shrimp with mollies?

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Sep 25, 2005
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ok so im setting up a 60 gallon tank for my cichlids and i want to turn the 10 gallon they are in into a planted community tank with a couple (2) of black mollies and a small school of cardinal tetras (i was thinking no more than 6) and i was wondering how a few ghost shrimp would fair in the tank or should i stick with otos or corys

thanks for the help :dive2:
 
I have ghost shrimp in a 55g with small tetras, rasboras, platies, and a molly and none of the shrimp were eaten if that's what you mean... I have a lightly planted tank with driftwood, but even without all that cover I think they would be ok, as they are very quick and I've seen them stand up to platies, when they tried to see if shrimp are tasty :).
If you are worried about the srimp attacking your fish, that's never going to happen, unless you'll have fry in the same tank, as shrimp eat only what they can fit into their tiny mouths, or what's not moving aka dead.
Personally I can't picture my tank without ghost shrimps, they're great to watch, but even better than that, they are excellent scavangers...
 
thats what i was concerned about (the mollies eating the shrimp) and i dont want babies since i dont have the room for them really and thats what i was wanting the shrimps for (scavenging) plus they always look really neat at the LFS how many do you suppose would be good in my ten gallon?
thanks for the help
 
I'm not really sure about the number, you can ask the salesperson for advice, but I think it is 2 shrimp per gallon of water. You didn't specify whether you have plants and/or hiding spots in your tank... if you don't then the fry will be eaten by the parents and I'm not sure that the shrimp will be feeling very safe, if you do have plants, than even shrimp won't be able to eat all the fry as at least one will manage to survive in bunches of plants.
Also maybe I should mension that my molly is only at about 2" and since they can get as big as 3-4" I'm not sure whether they will or not eat the shrimp once they attain their maximum size... In any case plants and their natural camouphlage should protect them even from larger fish. In any case ghost shrimp are cheap, so you can try them for yourself and see how they do, worst case - your fish are going to have a nutritious addition to their menu. Hope I helped.
 
thank you very much for the help it was very...helpful -lol- yea i was planing on putting a bunch of plants alone with a little bit of driftwood
 
I had Ghost shrimp in my 29 gallon molly, tetra tank and they were fine. Saw them chowing down on fry, which was also okay with me as I really don't want a population explosion and free fish food is fine by me. Be aware, when they molt they can become a snack for adventurous fish. I never saw the predation in my tank, but I did see molting shrimp and then notice a missing shrimp. Could've been the Head/tail light tetras as they are a bit mean for such little buggers.
 
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