Dwarf Chain Loach with Shrimp

[MrFishkeeper1]

If I were to get a small school of dwarf chain loaches 6-9 of them to take care of a pond snail "problem" would they be fine with a established group of Wild Type Neocaridina Shrimp. Yes I understand Snails can be beneficial. I also understand how to control them such as manually removing them and using "traps". Manually removing is working rather well they just keep popping up. So I am just wondering if the shrimp would even just keep slightly increasing in population in a 75 gallon, medium-heavily stocked planted tank, with not many other fish that would eat the shrimp other than some shrimplets? The only fish that would possible eat a good chunk of the shrimplets would be black phantom tetras, one female betta, two bristlenoses, a clown pleco, and some black mollies

 

[richiep]

Dwarf loaches will pray on snails and any small shrimp, once the snails run out or go scarce i don't see why they won't pray on larger shrimp especially in a shoal, the snails will disappear into the substrate as soon as they go in so this may bring forward hunting the shrimp
Like every fish and shrimp you take a chance

 

[MrFishkeeper1]

Dwarf loaches will pray on snails and any small shrimp, once the snails run out or go scarce i don't see why they won't pray on larger shrimp especially in a shoal, the snails will disappear into the substrate as soon as they go in so this may bring forward hunting the shrimp
Like every fish and shrimp you take a chance

But my question with that is that with the amount of space would the shrimp still be able to keep a stable population? I understand they will eat a lot of them but would it be enough that they would completely diminish the population? Or like you said would it still be just a gamble?

 

[richiep]

I certainly wouldn't start with expensive shrimp and the ones to put in would be fully grown or as big as you can find, start with 10 and see if any babies survive, as adults they will breed as soon as they molt, if they're going to attack the adults you'll see ripped up bodies.
I hope it works for you the size of your tank will give the young a fighting chance

 

[MrFishkeeper1]

I certainly wouldn't start with expensive shrimp and the ones to put in would be fully grown or as big as you can find, start with 10 and see if any babies survive, as adults they will breed as soon as they molt, if they're going to attack the adults you'll see ripped up bodies.
I hope it works for you the size of your tank will give the young a fighting chance

Ah I see, I assume you were under the impression I already had the loaches, I would get them if I can't get rid of the snails myself, but first I would get the shrimp and let them establish in high numbers. Then if im still having problems with the snails then I would get the loaches, if any amount make a big difference I think I'd stick with just 6, which would make it 1 for every 12.5 gallons. I'd assume from what your saying that would probably be safe, if it doesn't work I'd hope they at least get rid of the snails and then I'd move them to a 20 tall. Would feeding the loaches well make them eat a lot less shrimp?

 

[richiep]

Feedimg the loaches would see a difference but then they wouldn't eat the snails,
What you're saying about getting a good head of shrimp will give them a head start
If you can quarantine the loaches and feed them small snails that again would help.when you introduce them

 

[MrFishkeeper1]

Feedimg the loaches would see a difference but then they wouldn't eat the snails,
What you're saying about getting a good head of shrimp will give them a head start
If you can quarantine the loaches and feed them small snails that again would help.when you introduce them

Alright, that sounds good, I will feed them snails in quarantine and once they get in the actual tank I will feed them a small amount of fish food. Then when I see just a few to no snails I will start feeding them a lot more and that should hopefully make it so that they don't make much of a dent in my shrimp population and hopefully be at a point of just keeping them in check, thank you for the help