Apache's Shrimpy Adventure!

I have kept red cherry shrimps with pygmy cories with no problems. I have never kept anchor catfish so I can't say whether they'd be OK or not. But assuming you mean Hara jerdoni, I can't foresee any problems.

The sponge filter is ideal. The HOB filter - it depends. A lot of these have nothing but carbon cartridges in them. If the one you have acquired is like this, I'd go with the sponge filter. But if you decide to go with the HOB, I would get a block of sponge, cut a slit in it and push the uptake tube of the filter into it. This will stop baby/young shrimps getting sucked up.



Provided there are lots of hiding places the shrimps should be fine and breed. Newly hatched cherry shrimps are about 1 mm long and cream coloured. They need to be able to hide till they are bigger. And when you do a water change, check the old water very carefully. You will suck up shrimps of all sizes. Adults and juveniles will be easy to see. Babies won't be. When I had my 50 litre tank, I emptied the old water out of the bucket using a plastic jug- it was semi see through so I could see the tiny cream shrimplets in the jug. I used a pipette of the kind that come with fish medication to suck them out of the jug (I cut the end off to make it wider). Yes, it did make water changes longer than usual 

Shrimps have a hard exoskeleton so they have to shed it as they grow. While the new 'skin' is hardening they are very vulnerable so they hide. Another reason to have lots of hiding places.


A few things that you probably already know but it is worth repeating them

Shrimps are more sensitive to ammonia and nitrite than fish are so make sure the tank is cycled before getting shrimp.
The shed skins look like hollowed out dead shrimps. Don't panic when you see your first 
If you see the males whizzing round the tank they are looking for the female that has just released pheromones to say she is ready to mate.
Mature females have a light, saddle shaped patch on their backs. This is her ovaries filling with eggs.
Female shrimps carry their eggs between their swimmerets under their abodomens. It is called being berried because that's just what the eggs look like.

For hiding places, plants. Mine particularly like hornwort because it has fine leaves. It can be planted, left to float or twisted round wood to anchor it a bit.


When I first had shrimps I had terrible trouble keeping them alive. I was down to my last one, a berried female. So I moved her to my quarantine tank and a few days later found her dead. But as I was emptying the tank I found a lot of baby shrimps. Another member on here, Natalia, helped me a lot - I left the QT set up for the babies and I fed these baby shrimps on crushed-to-power Hikari Shrimp Cuisine. Most of them survived and started my colony. Once I ran out of Shrimp Cuisine I just fed fish food. (You'll find my shrimp threads here and  here. The first one starts out as a plnat thread and moves on to shrimps)
The shrimps are now in my 180 litre tank. When I closed the 50 litre I moved everything into the bigger tank and I counted just under 100 shrimps. I feed the fish in there Omega One flakes, Omega One veggie rounds (for the stiphodons) and New Life Spectrum small sinking pellets (for the pygmy cories and gudgeons). Of course all the fish and shrimps eat a bit of everything. And the shrimps graze of the algae and biolfilm on the plants - another reason to have live plants.

The fish you intend to keep with them are not vegetarian; both need good quality sinking pellets and live or frozen food - small types because they are small fish. Cherry shrimps will eat these but they also need some veg in their diet. It might be an idea to also feed a good quality algae food. Not much will be needed, but it would be better crushed into smaller pieces.
Haras are nocturnal feeders so put some food in just before the room lights are turned off for the night.

Thanks @fcmf still cant work out what fcmf means though!

Looking for cholla wood but will keep in mind that site

Aquasoils tend to release ammonia for a few weeks which you'll need to factor in and consider delaying the purchase of your shrimp until you have good test results.

Thanks @Matt I will definetly put the shrimp on hold, my wallet cant afford them yet either! I will be using Seachem Prime, which claims to "Detoxify ammonia and nitrites" but will definetly leave for a couple of weeks before the purchase of the shrimp.
Both filters are howver, fully cycled and both come from established tanks. The HOB is holding all the fish from the 190L whilst we re do the tank as its better than a bucket

Which filter is least noisy and which uses least energy? These are important factors for me (though perhaps not the fish) when considering a potential filter.

I would say the HOB is less noisy but still has sponge for the shrimp to feed off, but is i do use the Sponge, ive got a massive hole in the lid so im still not sure.

Would anyone also reccomend plants for them? Ive got Hornwort, Anubias, Javamoss but what else should i get for them?

Don't forget that Prime only detoxifies ammonia and nitrite for about 24 to 36 hours.

The best thing would be to use sand and nothing else on the bottom of the tank. Several people report that these special plant soils do little to help plant growth, and become ineffective after about a year. Sand and root tabs for plants rooted in the substrate is the easiest and cheapest way to go.
And as Matt has pointed out, with some of these soils you can't put any fish or shrimps in the tank until they have stopped leaching ammonia which can take several months. If you did get fish you would be doing daily water changes to remove this leeching ammonia since the detoxification by Prime only lasts a day - and it is not a good idea to dose more Prime other than the amount needed to treat new water during a water change.


I missed the fact that you want to use fine gravel, and that you already have it. Even fine gravel is too coarse for pygmy cories - they really do need sand. If you want the cheapest, get play sand.

I have seen some black sand, though I can't remember if it was Unipac, and that was quite large particles for sand - more like fine gravel as you said in your first post. And the stuff I saw was also quite rough. Cories need smooth substrate. They sift the substrate for food, taking a mouthful then getting rid of the remains through their gills. They can't do this with particles that are too big, and if you think about how small a pygmy cory is, even fine gravel won't fit through their gills.


The stuff to avoid is white sand. It shows every speck of dirt and it reflects light which fish don't like 

This is the sand I have in my 180 litre tank http://aquariumsand.co.uk/ but not many places sell it. I bought it because that's what my favourite shop sold.
Or go to Argos or B&Q and get some play sand.

Re other plants

Amazon sword have always done well for me.  Consider buying some root tabs for them (as Sue suggested) , they dont need them per se but will hugely benefit from it as they are heavy root feeders. Root tabs can of course be useful with other plants too. 

A good list of other 'easy' plants can be found here:
http://tropica.com/en/plants/

They must be connected as the email address on both links is the same. Your link is all about bespoke aquariums but as they also mention that they sell fish, presumable they also sell things like sand.

It has just occurred to me to warn you not to use API root tabs. From my reading, they can make a mess of your tank. The most highly recommended ones are Seachem Flourish tabs. http://www.seachem.com/flourish-tabs.php