# Age-old debate - living and breeding cherry and crystal shrimps in the same aquarium



## Redshrimp2709 (Mar 21, 2016)

Hi everyone, 

I'm relatively new to the shrimp side of the hobby, but I'm almost a year into it. I have had a lot of success with Red Cherry Shrimp varieties and I'm not beginning the selective breeding process. I have a 90 gallon planted aquarium (picture attached). It's big and it somewhat reflects the real world in that I have mostly various South American tetras, a few pigmy corys and kuhli loaches. I used to have some German Rams, but they don't seem to survive (I digress). 

Here comes the question. Can I keep black or red crystal shrimps or crystal bee shrimps in the same aquarium? The consensus is that they are of two completely different species/genus so interbreeding is not an issue. My water parameters are within compatibility range and I don't see any other problems. Does anyone else wish to provide me feedback? Am I overlooking something else? I only plan on keeping one specific variety of crystal blacks actually. 

Here are my other specs:

Temp: 26C (planning on increasing it to 27/28C for 1.5 months as I am currently mimicking the dry season, then dropping it to 24C)
CO2 injection: 2 to 3 bubbles/sec, shut off at night, light filter current allows for excess CO2 to dissipate
pH: 6.4 to 6.6 (night vs. day)
KH: 3
GH: 4 (soft water)
Ammonia & nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10 to 20ppm depending on time passed since last water change
2 kessel lamps handing on either side of aquarium
2 T5HO's
Tropica aquarium soil substrate
Lots of mosses, riccia, various stem plants, and lots of jungle vals


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## Jousters (Jan 16, 2014)

I would do a separate tank for Crystal red shrimp. Best not to gas them with Co2 when you are growing plants.They also like it slightly cooler than cherry shrimp.


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## Dou (Dec 4, 2015)

Jousters said:


> I would do a separate tank for Crystal red shrimp. Best not to gas them with Co2 when you are growing plants.They also like it slightly cooler than cherry shrimp.


I agree with Jousters - but everyone will have a different opinion. From my experience, you can keep them together but one species may not thrive. I kept CRS with my Neos and my Neos never got pregnant - not even once while my CRS are continually breeding. I have 1 CRS in my 60p somehow with very low pH (6.2) where I pump CO2 along with my neos and it's still alive. I probably should add a couple more in there and see if they breed... But honestly, you won't ever know until you try for yourself. It'll be a test regardless because consistently mimic-ing water parameters online seems unrealistic. My advice is to make sure you keep everything as stable as possible along with enough gH.

Edit #2// Perhaps there is a Goldilocks zone where both thrive =). If you find it let us know!


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## jumpsmasher (Feb 1, 2011)

From my experience there is very little overlap in term of ideal parameters for both. You best best would to set up a tank based on CRS parameters and keep the PH a bit higher (6.6 ~ 6.8). Of course, it depends on your shrimps. I have some low grade CRS that been raised in tap water and i had the odd neocaridina hitchhiker that made their way in to bee shrimp tanks that seems to be doing fine. I also seen neo's that have extremely stunted growth in one my low ph tanks


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## Redshrimp2709 (Mar 21, 2016)

Thanks everyone for the info. I'll likely not put them together. I can always experiment, but in a 90G, these small shrimps get lost and it's hard to keep track of them and their breeding habits.


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## indefine (Aug 10, 2013)

I'll add personal experience. Kept crs/cbs with ada amazonia and had always tweaked params to suit them. Tried on 3 occassions to introduce rcs and never had success. At least imho, i echo others that for one to thrive, the other would suffer.

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