Love loaches, love shrimp and snails more

[scrkpr]

I have a variety of loaches in my other tanks but in one of my trop. tank I have lots of snails and red cherry shrimp that I want to keep. However, I would like to add some type of loach that will not consume them. I know dojo's leave them alone mostly. Any others? It's a 30 gal tank right now, but I have recently aquired a 240 gal that everyone will move to so I don't think size is a problem

Beki

[shari2]

I dunno...my weather loaches messed around with snails a bit. I have mts and they'd be seen picking them up and tossing them about. Don't know if they actually ate them, but they sure did 'play' with them.

240g!?!! I'm jealous...
unfortunately, I'd be worried about shrimp with most botia species. If they molt, they could be toast...

[scrkpr]

I am jealous of myself right now Shari. I got the tank from Craigslist for $500. Incredible!!! Anyway, if I loose a few when they molt that's not the end of the world. I just don't want to see the entire population wiped out in 2 days b/c they are soooo yummy.

[shari2]

I'd really hesitate at getting any botiine species if you have a nice batch of fancy shrimp. Even with heavy planting and lots of places to hide and the large area (still jealous!) to set up territories I'd think curious botia species would locate them and...well, they would certainly be interested.

[chefkeith]

You could add refugium tank for the shrimp. In my set-up I have 100+ cherry shrimp in a 20 gallon refugium (that are breeding like crazy). Some of the shrimp wander out to the main tanks where they end up being eaten, but the main populus of the shrimp remains intact. Somehow some fry got into the refugium also.

The 20g refugium sits side by side with a 190g tank.
Here's a few pic's of the refugium-


I built a little water-bridge for water to flow through. Only small fish or shrimp can swim through the little water-bridge.
PVC pipe works good for this as well. Just add some end caps to the PVC pipes and drill many holes into the caps so that fish can't swim through it.


This could be done alot nicer than what I have.
I have a video of my set-up in the link in my signature.

[Mark in Vancouver]

I've kept ghost shrimp and Amano shrimp with Botias, no problem. Also, consider just getting smaller loaches - sids and kuhlis - if you want to keep shrimp.

[Batch]

Hi,
Khuli loaches would be fine with both shrimp and snails and
Sids should be fine with the shrimp. I have both in my planted tank and they seem to leave my Amano shrimp alone. Tho the Sids are pretty new...
In my Yo-yo tank, i put in ghost shrimp as a source of food.

batch