Shrimp in a planted fry tank?

[N. brichardi]

Hi, I was wondering if it would be possible to have a 10 gallon planted fry tank that contains red cherry shrimp Neocardina hetropoda var. "red"? The fry would be from my Cyprichromis leptosoma, and (hopefully) my Enantiopus sp. kilesa so the pH would be at around 7.8. I would want to have the background and sides of the tank heavily planted so the shrimp can forage there and so their young can hide so they aren't picked off by the fry (although i'm not sure the fry would be able to fit baby shrimp in their mouths), and so the fry can eat tiny little microorganisms in the plants. I was wondering if this setup would work and if you guys have any recommendations on plants for the fry tank. Thanks guys^_^

[chc]

Hmmmmm...... Will be interesting to see what opinions you get. Anything is possible I suppose. How large do you intend to let the fry get?

I have a tank that allows fish of all sizes to coexist from tiny mosquito fish to a fully grown dovii and other large cichlids. Certainly there is some predation going on, but not at a pace that can reduce the mosquito fish population. That tank is absolutely packed with water lettuce and hyacinth, so the surface dwelling livebearers can find quite a bit of cover, but they do spend much of the day in the wide open with their endless breeding efforts!

The tank also has tons of giant vallisneria and java moss (and algae!). The moss in particular might be of interest to you as it tends to collect all sorts of detritus that would be of interest to your shrimp. Anything that would host lots of "biology" would work -- hornwort, anacharis, and other bunch plants could work. They're not sexy, but they're easy to grow and cheap.

You may want to consider putting a bucket outdoors with a few specimens of water lettuce or hyacinth. It wouldn't take long for them to get "infested" with daphnia and other nutritional biology (the roots are particularly good feeding sites for small fish), and you could swap individual plants in and out of your tank on a regular basis.

I like your approach here. I'm definitely going for a more varied and natural ecosystem now. I used to lean toward the bare-bones single species tank, but I'm enjoying the "dirty" approach much more!

[N. brichardi]

Uhh id like the fry to get about to at least to 1-2 inches then try moving them to the parents tank. I really like the idea of moving the fry to an outside bucket over the summer the only problem is that these are cyprichromis fry so the pH and hardness would have to be somewhat high, and i know rain water is pretty acidic. Maybe i could place the tub under something that would shade it from rain. Thanks for the suggestion It sounds great i have heard fish in outdoor tubs usually grow bigger and are pretty healthy and colorful.