# Can I put 1 or 2 shrimp with my betta?



## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

Hi, I've never had shrimp before. I would like to add a couple to my 5 gallon betta tank. Can I do that? Is there a shrimp that is easy to keep? What do I feed the shrimp?

pH in this tank is usually about 7. It is a planted tank.


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## KrisK (Apr 21, 2010)

if your tank is heavily planted and there is lots of hiding places, the shrimp should be ok. I don't think betta's will eat shrimp, but they might harass them. 
As for which shrimp, I think that red cherry shrimp are the easiest to keep. They scavenge around and eat what they find, but you can supplement that with shrimp pellets


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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

I asked this very question about Amano shrimp at Roger's a couple of months ago and their answer was 'yes'.

Amanos are very easy to keep. I feed mine Shirakura shrimp pellets that I got from Pat. Neutral pH. They are doing fine, and probably doubled in length since I got them (from Pat, too). They're not as colourful as other shrimp of course but still a lot of fun to watch. And they help a bit with algae. I love mine.


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## wsl (Apr 21, 2010)

I agree that red cherries are probably the easiest to keep, but I would be worried about keeping my RCS with betta. I've heard stories where even if a betta doesn't eat the shrimp outright, they can still attack and kill them. Of course, this does depend on the betta, but I think that having a couple of amano shrimp is a much more feasible option, as they get much larger than red cherries.


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## kelly528 (Apr 21, 2010)

Go with something cheap. Every betta is different but whether they actually do it or not they are more than capable of killing and eating a cherry shrimp. Lord knows Lou did.... RIP Jacques.

I would give it a go with a cheap shrimp... worst thing that can happen is your betta gets some live food


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## trowachess (Apr 24, 2010)

Really depends on the temperant of the Betta in my experience. Buddy had a CRS and betta setup and nothing really happened. Betta was mostly lazy.


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## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

Thank you, everyone. I really appreciate having such a reliable & quick source of information. April had amanos in (cherries arriving tomorrow) so I got three from her and put them in my tank. (It's a very well planted tank with some rock as well.)

I hope that the shrimp survive. If they last 2 months, I hope to put 2 or 3 cherries into the female betta's 12 gallon tank. That is a very well cycled tank and at Stuart's suggestion I pruned it last night. If they don't survive, then I won't try any other shrimp.

Crazy72 -- I have shrimp pellets! I didn't know that they were FOR shrimp. I thought that they CONTAINED shrimp. As in, a tasty appetizer for the fish crowd.


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## Scholz (Apr 21, 2010)

you can have some of my RCS....


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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

Morainy said:


> Crazy72 -- I have shrimp pellets! I didn't know that they were FOR shrimp. I thought that they CONTAINED shrimp. As in, a tasty appetizer for the fish crowd.


Ha ha.. That's a good one Maureen. I never thought of it that way. But yes, it was perfectly reasonable!


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## BullDog (Apr 21, 2010)

I've kept ghost shrimp with my betta. Had them for the longest time without either of my bettas taking much notice of them. Until last week, when I noticed I had a very full looking betta and was one shrimp short  It was a big one too! 
I never fed them anything specifically. They just ate the junk off the bottom, and the last two got smart and would swim upside-down at the surface and snag flakes.
So right now I'm down to just one shrimp in the whole tank, and I'm not sure if I'd choose to get any more. They're pretty nasty little buggers, and pinch the betta's tail O_O


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## Edarion (Apr 21, 2010)

I tried that. the betta eventually found them and they turned into snacks


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## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

An update. I was at April's yesterday for pygmy corydoras and she had amano shrimp. I got three of them -- very cool looking critters -- and popped them into my 5 gallon betta tank.

The betta has ignored them. They survived the night and are walking about, eating and looking happy.


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Glad you asked this Maureen, I just bought 20 baby cherry shrimp which are veryyy small(4-9mm), put them in a 1 gal eclipse I have for now, as most are small enough to fit in my Neons mouths even. I have a Betta in everyone of my tanks and had the same concerns as well, plus my biggest tank has some larger black skirt tetras which I'm sure would love the shrimp lol so I'm glad you posted this. Figure they will definitely be bigger than everyone's mouths before introducing them to the communities. Glad to see you got some to work with yours, hope they are still alive as I see this thread is over a month old. Can't wait till mine get bigger , they are so entertaining to watch, I see why everyone has/wants some. 
lol about the shrimp pellets, I can see where that could be misleading


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## Scholz (Apr 21, 2010)

My female is a juvinile shimp eating machine! She is very good at hunting them! The make ignores them competely. He'll chase one around every once in a while but that's it. 

She's like a snake in the grass!


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