Would a Ram eat shrimp? And shrimp bioload question.

rsanz

rsanz

The Peacock Gudgeon Guy
Aug 22, 2006
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I was considering adding 1 or 2 shrimp (maybe cherry?) to my tank to help control gravel nastiness. Would a Ram bother them? My Ram likes the bottom of the tank, so would it see the shrimp as intruders and attack them?

The Ram already ate a couple snails that I had added to the tank, so I'm weary of adding any other cleaners.

Also, shrimp don't add much to the bioload, do they?
 
I would say that if he ate the snails, he would also eat the shrimp. You might have to look at getting a small catfish, like 2-3 ottos or some such.

Shrimp have almost 0 bioload. It's not uncommon to have 100+ in a 10G species tank.
 
Well, they're cheap, so maybe I'll give them a try. That's great news about the bioload, because my tank is pretty heavily stocked as it is. For that reason, catfish are out of the question.
 
My ram doesn't touch the amanos or grown ghost shrimp. My cherry red ones are gone, though. I guess they look tastier ;).
 
I have three blue rams in my planted garden/ discus tank. 10 shrimp last me about a week. Weather its the discus or the rams but they get eaten. How big are cherry shrimp? Bigger or smaller than ghost?
 
I have a pair of German Blue Rams in my 28 g and they leave the shrimp alone for the most part. I started with 6 cherry shrimp and they have exploded into probably 10 times that number. When the lfs guy told me the Rams may eat shrimp I didn't mind if they picked off the younger ones but that doesn't even seem to be happening.
 
it depends on the ram. i'd start with cheap ghost shrimp to test, if she eats them, don't get the get the cherries, if she leaves them alone, you can get them.
 
well by experience, I just picked up a pair of nice balloon rams. I noticed their aggressiveness towards each other and sometimes the shrimp, I read that the aggressiveness is just for "show" or a bluff.

Well days later my two beloved red cherry shrimps that were in the tank are no longer to be found, sucks but I learned. Pardon my sarcasm but, at least my rams had an exquisite and quite expensive meal, I say. I am going to place my ottos into the tank now and take out the fan goldfish I have in there cuz he is a real eating machine hogging all the food.
 
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