Freshwater Shrimp

Freshwater shrimp are more of a “utility pet” then an anything else. Having said that, observing their rather complex social interactions tend to be quite fascinating so, even if you keep them as one might a janitor fish, you may still find yourself spending time observing them.

Pros:
Immensely easy to keep and can be fairly interesting to observe.

Cons:
Small and will not interact with their keeper in any way (with the occasional exception of catapulting themselves to cover).

Housing:
All shrimp need is well-oxygenated, de-chlorinated water at room temperature. You can easily keep 20 shrimp in a 15 gallon aquarium, as long as they are all provided with hiding places and ‘perches’ to call their own. By perches I mean anything they can stand on, hand under, cling to, etc. In my aquarium I keep several freshwater plants (in a plastic container so the shrimp don’t make a mess with the soil) as well as rocks, a piece of a terracotta pot, and a floating stick which the shrimp like to hang from.

Utility:
Shrimp are awesome at eliminating detritus and algae, thus keeping the water clean. My little file snake doesn’t appreciate a filter in its aquarium so I keep shrimp in it to make sure I don’t get build-ups of faeces, etc.

Breeding:
Shrimp will breed themselves. All you have to do is keep an eye of them. You will be able to tell when one has eggs (in the species I have they form a green mass under their body). Remove these shrimp from the main group until you see small shrimp swimming around in the separate aquarium. Remove the parent shrimp and keep the baby’s fed on sinking fish-pellet crumbs, bread crumbs, etc. It’s a bit tricky to keep the water oxygenated as you cannot use a pump (it would kill the babies) so I suggest you use aquatic plants to provide oxygen and keep them in an open-top, wide aquarium.

Feeding:
As I said, shrimp will happily feed on algae, etc. However, as I have quite a few in the same aquarium, I supplement their diet with sinking fish food. Spread this out so that all the shrimp get to eat, not just the strongest ones.

Final Notes:

Like other crustaceans, shrimp shed their exoskeleton as they grow. I generally just leave it in the aquarium and either they or the feeder fish I keep with them eventually eat it. I guess it serves as a form of calcium.