# Shrimp and Dwarves?



## DrewWoodside (Mar 20, 2008)

Other than Bamboo shrimp does anyone have any experience with Cherry, Ghost, Amano shrimp surviving with Appisto Cac or a Bolivian Ram? Anyone know if that's just an expensive meal or potentially compatible?

Thanks!


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## Dutch Dude (Sep 14, 2006)

Yes I do,...I keep abouth 200 to 250 cherryshrimp in a densely planted 50 gallon tank with 6 adult Bolivians and 2 half grown. Occasionally the Bolivians snack of the young shrimp. They leave alone the adults becouse they are hard to crack. Cherry shrimp breed like mads so any losses will be compensated. I removed 80 shrimp abouth 3 months ago and an other 30 abouth 7 weeks ago. The number is around 200 right now. So the number stabilizes between the 200 and 250. My Apistogramma hongsloi feed more on shrimps as the Bolivians do. I suggest to put in enough hiding places for the shrimp, add extra foods for them and start with a large group. You could buy 20 or so and first breed them and grow them so you can introduce a large batch at once without spending lots of money. They even breed in water as cool as 18C and up to 28C and aren't that picky on water qualety. Great source of live food, fun to watch and cleaning crew all in the same package.


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## blue acara (Aug 8, 2006)

I have kept amano shrimp with apistogramma and rams with no losses, grown amano shrimp are quite big and therefore safe.


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## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

blue acara said:


> I have kept amano shrimp with apistogramma and rams with no losses, grown amano shrimp are quite big and therefore safe.


Nope... once apistos learn that ganging up on the shrimp will work, then this mix may no longer work.

I had shrimp and apistos together for over a year until one day.... only :fish:


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## gage (Feb 7, 2007)

there is no guarantee your experience will happen to everyone #6, i know lots of people with shrimp with Apistos no problems, and it has been working for him for over 3 years now... he has cherries and amanos.

though for a more likely chance of it working, go for a Vampire shrimp if your tank is big enough, they get 6"+.

EDIT: id just like to add dont keep ghost shrimp with any kind of shrimp besides eachother, they like to eat amanos, cherries, bumblebees and all of the above, they are very cannibalistic.


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## Dutch Dude (Sep 14, 2006)

I'm not surprised by the experience of Number6. Apisto's definitely are eager shrimp hunters. I think small shrimp would be more interesting. Shrimp like bumble bee and cherry shrimp breed fast and can compensate losses. At the same time they are a nice and save source of live foods. My discus also snacks on them so I recently set up a 15 gallon tank to breed the shrimp so I can add new once to the discus tank every once in a while.


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## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

gage said:


> there is no guarantee your experience will happen to everyone #6,


I have heard of it from others, and I did say "may"... when folks post that size alone will make shrimp safe, I have to warn folks that this may not be true.

That's the fun of cichlids... so much personality in such tiny fish. :thumb:


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## DrewWoodside (Mar 20, 2008)

What do I have to do to get them to breed? Any conditions? What exactly do they eat? Would they eat discarded flakes or dried cichlid food bites/chunks? Cherry shrimp are like 5 bucks each around here.. Sounds like a dangerous proposition with curious cichlids.. But i'd love to see cherry shrimp walking around my tank!


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## Dutch Dude (Sep 14, 2006)

The only thing that I do to breed cherry shrimp is to put in some extra food. They feed on algea (young green algea and the slimy once), flakes, pellets algea wafers and so on,...even dead fish! That is what makes them such a good cleaning crew. If you have a small 10 gallon tank or,...even a large bucket, put in a small filter or air hose and make sure their temp is 18C or higher you can breed them. A friend of mine started with 10 small once in a 15 gallon tank and in abouth 7 months she had around 150. Thats the easiness on cherry shrimp and bumble bee. The amano shrimp is something diferent though. Ã


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## DrewWoodside (Mar 20, 2008)

Do the jump out of the tank? I'm sure that's a ridiculous question but i thought i read something like that and I may consider keeping them with an open top at times. thanks! Do they require a filter? Or just an air hose? I'm sure the filter wouldn't hurt!


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## blairo1 (May 7, 2006)

Amano shrimps are no problem, they get pretty chunky and my Bolivians left them alone, it was actually my tiny pair of Blue Rams that killed one, they had fry so it's not a huge surprise but apart from that incidence I've had great success with them. I just helped a friend set up a tank with Bolivians and amano, which were particularly young ones, but they grow relatively quickly and they've had zero loss thus far too.

As for "vacating" the tank, I did find that the Amano would occasionally climb out of a gap, but very rarely and it usually seemed to be when they were under predation during spawning, and particularly when I introduced my Rotkeil (who gradually acquired a taste and proceeded to eat them all). I have gaps at the back where my filter pipes (canisters) hang over and they would grip on up there and could have easily escaped, yet they didn't (unless under the conditions stated above).

I had a chameleon shrimp once, wouldn't recommend them with small fish, it captured and ate a small angelfish I had! It also escaped one day and I came down the stairs in the morning and in the hall near the front door (quite some way from the tank and around a corner) was the chameleon shrimp, pincers waving in the air.... :lol: wasn't what I was expecting.


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## Dutch Dude (Sep 14, 2006)

> Do the jump out of the tank? I'm sure that's a ridiculous question


Thats not a ridiculous question at all! Normally cherries won't jump out of the tank. One reason makes them jump and that is when they get hunted by fish. When they are near the water surface and a fish tries to catch them they occasionally jump out of the water.


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