Guppy and Shrimps after 3 months - success!

**Rachdanon** · 1st Oct 2016, 12:24

Started off aquarium hobby at the end of the June school holidays with some gold fish.

Now after 3 months, allow me to show success in 2 planted tanks - 40cm shrimp and 60cm guppy.

Started off mixing shrimp with guppies. First batch of baby shrimps coincided with birth of guppy fry. These nosey fry were in every corner of the 60cm tank. Even though it was quite heavily planted and with rocks and a big drift wood them pesky fries were nibbling at the baby shrimp and killing them. Only about 3 survived. So I separated them.

Joys :
- 2 female guppies gave birth to some 60 fry
- Cherry shrimp gave birth some 30 babies
- christmas moss growing on wall (thats where the mother shrimp hid to hatch the shrimp)
- Staurogye Repens growing and success in stem propagation without CO2
- Wisteria growing fast without CO2
- Money wort growing reasonably fast
- Ludwidia growing fast and stem propagated. All without CO2 or fertilizer.
- Sinking the huge driftwood after about 2 mths. With help of stones.

Pains :
- First generation guppies all died except 1 male (tuff fella!)
- First batch of baby shrimps eaten.
- Several berried shrimp died (suspected VERY dirty filter)
- Crystal Red Shrimp died in 29deg tank (bought on impulse without reading - too nice)

Basic Info :
- No CO2
- No fertzs
- Gravel in 60cm. Sand in 40cm.
- 1 fan each
- About 26 deg in 40cm, 28 deg in 60cm

Lessons learnt :
- Guppy fry and baby shrimp dont mix well
- Apple snails will devour your plants
- Dont get a submerged filter with a difficult to remove sponge ( Im going to replace it)
- Using tap water filter that removes chlorine is not a good idea as the amount of water for water change and top up is a lot - better to get Seachem Prime on ordinary tap water
- Good light and nutrient rich substrate from food/waste is enough - no need CO2 or fertilizer.
- Baby shrimps start off really tiny! - about 2mm
- Breeding shrimp n guppies is not difficult.
Cheers :-)

NOTE: AM ON LOOKOUT FOR NICE MOSCOW BLUE/GREEN GUPPIES...LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE OR KNOW SOMEONE WHO HAS THEM.

Cheers!

**Guppendler** · 1st Oct 2016, 14:22

Thanks for sharing Rachdanon, ccould tell you are enjoying the hobby. I used to keep Moscow guppies but no longer now. Could tell from the attached photo your juvenile guppy are doing well and healthy

**Whale93** · 10th Oct 2016, 19:07

Nice baby shrimp!

**Bracehero** · 10th Oct 2016, 21:10

May I know what plants are on the right side of the first pic? Thanks! Great job btw! I intend on putting cherry shrimps in my tank, thought guppies would eat them up like my previous tank..

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

**Rachdanon** · 12th Oct 2016, 20:58

Originally Posted by Bracehero

May I know what plants are on the right side of the first pic? Thanks! Great job btw! I intend on putting cherry shrimps in my tank, thought guppies would eat them up like my previous tank..

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Thanks Bracehero and Whale93!

The plants are Staurogyne Repens or S. Repens for short.

Guppies would definitely eat the baby shrimp especially the guppy fry, juveniles and female adults. I find male adult guppies rather mild and leave the shrimp more or less alone. When you hear people say a heavily planted tank will provide hiding for the baby shrimp, they mean a really heavily planted tank, heavier than mine with plants reaching to almost the water line as baby shrimp will swim all over.

**Rachdanon** · 12th Oct 2016, 21:02

Originally Posted by Bracehero

May I know what plants are on the right side of the first pic? Thanks! Great job btw! I intend on putting cherry shrimps in my tank, thought guppies would eat them up like my previous tank..

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Thanks Bracehero and Whale93!

The plants are Staurogyne Repens or S. Repens for short.

Guppies would definitely eat the baby shrimp especially the guppy fry, juveniles and female adults. I find male adult guppies rather mild and leave the shrimp more or less alone. When you hear people say a heavily planted tank will provide hiding for the baby shrimp, they mean a really heavily planted tank, heavier than mine with plants reaching to almost the water line as baby shrimp will swim all over.

As I have only 2 tanks, what I am doing is keeping the fire reds in the shrimp tank to breed red ones, and put the Sakuras and lighter ones in the guppy tank, so if some get eaten its the less red ones that get eaten. And the guppy tank plants are getting denser as time goes by so higher chances of baby shrimp surviving.

**Rachdanon** · 24th Oct 2016, 20:37

Happy to update 2nd shrimp birth. Can you see the even smaller shrimp?hee hee had to wait a week before they had some colour to be noticea le.

Also my el cheapo china made led spot light failed from obvious lousy wiring design. Got the super bright Aqualighter 1.

**Zep** · 25th Oct 2016, 07:32

Wow...that looks great! Your shrimp farm is up and running.

**veridicaldream** · 2nd Apr 2017, 14:07

looks great. my first guppies gave birth readily. fed them small scrap of eggyolk mixed with the fish food pellets the adults get. just crush into powder add water and roll into small balls. the adults also fight for it. sadly they passed away (think jump out)