I'm considering not keeping tiger barbs any more due to the size constraints I have and instead switching over to something else. (My only hesitancy is that I really hate to just "ditch" my one old tiger barb who's been through so much...and I don't know anyone else who might want to take him.) Would corys and shrimp play well together?
Corydoras and Shrimp?
- Thread starter B. Atrice
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Totally! Some people say that their Corys have eaten cherry shrimp, but I have never experienced it with mine.
They do occasionally “fight” each other for food, but that’s to be excepted with bottom dwelling creatures.
What kind of shrimp? I have corys living with bamboo and vampire shrimp, and they're fine. They don't compete for the same food, and the shrimp are far too large for the corys to snack on. I'd tried cherry shrimp in that tank, and all but one disappeared. I have no idea if the perpetrators were the larger corys (A. spilotus and C. carlae) or the plecos (H. furunculus).
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Perfectly fine together.
PlasticGalaxy
Fish Gatherer
A natural food for all cories are crustaceans [one reason they love shrimp pellets and frozen shrimp], where these exist in the habitat obviously, but given that cories have no teeth and are not really "predatory" like some fish, the crustaceans (shrimp) would need to be fairly small to be eaten. Larger should be fine, as others have noted.
yeah, they might accidentally suck in a baby plankton shrimp maybe?
They definitely could accidentally eat a baby cherry shrimp.
it would be quite tasty i assume
I use Omega One shrimp pellets, so I would assume so.
Not sure yet what shrimp, mostly in the "gathering information" phase. I want to minimize mistakes if I do go forward with this idea. I have two albino corydora (that's all the tag said at LFS, but they're cute little guys) and three tiger barbs right now. May/may not keep the barbs depending on whether or not my old guy kicks the bucket. If I keep the barbs, no shrimp. I've made that mistake before.
Another question: this may sound dumb, but can you mix gravel and sand substrates? I have some really pretty gravel that my anubises have glommed on to, but I know the corys like sand better. Can I mix the two, or have gravel on the bottom and sand on top/sifted down into the gravel? Or can I just make a sandbox for the corys? Trying not to disturb my plants if I can avoid it. I don't know if there's some reason substrates shouldn't be mixed like that...and as I said, minimizing mistakes.
Another question: this may sound dumb, but can you mix gravel and sand substrates? I have some really pretty gravel that my anubises have glommed on to, but I know the corys like sand better. Can I mix the two, or have gravel on the bottom and sand on top/sifted down into the gravel? Or can I just make a sandbox for the corys? Trying not to disturb my plants if I can avoid it. I don't know if there's some reason substrates shouldn't be mixed like that...and as I said, minimizing mistakes.
Not sure yet what shrimp, mostly in the "gathering information" phase. I want to minimize mistakes if I do go forward with this idea. I have two albino corydora (that's all the tag said at LFS, but they're cute little guys) and three tiger barbs right now. May/may not keep the barbs depending on whether or not my old guy kicks the bucket. If I keep the barbs, no shrimp. I've made that mistake before.
Another question: this may sound dumb, but can you mix gravel and sand substrates? I have some really pretty gravel that my anubises have glommed on to, but I know the corys like sand better. Can I mix the two, or have gravel on the bottom and sand on top/sifted down into the gravel? Or can I just make a sandbox for the corys? Trying not to disturb my plants if I can avoid it. I don't know if there's some reason substrates shouldn't be mixed like that...and as I said, minimizing mistakes.
You can, but it doesn't do what you're hoping for. The larger stuff will go to the surface, so even if you start with sand as a top layer, the gravel will make its way there eventually. The 'sandbox' for corys doesn't work, either. Tried that in our early fishkeeping days, when we first got corys and had a gravel substrate. Because we were reluctant to dig out and change the entire substrate in a 240L tank (it's a ball-ache), we made about half of it sand, the other half gravel. But the corys dig everywhere. They don't care. And they were damaging their barbels. Whoops. We swapped the whole lot to sand and the plants, including a couple anubias, lived to tell the tale.
You should also get more corys. I have no idea how large your tank is, but if you're keeping corys, you need at least five or six (ideally more) for them to be comfortable. Hopefully it's big enough for that!
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Thanks so much. I will take that all under consideration. Haha, I was wondering if the sandbox would work or not...and I will get more corys, just trying not to add too many fish at once.
PlasticGalaxy
Fish Gatherer
Ew, can you imagine a cory with human teeth?
imagine it with 2 big front teeth like a beaver, plain werid
ooh i am getting ideas ?
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