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I keep some of these guys. Does any one else?

For those who are curious about them and might be interested in getting some for your tank, I'd like to tell you about my experience with them.

These shrimp can be a little timid at first when you buy them but they will get used to their surroundings right away as well as seeing you. Usually having other objects in the tank such as plants or other such things in the tank helps these shrimp to feel more comfortable and less timid. As long as they can see some cover, they are willing to go out in open areas and so you can see them really easily then. So that even when they are right next to the glass, you can put your finger by the glass and they don't cower away.

These shrimp are very peaceful, they won't bother your fish at all. However if a fish keeps on bumping into it, the shrimp might use its big front legs which have a sharp point on them to poke the fish so that it stops bothering it. I haven't had that trouble with any of my fish except for when I used to own Yo Yo loaches. Those loaches would often bump into them which would make the shrimp angry and so the shrimp would poke at them. They never caused any kind of harm to the yo yo loaches though.

Their color can vary. They can some times be reddish, blueish, purplish and brownish in color. I'm not sure what determines their color, if it is based on their mood, surroundings or diet.

The way how these shrimp feed is that they wave their "hands" which have "feather like things" on them through the water. Those feathers gather up particles in the water. They wave them rapidly through the water, and then bring them into their mouth to eat. If a bigger object such as a fish flake happens to get caught, it will bring that fish flake to its mouth and eat it. They will also forage food they happen to bump into on the bottom of the tank. So they will eat fish flakes, shrimp pellets, sinking wafers. Usually though they eat particles in the water and so you don't need to worry about dropping in food specifically on the bottom for them to eat.

They do molt, and when that happens you will see an near transparent exoskeleton at the bottom of the tank. I don't know if it is a good or bad idea to take it out. I have just left that in the tank. It doesn't seem to effect any of my fish and the shell always disappears, probably my other bottom feeder fish eats it.

These shrimp have a very unique look to them which I think is very cool.

You don't have to keep multiple numbers of them, having a single one is fine, but if you can have more than 1, then do that. I've seen them interact with each other before, waving their antennas with each other. Also seen them side by side while feeding, waving their hands in the water.

I keep my shrimp in a 20 gallon tank. Though on this site it says they need to be in a 20 gallon tank, they are just fine being in a 10 gallon tank since they are shrimp and don't need space to swim around like fish.

These shrimp are quite bit harder to find compared to Atyopsis moluccensis Asian Fan Shrimp. Because of that, the African Fan Shrimp is more pricier. When I saw them for the first time in a LFS store in November, they were being sold for $15 each. After that, I never saw them again until this month in August, and the price of them was raised to $20 each.

I'd be warry about keeping them with very large fish though, particularly african ciclids. I've never kept mine with African ciclids, but I'd basically expect them to eat the shrimp.

Also those Yo Yo loaches I used to own before I gave them away got quite big, they ended up eating my African Fan Shrimp. I was quite furious when that happened. I currently keep my new African fan Shrimp with Clown Loaches. The Clown Loaches are about the same size as the Yo Yo Loaches and I've never seen them bug the shrimp nor poke at them. Probably because Clown Loaches spend time on the bottom but often swim in mid and top level of the tank. Yo Yo loaches spend more time often at the bottom level of the tank and bury themselves too. I haven't seen my clown loaches bury themselves before. So I think it may work out with my African Fan Shrimp and Clown Loaches.

If any of you have more questions, I'd be glad to answer them. For those of you who know more about them than me, I'd be glad to hear what info you have about them. And if any one is curious about what fish might be compatible with them, I'd probably have a good idea of what would be and would be glad to answer that too, though I'm no expert.

I don't have a gabonensis but 2 other atyopsis species. I believe 1 moluccensis and 1 spinipes. I think the reason for a 20g minimum is to make sure they are fed well enough. Being filter feeders these guys do best in a tank with lots of particles in the water and a fair amount of filtration to keep things moving past them. In a 10g that lacks water movement or is very well filtered and cleaned they may starve or at least have to go hunting for food which they do not prefer near as much as filtering. In fact some species will die of stress if forced to hunt around for food on the bottom constantly instead of being allowed to sit and filter. Mine always do much better when I squirt a little liquid marine invertebrate food directly in front of them at least once a week. I would suggest a 20g if possible and definitely no smaller than a 10.

Also important to these shrimp is driftwood. All of them do better with some driftwood because they evolved to blend into the wood. They can become a bit stressed if they lack wood to sit and hide on.

