Inverts to go in my future 55?

GregV

hey guys, im really starting to get into the invertabrates, they are quite cool. not the biggest fan of snails, but if there are a cool looking species that wont end up taking over half the tank I would love to hear aboutt hem.

I was wondering what would be good put in a tank like this

The tank dementions are 48x12x21, the base is sand and it will be heavily planted with low light plants if all goes well.

The tank will be pretty well filtered aswell, 2 pengiun 150s and an emporor 280 will be used, I may upgrade to just a second 280 later on, and purchase a fluval 404 filter.

Here is the list im considereing

2 Rams (not sure which speicies i want yet)
3 Apistogramma (again havent seleted the species)
12-25 cadinals
8 hatchets
8-12 celestial pear danios (galaxy rasbora)
6 dwarf Ottocinclus
6 khuli loaches

any sugestions of invert speices for this tank would be apreciaited, IE something you think that would be nice to have, or incompatibility issues etc.

thanks for the advice

Greg

Lupin

Tried ghost shrimps with this mix before but they had plenty of plants and driftwoods to hide.8)

bettababy

I can name several for you, although I will warn that 1 may or may not be a threat to the fish. I have heard stories on both ends, it appears to me to be an individual thing.

Ammano shrmp
Cherry shrimp
Ghost shrimp
Vampire shrimp * these are the ones that may or may not eat small fish, I would suggest being very careful if you consider these.
Wood shrimp (sometimes called flower shrimp, six legged shrimp, or Singapore shrimp)

For what you are describing, I would highly suggest the wood shrimp or ammano shrimp because they're bigger and you'll actually get to see them, lol. Be careful not to mix species of shrimp within a tank. They are known for eating each other, the bigger shrimp usually will eat any shrimp smaller than themselves of another species. The wood shrimp get 2 - 3 inches and are filter feeding, the ammano average 2 - 2 1/2 inches and are algae eating, neither will harm a planted tank or the fish you named.

One last note about the wood shrimp: wait until the tank is heavily planted before moving them in, they stress to death very quickly in a bare or near bare tank, and need to be kept warm. If the water temp drops below 76, they're pretty much history, they prefer it 78 - 80.

Hope this helps!

GregV

Thanks alot :)

GregV

are wood shrimp detrivores?

bettababy

Wood shrimp are filter feeding. Ghost shrimp would qualify as detrivore, and ammano shrimp are a not beyond an opportunity for a treat if one presents itself, such as a dead fish body laying around somewhere.

Also wanted to mention, be careful not to get whisker shrimp, they tend to catch and eat small fish. I watched a group of a dozen whisker shrimp eat a tank full of 50 neons in a matter of an hour. A full grown female whisker shrimp would be a threat even to things like gold rams...and they look a lot like ghost shrimp when they are small.

GregV

Sorry, im unfimiliar with the term filter feeding? what does this mean?

Falina

Some shrimp, like the one bettababy mentioned, have fan like "hands" and they hold these out in the flow of the water to catch pieces of food/debris flloating around which they eat.

The photo below shows the "hands" as they're stuck out during feeding.



HTH?

bettababy

Thanks Falina, I couldn't have said it better myself!

scottven

Sorry if this counts as hijacking the thread, but I think it's on topic. I've got a 10g now that I'm planning on upgrading to a 55 as soon as the construction in my house finishes (having the kitchen remodeled). A couple years back, I had a ghost shrimp that seemed to thrive in there, and eventually died of old age (I think).

Since then I've gotten pairs of ghost shrimp twice from the same LFS and they haven't lasted 2 weeks. There's been no change to the tank loading, filtration, lighting, or temp. I, unfortunately, don't have water test results from back then to compare against.

Is there a resource for more information on ghost shrimp? I haven't been able to find much about the freshwater ones via google.

Thanks!

Scott