Cherry Shrimp Tank Mate Suggestions?

[monahan95]

Hi guys, I am going to be purchasing a 60l aquarium in the next couple of weeks and my plan is to focus the whole aquarium around red cherry shrimp

. Obviously it's going to take a little while to fully cycle the tank to get it ready for cherry shrimp, but until then i've been trying to do my research on what fish can be safely kept with cherry shrimp. So far I have just came up with the obvious (Endlers, neons, cardinals etc.) but me being me 

i'm always looking for something different, so if you guys could give me a few suggestions on tank mate's for Cherry's that would be a great help.
 
Oh and even if you could give me some useful information on cherry shrimp, like dietary requirements, habitat requirements and any other cool facts about them, that would also be a massive help

 
I've only ever kept Ghost, yamato, and wood shrimp before so Cherry's are new to me
 
Thanks guys

 

[Lillefishy]

Cherry shrimp are quite undemanding though they need good water as they're sensitive to any traces of ammonia or nitrite, & copper is a swift killer of shrimp.
They like a well planted tank especially with mosses & fine leaved plants, mine love to climb all over the wood picking off any algae.
They also like the veggies I put in for the Otto's, I give them Hikari shrimp food a couple of times a week, the rest of the time they pick up whatever the fish leave & bloodworm if they get to it before the corys.
As for tank mates nothing with large mouths, I have cory's, boraras brigittae & green neon rasboras with mine.
You could also consider ember tetras or galaxy rasboras, they may occasionally take a baby shrimp but cherries breed readily so they have no real impact on numbers.

 

[monahan95]

Thanks for the advice. Those galaxy rasboras you suggested are beautiful, might look more into those

 

[Chad]

I keep chili rasbora, scarlet badis, and pygmy cory with mine. I just keep two of the badis. They will eat the baby shrimp which can actually be a good thing so you don't over populate the tank. 

 

[Ch4rlie]

Tank mates for shrimps, cories are good, small mouthed fish like rasboras, tetras, threadfins are good as ell
but do avoid gouramis, bettas, angelfish (your tank is too small for angels anyway) etc as these may make a snack of shrimps.
 
Snails are good as tank mates with shrimps as well.

 

[Baccus]

I don't know if you would be able to get them in England/ United Kingdom but spotted blue eyes work well with shrimp.

 

[monahan95]

Again thanks for all the advice, really appreciated probably going to go with a species of rasbora and I also like the idea of the scarlet badis.
 
and i've never seen spotted blue eyes at my LFS but i'll enquire about them next time i'm in

 

[AeonMapa]

Really any fish except otos will eat a newborn cherry shrimp. They will not be able to wipe out a healthy colony, but the babies and pregnant females will always be hiding. You can set up a very beautiful planted tank with an RCS colony, several bamboo shrimp (3" vegetarian filter feeding shrimp) some amano shrimp, some red crystal shrimp, and a selection of beautiful snails like nerites, ramshorns, and maybe a giant Columbian and an apple snail. In a few months you'll realize the appeal of this kind of set-up. Invertebrates are very beautiful and interesting in their own way, and they tend to be a lot more confident and exhibit more natural behavior in the absence of fish. I have a 30 litre invert only tank where they breed like crazy and never hide. The best part of this set-up is I have an inexhaustible supply of inverts for my other tanks