Choosing freshwater shrimp can be hard. For one..... what type of shrimp are there? Most of the shrimp you are seeing are either Neocardina or Cardina species. That means they are only an inch long full grown!! The Amano shrimp (Cardina Japonica), though it is a Cardina species, is an exception at 2 1/2 inches full grown. What you know as ghost shrimp are a Macrobrachium species. They are sold as live food in many pet stores, but they make great pets too! They are approximately the same size as male Amano shrimp. The large filter feeding shrimp such as bamboo shrimp and vampire shrimp grow to 4 to 6 inches, depending on species.

When choosing shrimp, it is very important to take their size into consideration. 1" shrimp CANNOT be kept with large fish such as angel fish, or most cichlids for that matter. These 1" shrimp should only be kept with very small fish like guppies and tetras. Some other fish will also work, most livebearers are ok, some killies, and peacock gudgeons. Even the larger Amano and ghost shrimp cannot be kept with angels, but they can be kept with smaller more peacefull cichlids such as rams and apistos. Large filter feeding shrimp can be kept with angels, but NO shrimp can be kept with large cichlids like oscars!

Feeding is easy. They will eat what you feed them. Room temperature is fine too. What is very important is water chemistry!! The 1" shrimp I mentioned can be broken up into 2 main groups:

1) Hard water Neocardinas. These are cherry shrimp, yellows, snowballs, rainbow shrimp, and their wild types. These shrimp are easy to care for and quite hardy. They will do fine in most people's tap water.

2) Soft water cardinas. these are the bumblebee shrimp, crystal reds (CRS), tigers, and the like. These shrimp require very specific water chemistry. they MUST have soft water at 50% reverse osmosis to 50% tap water. Most people's tap water will kill these shrimp within hours! This is getting better lately with the introduction of tank bred specemins into the hobby. It may be that one day they will adapt to our tap water and be able to breed there. For now, it is an expensive chance to take. These shrimp are much harder to care for than their hard water cousins. They are best left to people with some shrimping experience.

The price of shrimp can vary from seller to seller. Look around and see what's available. Be sure to ask your seller if they provide care info.