I was reading another thread about Ghost shrimp and Cories. Well I have a 5 gallon tank with just a betta in it. Would a few ghost shrimp be an okay addition for this tank. Would they help keep it clean when I go away on vacation? I like to put my auto feeder on when I head out for more than 4 or 5 days but even on minimum seeting it still puts out a bit too much for my Betta to handle.
Bettas and Ghost Shrimp
- Thread starter TKOS
- Start date
my experience with ghost shrimp has been that they have some scavenging value but not nearly as much as scavenging fish. a group of 2 or 3 might make some difference. another observation i would offer is that the ghost shrimp i have purchased have always had a relatively high mortality rate. i don't even bother in larger tanks, something always eats them. in the only tanks i have that i have been able to keep them alive (a well-planted 10g with a frog and a couple guppies and a 29g currently with a dozen cory cats and a pair of honey gouramis), only about half of what i put in survived.
my theory is that only the strongest ones seem to survive tropical temps, a lot of the ghost shrimp commercially available are probably not a true tropical species. i have no evidence on this, there are many subspecies of ghost shrimp from what i understand, but who knows where the shrimp at a random lfs are collected or what conditions they are bred under?
anyway, back to the point...i would say a couple might help a little for the purpose you want, but i would monitor them closely for the first day or two in the tank. if they survive that, they will probably be fine for whatever their life span in aquariums is...i think i read one year or less somewhere?
my theory is that only the strongest ones seem to survive tropical temps, a lot of the ghost shrimp commercially available are probably not a true tropical species. i have no evidence on this, there are many subspecies of ghost shrimp from what i understand, but who knows where the shrimp at a random lfs are collected or what conditions they are bred under?
anyway, back to the point...i would say a couple might help a little for the purpose you want, but i would monitor them closely for the first day or two in the tank. if they survive that, they will probably be fine for whatever their life span in aquariums is...i think i read one year or less somewhere?
i would go for amano shrimp instead. They do a better job at cleaning and they eat algae as a bonus. They also get a bit bigger then ghost shrimp which might be good if your betta decides to have a snack.
I dont' use automatic feeders,i find they pollute the water.Fish can go for a few days without food. Or if you are going for a longer time jsut add food for every 2-3 days. That way your fish will get to eat but it won't change your water too much while your gone.
I dont' use automatic feeders,i find they pollute the water.Fish can go for a few days without food. Or if you are going for a longer time jsut add food for every 2-3 days. That way your fish will get to eat but it won't change your water too much while your gone.
Thnaks for the replies. I will look into the amano shrimp.
I ahve been using the autofeeder with a lot of success as I tend to go away for at least a week and a half a lot and have no one to come in and feed the little guys. I do stick it on the minimum so that very little food comes out at a time. That is in my 10 gallon with cories and white cloud minnows
I ahve been using the autofeeder with a lot of success as I tend to go away for at least a week and a half a lot and have no one to come in and feed the little guys. I do stick it on the minimum so that very little food comes out at a time. That is in my 10 gallon with cories and white cloud minnows
I have Ghost shrimp with my Betta and they have done well with him and my last Betta (died of old age
) I still have 4 (at least) from my initial 6 I added about 3 months ago. I may have syphoned one of them out!
They have always been great scavengers in my tanks and they are extremely cheap!!! ~20c. each around here. Mine have also eaten algae as well as leftovers.
Valerie had a good idea. Even if you are goinf for 2 weeks, just fill every other slot in the feeder (if that's the way it works). Yours may be different, but can you figure out some way to get it to dump food every other day?
) I still have 4 (at least) from my initial 6 I added about 3 months ago. I may have syphoned one of them out! They have always been great scavengers in my tanks and they are extremely cheap!!! ~20c. each around here. Mine have also eaten algae as well as leftovers.
Valerie had a good idea. Even if you are goinf for 2 weeks, just fill every other slot in the feeder (if that's the way it works). Yours may be different, but can you figure out some way to get it to dump food every other day?
amano shrimp are great...they're just hard to come by in a lot of places. i haven't seen them in central jersey in awhile. ghost shrimp are a lot easier to come by....but they do indeed do a lot less scavenging. they also stay smaller than amanos.
No my feeder just spins around and dumps food out every 12 hours. But I can adjust how much food comes out and have always put it on the minimum setting. In my other tank I know that what little makes it to the bottom gets eaten by my cories. So I just wanted to put something on the bottom of my Betta's tank that would do the same.
