Loaches & Shrimp?

[Lion007]

This is probably one of the age old debates, I've had a search about & all the info i find completely cotradicts itself!

So has anyone successfully mixed the 2? I'd love some cleaning shrimp in my community (as my snails did a wonderful job on controlling the algae - but unfortunately they got out of hand, so the loaches had to be let loose ), but i dont want shrimp eaten if i add any - is there any i could mix with the loaches?
I believe my loaches are zebras, heres a pic ive just snapped of one of them incase im wrong

Cheers

 

[QuotheRaven]

I would think Loaches depending on personality of them would eat the shrimp...Loaches can be aggressive so I would think the combo would fail but It may work...may

 

[deni]

I had three amano shrimp with two clown loaches with no problems. The loaches just ignored them. But when both clown loaches died after a tragic accident and I decided to replace them with smaller loaches that wouldn't outgrow the tank. Not being able to find any striped loaches like yours, I bought three yo-yo (Pakistani) loaches. I didn't give the shrimps a thought. First thing one of the new loaches did was attack and kill one of the shrimps. I tried to catch the other two to rescue them (an impossible task!). But the two remaining shrimps are still in my tank months later and the loaches ignore them. So it seems to be pot luck whether they are OK together or not.