Betta and Cherry Shrimp

[ukdamon]

Does anyone keep a Betta with their shrimp? How do they get on? Does the Betta eat all the young?

 

[Ch4rlie]

It's pretty common that most bettas will view shrimps as tasty snacks.

Its a fairly rare thing really that bettas will happily cohabit with shrimps, but if the shrimps are large adults then they have a bit of a chance of survival with a betta.

I have heard some folks succssfully keeping shrimps with bettas, but it's a hit or miss thing really.

You could try just a few cherry shrimps with the betta at first and see if they survive after a certain amount of time, but generally I'd recommend just having a betta on its own with perhaps snails if you want extra life variety in the tank.

 

[ukdamon]

Thanks Charlie, I agree, I think it depends on the Betta, but it's a bit risky.

 

[Essjay]

My last betta did not seem to notice anything in his tank, it took him ages to find his food. I have cherry shrimps in my main tank so I added a female and two males to the betta's tank to see what he would do. He didn't notice them. The shrimps bred and I had to rescue baby shrimps from the old water at every water change - they went into the main tank as I didn't want the shrimps to take over the small tank.
My current betta does notice the shrimps, he chased them at first but couldn't catch them. I think there are now 9 adult shrimps in the tank with him, it's hard to count them. I see berried females regularly but since I've had this betta I have never sucked up a baby shrimp. I think this betta can catch the baby shrimps and eat them, but he no longer bothers chasing the adult shrimp.
However, several years ago I managed to get a woodlouse into the betta's tank, and the betta I had then became frantic. He chased it all over the tank attacking it when he could. I had to catch the woodlouse and remove it. A shrimp would have stood no chance with that betta.



The point of all this is - it depends on the betta.