no clue how to keep shrimp but would like to try

i have never had shrimp before is it easy to keep them. can they live in freshwater there whole life. anyone who can answer thankyou

Most shrimp are fairly easy to keep. There are a few sensitive varieties out there. One of you biggest factors will be tank mates. Most fishies will see them as free lunch.

Shrimpies also like nicely planted tanks. They are very good scavengers and will keep things nice a tidy for you.

I raised ghost shrimp for a while and yes they are easy to care for. They ate pellets and lived in fresh water untill i fed them all to my fish.

for starter, i recommend cherry shrimp. they're easy to keep and breed a lot.

Cherry shrimp are easy to keep, don't put fish big enough to eat the shrimp in the tank as the shrimp will become a snack. Some fish will attack shrimp that are bigger than they are (Golden Wonder Killifish will attack filter shrimp and this is from personal experience).

Not all shrimp will breed and have offspring in fresh water as some varieties need brackish to full on salt water for the larva to survive. A good source to find this info would be petshrimp.com run by Mustafa who is very knowledgeable about shrimp.

Shrimp don't need a planted tank, as my Cardinal shrimp dwell in a rock environment.

If you use substrate designed to grow plants be weary of any copper, also let it settle for a week or two before adding shrimp.

Water parameters aren't as crucial as parameter consistancy is (don't change your PH and use a lot of buffers).

Also do NOT overfeed a shrimp tank as that can kill your shrimp, in fact some shrimp will not eat offered food and will only eat the plankton, algae, and biofilm in your tank. It is therefore important to use a cycled tank, or at least water that already has the bacterias in it from older tanks and substrate from older tanks so that you get nutrients in the tank like biofilm that the shrimp will eat.

Do not start with a difficult specie. Cherry shrimp are a great beginner shrimp as are many other color varieties in the same catagory as the cherry shrimp.


Dave