I'm surprised your yoyos would injure your shrimp. I know they will eat small shrimp but generally mine did fine with even ghost shrimp or anything bigger. Mine were over 5years old when I had them with both the fan shrimp and ghost shrimp so they were very big. Clown loaches will most definitely eat the shrimp eventually. Clowns can get up to a foot in length and will eat shrimp just as much as yoyos. They can even drill holes through the shells of very large applesnails to eat them so a shrimp no matter how big isn't going to be a difficult meal. They probably just haven't noticed the shrimp yet. I'd seperate asap before you have another accident.

Besides clown loaches cichlids are the only other thing I wouldn't keep with these shrimp. A few of the dwarf cichlids are fine. I had rams in the tank with the shrimp at various times but any larger or more agressive cichlids should not be housed with any srimp. Mine have been fine with even large gouramis so despite their usual tendency to pick on inverts labyrinth fish seem to make ok tankmates. Of course all smaller peaceful fish are fine as well. Despite their large size these shrimp won't even eat fry.

I'm going to give the clown loaches a chance. Also according the LFS store, Clown Loaches are more peaceful than yo yo loaches. They were also surprised that the yo yos ate the shrimp too. Before the Yo Yos did eat those shrimp, I did try a couple of different times to have Ghost Shrimp in the tank too, but each time the yo yos ate them. So maybe the yos yos though since the ghost shrimp were food, why not those bigger ones? I also had little snails in the tank with the yo yos, the yo yos ate those. I also had apple snails with the yo yos, the yo yos left those alone for a while, but then even ate those snails. Then after it ate the apple snails is when they moved on to the African Fan Shrimp. I haven't kept small shrimp nor snails with the clown loaches and so I think that might help. Also I do plan to return the clown loaches once they get too big, and so will start over again with small clown loaches. I'd only keep the big clown loaches is if I got a big tank in the future. Fortunately they grow kind of slow. So I've got plenty of time.

I got a small piece of drift wood in my tank. Those shrimp spend a lot of time hanging around by there.

Not a big surprise to me since I've seen this before, but when I added fish flakes in the tank today, 1 flake happened to sink by the african fan shrimp and landed right on his hands, so he brought to its mouth and started eating it.

I also got German Blue Rams with the Shrimp too. They completely ignore the shrimp.

Also at the LFS, they kept the African Fan Shrimp in the same tank with very large gouramis and Bolivian Rams. So those fish work too like you said.

Some fish I'd probably not recommend to keep with these shrimp are;

*large cichlids or mean small ones, but that is just a guess with the small ones that they might go and bite at the shrimp, but they again they do fine with plecos so it might not be problem with small mean cichlids
*Yo Yo loaches
*I've never had catfish, but I'd recommend probably not keeping them with catfish, particularly bigger sized ones
*Pirahanas? and Paco? I have no idea, could work, but I wouldn't risk it
*Crayfish, crabs or any thing else with claws. They would probably kill these shrimp if they had the chance. I wouldn't even keep them in the same tank as fiddler crabs.
*Barbs? especially Tiger Barbs? I don't know since I've never kept barbs before. It could work, but maybe not if the shrimp happens to get harassed often.
*Eels? I dunno, I probably wouldn't keep them with these shrimp
*I wouldn't keep these shrimp with gar
*And others

So I've said some bad fish that works with them, let's state some good ones
*Every tetras
*Every danios
*Every rainbowfish
*Every plecos
*A lot of Loaches, smaller the they are, the better
*All cories
*All shrimp smaller than it, and other fan type shrimp
*All ottos
*All Mollies
*All Platies
*All bettas
*A number of dwarf cichlids
*And others

Clown loaches are worse than yoyos for eating shrimp and snails. While yoyos have to work at eating applesnails clown loaches do it with ease. They will also inhale ghost shrimp where the yoyos are more hit or miss. If they find a small ghost shrimp they'll eat it but if you add fully grown ghost shrimp they usually don't bother them. In my experience yoyos are extremely peaceful if you avoid snails and small shrimp. Mine never caused issue with any other fish and I kept them with tons of different species. I don't see how anyone could call these guys agressive. Yes they will eat small enough inverts. Inverts are the normal food of loaches. All of the botia species will eat snails and shrimp eventually. They may be fine for awhile but clown loaches definitely get big enough to make a meal out of those shrimp.

There are some safe loaches though. Dojos, kuhlies, hillstreams, and other nonbotia species do fine with shrimp and only occasionally eat small snails.