Plecos with red cherry shrimp - advice please

[Nanglebadger]

Greetings all,

I'm getting mixed opinions on this from my LFS and from other fish/shimp keepers so i thought i would ask you guys for some advice.

Basically, i have a 200L tank with alot of neons and rasboras and various other small fish as well as 12 amanno shrimp.

however, the plan was to add about 4 breeding groups of red cherry shrimp aswell, but i have a Queen Arabesque Pleco in there.

my query is, can plecos be kept with red cherry shrimp or will the plecos hunt and eat the shrimp due to their small size??

advice and personal experiences welcome please folks!

Phil.

[Oldfishlady]

Queen Arabesque (L260) are a beautiful fish, they stay small...in the 4-5inch range, however, they are not algae eaters...they love their meat and will eat your RCS....and so will the other species of fish you have.....the adults RCS may be fine/safe on the most part unless they are caught out in the open right after they molt and their body is soft......shrimplets on the other hand will be fair game at all times unless you have lots of cover like java moss that the other fish can't get in.....

[Nanglebadger]

mmmmmm, figured as much...nerts! look like i'll have to stick to the amanno shrimp or remove the Queen Arabesque. I wouldnt have thought however that the neons, ember tetras or rasboras would have had a go at the RCS being that they are so small themselves, my brother kept RCS with wild green neons and ember tetras with no problems.

thank you for taking the time to reply OFL, i greatly appreciate it. The question now i guess is whether or not to keep the Queen Arabesque.

Cheers!

Phil.

[Oldfishlady]

Oh keep the L260...awesome fish.....and it is more the shrimpletts...not the adults.....RCS babies are tiny-tiny almost microscopic...lol......and hard to catch.....I would make a shrimp only tank for them to keep a nice colony going and add adult RCS to the main tank as needed...never know.......

[Nanglebadger]

that right there is the best idea i've heard all day! and certainly worth a go!

the L260 is nice, only had it about a month, barely see it, only appears out late at nite, around 11:30 or midnight or thereabouts.

i kno a gentleman that runs an online shrimp store, i'll have a chat with him about some adult RCS!

thanks again OFL! i greatly appreciate your guidance.

Phil.

[Oldfishlady]

I trained...not really...I conditioned.....thats better....lol.....my BN plecos in the breeding tank...if they want to eat-they gotta come out during the day cause I take the food out at night...lol....might give that a try...but you have only had it for a month so its still new.....and may need time to adjust to your routine....it is easier with algae eaters though...you can bait them with fresh veggies....

[Nanglebadger]

and thats exactly how i got the albino pleco and the starlight bristlenose pleco out of the tank last nite lol!!!! they make a SERIOUS mess, between huge volumes of waste from the bristle and the albino eating my amazon sword plants, they were doing my nut in! my brother has moved to scotland so i agreed to look after them until he has a tank set-up and is ready to take them, little did i know what i was letting myself in for. the starlight is also pretty aggressive towards the much smaller albino...but, couple of bits of cucumber on some weighted fishing line and they're out and into their own smaller tank, leaving the ammanos to clean up the remaining mess and the swords to generate fresh growth. if my dad converts from marine to tropical i may give him the L260 and put about 4 breeding groups (~40 individuals) of RCS into the 200L and let them go crazy.

so that leaves:

~40 neons
3 wild green neons
32 mosquito rasboras
30 blue rasboras
6 pygmy corrydoras
6 ottocinclus
17 ember tetras
1 danio
12 ammano shrimp

and the L260

and a whole bunch of plants on the 200L tank. i reckon there's room for a fair few more neons yet lol.

Phil.