What goes with RCS?

Wren

Wren

AC Members
Mar 27, 2011
366
2
18
Iowa
Real Name
Lisa
I'm new to shrimp, but not fish in general.

I got a few RCS last spring and put them in a 10g with four small fancy guppies. The guppies gradually disappeared over the summer. Murderous RCS or just scavengers? I suspect the shrimp just cleaned up the carcasses. The shrimp were left alone to multiply all summer.

In the meantime I had to take down a 55 gal to remove and replace an old chimney. The work on the house is done and the 55g is back in place. I put the RCS from the 10g in the 55g. There are LOTS of them now! LOTS! My plan is to let my kids choose some small friendly fish to keep in this tank. I'd like to keep a thriving population of RCS, so I don't want any fish that will eat them. Or at least not too many of them.

I was thinking of trying guppies again, maybe some platies and tetras. Any thoughts? Any known compatible fish? How about cory cats? I have a small colony in another tank that I thought of moving to the 55g. They are currently in a tank with tiger barbs and rainbows and clown loaches. Those guys seem a little rowdy for the cories, although they have done ok there. They are skunk cories, if that makes a difference.

Thanks for any advice.
 
It all depends on how much cover the shrimp have IME. I have keep them in carpeted tanks with tetra and did not have a problem. As long as you start with a large population of adults, you should be OK with guppies, platys and tetra.The babies may not all make it though. Not sure with cory. That may or may not work. If the shimp have plenty of hiding places this will obviously increase your chances of success. But with enough places for them to hide, you may not see them much either.
 
I have Glowlight Danios and a Honey Gourami with mine. All have very small mouths so probably only some of the tiniest shrimplets get eaten. I do see them charge adult shrimps sometimes, but they just jump out of the way.

I've never kept shrimp with platies, but platies have pretty big mouths for a fish their size. I would think that, combined with their prodigious appetite, would lead to a lot of eaten shrimp babies.


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If you have some plants, driftwood, and a nice size ball of java moss you can keep some decent sized fish without your shrimp pop. shrinking. I'd consider my one tank medium/heavy planted, I've had dwarf gourami's, ram's, platy's, cherry barbs, neon's, kuhli's, cories, oto's and even a fairly docile betta, some shrimplets have been eaten but never enough to have a negative impact on the population.
 
I kept glass catfish with my ghost shrimp, and most of the ghosts were RCS size give or take when I first got 'em. The cats never even noticed the shrimp. I'm gonna try the glass cats with RCS. I suspect with their upper level lifestyle, the catfish will have a minimal impact, if any, on baby survival rate.

WYite
 
If you ask my betta, a little ketchup...:)

Mine always liked some driftwood, thought moss balls were awesome, and briggs were great bronchos.
 
I keep mine with endlers so far.
 
I've had success with both dwarf puffers and bettas I'm very densely planted tanks

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a small steak on the side and a serving of cole slaw would round out the serving. Wont matter if the RCS are baked or boiled.
 
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