meg1220

I'm thinking about getting some shrimp for my 10 gallon to out-compete the pond snail population. I've been reading that a lot of people have ghost shrimp. Those sound pretty cool, but all I've seen at the LFS so far are Cherry Shrimp. Is there an appreciable difference (besides appearance, of course)? Which do ya'll think would be better?

Also, can shrimp carry Camallanus worms?

agabr123

cherry shrimp are definitely more expensive, and shrimp tend to die pretty easily so that may be something to consider. personally i think a cherry shrimp colony in your 10 gallon would be awesome

platy ben

I have a colony of cherrys in my 8G and they are brilliant, and also very easy to breed if kept on there own or with small fish

griffin

i like cherries better since they tend to live longer, but i don't know how well either one will compete with snails :/

meg1220

Yeah, I think the cherry shrimp would look good with the neons. And I guess if I can't find ghost shrimp, I'll have to get the cherries, anyway. It would be pretty fun to have baby shrimp, too (a betta snack??). So the only thing I'm concerned with is quarantining. I don't have a QT set up. Do I need to worry about the shrimp passing disease/parasites to my fish? I haven't been able to find much info on this.

cg49me

I have both shrimp, and I think the cherries are more fun to watch. Both will breed easily.

fishheadNJ

I thought ghost shrimp babies had a larval stage that was hard to be fed in an aquarium?

agabr123

some people have brine shrimp hatcheries to feed their fish baby brine shrimp if that's what you're thinking of i'm looking into one myself for my bettas.

griffin

i'm not sure about larval stage and such, but i know that when i had ghost shrimp, they didn't ever seem to increase in number, but when i had cherries, they quickly increased in number. ymmv

catfishtabbi

I read that cherry shrimp eat more algea. If your having trouble with snails, a good way to remove them is to put a long strip of zucchini in the tank at night they climb on to eat it then just remove it with the snails on it, wipe it off replace it to get some more...............

meg1220

I think I'm going to try that. And get the cherry shrimp as a clean-up crew. Thanks for all the feedback!

meg1220

Just wanted to say, cherry shrimp are great! I got 5 for my 10 gallon; in just a couple of days, they had cleaned up my one piece of driftwood that always seemed to have this fluffy floc all over it! They're really entertaining. Though, I haven't seen all 5 at once since I put them in... hopefully, they're all still alive...