Amano Shrimp

[pennjones]

I was at this really awesome fish store the other day called All Oddball Aquatics here in Pittsburgh. They specialize in oddball and rare fish, but also have a lot of awesome planted tanks and do a lot with aquatic plants. I saw in theirplanted tanks that they had a lot of amano shrimp, and I was wondering, are they pretty hardy? I have a 20g planted tank set up and a new 20g long planted tank that I'm currently working on, and was thinking about getting a bunch of these shrimp. For $3 a piece I would think they'd be pretty hardy, but I don't know. Any Input? Thanks! -Brad

 

[avirex]

i was thinking about getting 2 amano shrimp

but i hope my barbs wont eat it... plus do shrimp have claws that could hurt fish?

 

[starrynightxxi]

oddball aquatics, hmm... where in pittsburgh is it?

 

[Opcn]

They are moderately hardy, live two years or so as I recall, a good choice for aquariums as they eat many types of algea.

 

[demonmagus]

they eat lots of algae, but I'm not too sure about hardiness.

I would recommend them though

 

[dwarfgourami]

They are great little things. They do not have claws and do not hurt fish (though I suppose they might go for very small fry).
All invertebrates are sensitive to medications, so you might want to do treatments in a hospital tank in the future if you get them, but other than that, they shouldn't be difficult to keep. They shouldn't go in a cycling tank, thought I have to say that all my 5 survived the filter disaster that killed 3 of my platies.
They do a great job on keeping the tank clean. My tank looked like an Old English Sheepdog before their arrival- hair algae everywhere- within a week it had turned into a beautifully kept water garden. They are also very entertaining, sassy little things, a lot more active and enterprising than my fish.

 

[Phoenixfish]

i saw some of these a while back and some fire cherrys but ive heard some horror stories of them not traveling well, not well at all also i thought that they like larger numbers as poss, seeing as they apparently produce like almost no bioload so avirex im sure you could bump up the numbers and i dont think the barbs would damage them

 

[Bloo]

For more info, see the Profile on the Index - they are moderately hardy if acclimatised well and kept with the right tank mates

ps: just to add - their bioload might be low, but they poo like there's no tomorrow! So don't let their size fool you.

 

[pennjones]

Alright thanks everyone! Just from all the replies I think that I'm going to go ahead and get a few of these suckers! They seem like cool little things and everyone always talks about them on here, so they can't be that bad right?

oh and All Oddball Aquatics is on the southside. Their adress is on their website: www.alloddballaquatics.com

 

[Spader]

hmm i might go there.....and 3 days ago one of my amano shrimp jumped out of my tank, and somehow walked 15 feet to my sisters door, and died. man that scream when she woke up, was pure gold poor shrimp tough

 

[Phoenixfish]

great story, unlucky boyut the shrimp i can just see that happpening with my mum

 

[deni]

Definately get some amano shrimp. We have had three for about a year, they seem pretty hardy. They keep our 20 gallon tank sparkling clean (you could hardly see our plants for ugly brown hair algae before we got them). And they're great fun to watch as well, they can swim or run really fast. The biggest shrimp will snatch an algae tablet from under the nose of our bristlenose and run and hide in the plants leaving the bristlenose sniffing around trying to figure out what happened to his dinner!