Betta and red cherry shrimp

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

Is this a bad mix? I was originally told that it was but then lots of people seem to do it.

It's just I had 3 none fancy guppies in a tank, now I have one. I'm either deciding to get more guppies to keep him company or get a betta (either male or female). But my main priority is the shrimp; if the betta will eat the shrimp then I don't want to do it (as I have a betta and got a separate tank for the shrimp). My non-fancy guppies are only 2cm fully grown and the shrimp are bigger than them so there is no real threat.

[Welsh]

I wanted RCS to go in with my betta but got told by the store assistant that the betta would eat them. I was dissapointed because that was the first store I found them in after weeks of searching but I didnt realise how small they were so it does make sense that the betta would use them as a snack lol.

Are you putting your betta in a seperate tank from your guppy?

[Oldfishlady]

Every betta is different IMO/E, some will hunt and kill shrimp and other won't and then one day the peaceful betta attacks them.

If you are trying to get a colony of shrimp going I would not have any fish in with them, even the small guppies can eat the even smaller shrimpletts, having lots of java moss and other live plants for the shrimp and shrimplett will help survival rate.

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

At the minute I have a separate tank for the shrimp and my betta, I was just looking to get a second betta and put him with the shrimp.

My guppy actually died yesterday so there is no problem from him. The guppies were smaller than the shrimp.

I would have a nice breeding colony of shrimp IF I had a male lol. I have 9 females; I did have 1 male but he died at the weekend as well (I don't know what went wrong in my tank); one of my female shrimp has eggs but we'll have to wait and see first.

[Oldfishlady]

Shrimp can be really sensitive to water quality issues, not just the ammonia and nitrite that can kill them but high nitrate too, so keeping the nitrate at or below 10ppm I found that they do best. Over feeding shrimp can cause the the water issues and they don't need/eat much...they also have a pretty short life span 1-2 years, hopefully the berried female was bred by the male before he died and she is carrying fertile eggs, I would start making small daily water changes if this tank has been set up for a while or large daily water changes if it is a new set up. Do you have live plants in their tank, if not, you may want to get some as they will help keep the nitrate level low, my RCS bred best in water temps in the 78F range.

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

My parameters are fine :)

I lost another shrimp over night.

The only difference in their tank is I added more gravel (it was more of the same gravel), which was washed and cleaned first, and I've now got a heater set to 22-24celsius where as before it was 19-20celsius :(.

The female with eggs has had them about 2 weeks now so hopefully they are fertile.

[burn84]

I wouldnt put RCS in with Bettas unless you are 100% sure that your Betta is very docile.

I thought my Betta was docile, till he slowly ate 6 of my RCS (I had 8) the other two were hiding frantically but they too eventually got eaten :(

[TheJadeBetta]

I put like four red cherry shrimp with mine and they are still in there. I even saw one on the divider yesterday.