.shop.plantedaquariumscentral.com/Foxtail-Green-Myriophyllum-Pinnatum-FRY-SAVER-gfox10.htm

http://www.shop.plantedaquariumscentral.com/ECHINODORUS-PARVIFLORUS-TROPICA-small-sword-parv01.htm

Will the shrimp eat off of any of these? I ask because I know they eat off marimo balls (not buying this) and when they eat on their own I don't need to draw them out into the open so that they can eat. Oh, so they don't multiply if I get them: The females are the red ones and the males are the colorless ones, right?

And does anyone have any other advice on RCS?


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## heythatsme (Oct 12, 2010)

You can put shrimp in a sorority, but I wouldn't recommend RCS. They are small and expensive so if any of your girls decide they want a snack, they're not really big enough to put up any sort of a struggle to stop it. Also, both the males and females are colored, so there's not really anything you can do about them reproducing, but if they did your bettas would more than likely eat them anyways. You usually don't have to worry about feeding shrimp in a planted tank, they'll eat algae and junk off of pretty much any plant, but if you did want to, you can just sink 1 or 2 pellets (or flakes or whatever) to the bottom while you are feeding the bettas and the shrimp will find it soon enough. If you do get shrimp, I recommend glass shrimp because they're a little bigger, tougher and cheap so if your bettas eat them its not a super big deal. I have about twenty ghost shrimp in my 29 gallon sorority and aside from a few bit off antennae they're fine.


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## shinybetta (Jul 3, 2010)

1: Ghost shrimp- They are fun to look for (like wheres waldo), they get fairly big and thy are so fast a betta couldn't eat one if the tried

2: Bamboo shrimp- Get fairly large (4-5 inches) and instead of claws they have fans! The stand in the flow of the filter and wave their fans to catch food. Once the food is caught the lick the fans. Very cool to watch. And they are brown with white stripes.


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

I have massive planted tanks with lots of great hiding places for my RCS and I have more problems with the female Bettas in 20g tanks than the male Betta in much smaller tanks in regards to shrimp deaths...I can't keep shrimp alive in the girls tanks...lol....every Betta is different in their tolerance of shrimp...but I agree with heythatsme in that you may want to try the ghost shrimp first more for cost.

RCS are pretty tough and easy to keep and usually the female is darker red than the males-I do have some females that are lighter and males that are darker too...but generally females are darker red-when the shrimp molt their body is softer and easier for the Betta to injury and kill them until it hardens again-this goes for the ghost shrimp too-if the shrimp do reproduce in the tank the shrimpletts provide a great bite size meal for the Bettas too

I have a couple of shrimp only tanks with the red cherry and the yellow version and I don't feed them per se...I stock all my other tanks with shrimp from these tanks and they are my shredder to help speed the break down of dead/dying plant material and grazing of algae and other stuff in the tanks....neat little critter in their own right....


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## sayurasem (Nov 20, 2010)

i got some problems with sorority and ghost shrimps.... 
1. ghost shrimp eat other ghost shrimps
2. my ghost shrimp miteriously disappear over night and in the next day i found an exskeleton of a shrimp stuck on my filter intake.
3. its fairly cheap... i cant believe wal-mart even sell them for 26 cent each, petsmart 33 cent, petco is like 49 cent each.

btw... my shrimps shoots up to the surface whenever i feed my sorority pellets... shrimps are pigs lol.

edit: btw they dont really eat poop on my white sand substrate! so i have to manually clean the surface of my sand.


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## baylee767 (Nov 5, 2010)

If I can find the shrimp (Not many freshwater shrimp sold here...) Then I'm definatly going to buy some. Once my tank is setup, of course....


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## shinybetta (Jul 3, 2010)

sayurasem said:


> i got some problems with sorority and ghost shrimps....
> 1. ghost shrimp eat other ghost shrimps
> 2. my ghost shrimp miteriously disappear over night and in the next day i found an exskeleton of a shrimp stuck on my filter intake.
> 3. its fairly cheap... i cant believe wal-mart even sell them for 26 cent each, petsmart 33 cent, petco is like 49 cent each.
> ...


Ghost shrimp DO NOT eat each other.


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

My ghost shrimp ate their babies---they are know for being cannibalistic and aggressive among themselves/own species and other inverts- as well as scavengers but they don't eat other animals waste...the only aquatic animal that does that is a Scat...hence the name.....but not well in the aquarium setting and they get really big too....

Shrimp molt on a regular basis and need to consume/eat some of the exoskeleton for the calcium/mineral to help regenerate the new exoskeleton


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## small fry (Oct 14, 2010)

sayurasem said:


> my ghost shrimp miteriously disappear over night and in the next day i found an exskeleton of a shrimp stuck on my filter intake.


Sure it wasn't just the shedded skin stuff?

I love GS. My biggest one disappeared in my QT full of Lemon Tetra.:-(. I though my other one died also, but I found him tonight.

These shrimp are fun and inexpensive! Nothing comes between them and food lol! Whether it is carring off algae wafers or beating up the lemon tetras (that is SO funny!), they are so fun to watch at feeding time!

If there is danger, they pretty much know to freeze and wait for the predator to leave before they (cautiously) come out to eat.

They are alot smarter than I thought they were before I got some!

If you can get them, DO IT! They are almost as neat as fish!:-D


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## baylee767 (Nov 5, 2010)

Just thought I'd add... OFL the tiny hermit crabs in my dads 55 gallon salt water tank eat the fish poop all the time (We watch them)

The main reasons I want shrimp is so they clean up my algae and because they look interesting.


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

So true..really neat critter to watch/interact in the aquarium...especially if you have dark substrate...lol...much easier to see/find...I really enjoy my RCS and the yellow morph...they don't get as large as the ghost, however, the yellow morph do get much bigger than the reds.....fun to watch and they are not cannibalistic like the ghost but a bit pricier.....at about $1.00-1.50 each...so they can end up being a high priced meal for a Betta....lol....


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

I was only referring to freshwater animals....I don't know much about saltwater or brackish critters....interesting about the hermit crabs.....


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## small fry (Oct 14, 2010)

Freshwater hermit crab that eats poop?:shock:. I thought that no freshwater invertabrate or vertabrate eat poop. That is very interesting.


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## Sweeda88 (Dec 6, 2010)

small fry said:


> Freshwater hermit crab that eats poop?:shock:. I thought that no freshwater invertabrate or vertabrate eat poop. That is very interesting.


They said SALTWATER tank. lol


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