Cherries and guppies? (Can it work?)

[HannahJ]

So I have a 10 gallon tank with 15 ish guppies of assorted size and age (smallest four or five are barely showing color, the biggest four are full size). This is my feeder-breeder tank, as I'm trying to get a disease-free, controlled, home-grown source of snacks for my ghost knife and (future) oscars. I'm about to plant the tank with low-light plants, though, and would like to add in some cherry shrimp with the same goal for them as for the guppies (a breeding population from which I can cull "snacks").

However, someone told me the guppies would eat the baby shrimp. Is this the case? Will the plants help, or would I need to heavily plant it to make a difference? I'm probably going to get cherries anyways, cause even if they can't breed it would still add some variety and color to the tank (can't add much fishwise or the guppy fry would be gonors). I'm assuming they wouldn't do anything to guppy fry.

Oh and a secondary question--ignoring the guppies, would a clown or bristlenose pleco eat cherry shrimp babies? My signature is a little misleading as right now the pleco is in the community tank attacking the algae that grew while the tank was at my bfs house over the holidays (only place to put it got a little more sun than it was used to). Right now I'm thinking about leaving him in that tank permanently and either getting a second plec for the guppy tank, or just leaving it be and moving the clown plec back as needed, should any algae appear (yes, he gets fed wafers, too, but man can he clean algae).

[mroth_3]

As far as creating a breeding population of cherries, I would say a fishless tank is about the only way to go. It would be the equivalent of dumping brine shrimp into the tank. Im not sure if the bristlenose would eat them or not. My bristlenoses love blood worms and anyother meaty food that makes it to the bottom so im inclined to say they would eat the babies. I dont have any experience with keeping the two together. My cherry tank has absolutely no algae problem as the shrimp seem to keep it down. Its a 10 gallon with 20 adults and well over 100 babies. If you were going for algae control, I think snails would be a more viable option compared to the plecos.

[HannahJ]

I have the pleco because I am in love with plecos, not for algae control. He just happens to do a great job of that, and so I make use of it as necessary. I wish I had a picture of the work he's done on the algae in the community tank in two nights, it looks like some sort of cursive writing along the glass in the algae (one long side has the bottom three inches of glass covered in algae, virtue of where the light hit the tank in its temporary home). If the shrimp keep algae down, though, and plecos would eat the babies, I see no need to move him back or get a new one (except for my love for plecos, *sniff*).

I'm cursed with regards to snails, though. My brother flushed one he thought was dead once (hadn't moved for a day, so I'm not convinced it was dead) when I was out of town (same brother that killed off all my clown loaches by treating ich with malachite green without telling me, too, he doesn't get to take care of my fish anymore) and I'm pretty sure the ghost of that snail haunts me to this day. They just don't survive in my tanks.

[Lupin]

Malachite green is one of those considered toxic for snails. This may be applicable to shrimps as well since malachite green is also used to disinfect plants like potassium permanganate.

[HannahJ]

That was in an old tank I don't have anymore, back from when I first started this fishkeeping nonsense. None of the tanks I have now have ever been dosed with any malachite green, methylene blue, copper, or so forth, and the same goes for the decor.

I've never actually tried a snail in the guppy tank. I gave up on them before I set this tank up. I guess I could give it another go, truth is that most of them got killed by tankmates I never would have pegged as snail-aggressive. Though with my luck the guppies killing an apple snail wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway, back to the question at hand: do guppies eat cherry shrimp babies?

[Lupin]

Guppies will certainly try.lol Make the tank heavily planted.

[HannahJ]

Maybe if I just tell them that the first one I catch eating any babies is going straight into the carnivore tank, they'll listen...... >.>

[wendamus]

So I have a 10 gallon tank with 15 ish guppies of assorted size and age (smallest four or five are barely showing color, the biggest four are full size). This is my feeder-breeder tank, as I'm trying to get a disease-free, controlled, home-grown source of snacks for my ghost knife and (future) oscars. I'm about to plant the tank with low-light plants, though, and would like to add in some cherry shrimp with the same goal for them as for the guppies (a breeding population from which I can cull "snacks").

However, someone told me the guppies would eat the baby shrimp. Is this the case? Will the plants help, or would I need to heavily plant it to make a difference? I'm probably going to get cherries anyways, cause even if they can't breed it would still add some variety and color to the tank (can't add much fishwise or the guppy fry would be gonors). I'm assuming they wouldn't do anything to guppy fry.

Oh and a secondary question--ignoring the guppies, would a clown or bristlenose pleco eat cherry shrimp babies? My signature is a little misleading as right now the pleco is in the community tank attacking the algae that grew while the tank was at my bfs house over the holidays (only place to put it got a little more sun than it was used to). Right now I'm thinking about leaving him in that tank permanently and either getting a second plec for the guppy tank, or just leaving it be and moving the clown plec back as needed, should any algae appear (yes, he gets fed wafers, too, but man can he clean algae).

I had my RCS in with my guppy fry (1 and 2 month old fry) - I only had 2 RCS babies survive to adulthood in the 2 months in that environment. In less than a week since I've removed the guppies, I've seen at least a dozen visible baby shrimp, and I think there are a whole bunch more that are so small I only notice them as zippy 'dots' around the plants and the filter.

The baby shrimp are so small that you can't blame the guppies from eating them, they're basically the same as baby brine shrimp, which we use to feed them all the time.

[leeser28]

Maybe if I just tell them that the first one I catch eating any babies is going straight into the carnivore tank, they'll listen...... >.>
:lol:
Let me know if it works:)

I actually had the same question -- thanks for asking! I'll be moving my guppies soon (only 3 male). Good luck with your shrimp and snails!

[rithunder916]

Maybe if I just tell them that the first one I catch eating any babies is going straight into the carnivore tank, they'll listen...... >.>

:lol:
I had about 10-15 adult ghost shrimp in with my guppy/sword tank. After about two weeks, I had a few well fed fish. :evil_lol: They will certaintly try to eat them, and if they work together, they certaintly will!


Mike

[sinner41265]

I have both guppies and RCS in my 10 gallon. It's very well planted, so I believe the shrimp are ok. Ok...it's actually wall-to-wall plants....my wife keeps complaining about it. "The fish don't have any room so swim". But I think the RCS and the baby guppies like it just fine :)

[gotglock]

I keep a few baby guppies in with my RCS. Not one of the babies has decided to think the RCS are food or even pick at them. They generally hand around the top near my heater and under the filter.

Though, the same cant be said about full grown guppies. I had a few large females inw ith the RCS while they were prego and made a snack on half of my RCS population. After I removed them, and added some more RCS they stabled off. Now I jsut have to worry about my ramshorn pop explosion.

[wendamus]

I've never had problems with the guppies, adult or juvenile, bothering the adult RCS. It's just the baby shrimp they eat. However, I have seen that the shrimp are more active and fun to watch now that I've got an invert only tank.

[grannylvsfish]

I had over 30 cherry shrimp, 3 female guppy....... 1 week later no shrimp and 3 guppy in a planted tank.....answer heck no not in my case. :lol: