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Can shrimp serve as a live meal for any fish? I'm looking to get a school of about 10-15 of "I don't know what kind yet" that really like a live meal from time to time. The other criteria is that they also like to stay in a school.

What kind of shrimp were you looking at? The only true shrimp I can think of that's commonly sold as a feeder is the Ghost Shrimp. Those guys are pretty big though, not really suitable for schooling fish like tetras or danios.

Brine Shrimp, which are not true shrimp, are often sold live at fish stores and are a suitable food for most fish.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

agreed, pretty much any fish will love to devour brine shrimp. live or frozen, i know at least my stock dont care, they go crazy for them.

i myself cant wait for my fish to get larger so I can watch them take down some ghost shrimp.

(list of my fish is in my profile)

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

Although I am planning to attempt hatching some brine shrimp. I am specifically thinking of ghost shrimp as feeders.

Would dwarf puffers go after ghost shrimp? Ideally, I'd like something that schools and attacks but I what I enjoy most of all is feeding time.

monkeyboy, I checked out your list of fish. I don't think my 20L could quite fit most of those species. Someday I'll have a tank like that though

Dwarf Puffers would most definitely attack Ghost Shrimp, but they aren't schooling fish (in fact, they can be pretty aggressive towards one another). Also, unless you have an extremely small shrimp, the puffer will not be able to finish eating the entire thing and you'll be left with a partial shrimp carcass somewhere in the tank.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Dwarf puffers eat adult ghost shrimp about half the time. Some will live with ghost shrimp and some devour all shrimp on site. They will eat all baby ghost shrimp. All fish can be fed pretty much any kind of shrimp but you have to take into account the size of the shrimp versus the fish. Pretty much all fish will eat shrimp dropped into their but only if they are below a certain size. Some fish like tetras will not pick at shrimp on the bottom but still often eat baby shrimp that are falling in the middle of the tank.

Dwarf puffers are not schooling and should be kept in a species tank. If you get them you would be best off only having dwarf puffers with no schooling fish or other fish in the tank. They are mildly agressive as far as puffers go and so should be kept in small groups with plenty of tank space. They will not swarm in to attack prey but prefer to hunt it slowly from behind plants. After a long time of watching they will ambush their prey and suck it into their mouths. Satisfying to watch if you have patience but not if you just want to see food get torn apart.

In a big tank congo tetras were my favorite for that. They do best in a 4' tank with around 8 fish and when the males get larger they will tear up crickets and water bugs. Lots of people asked me if they were parahnas. Especially when they tore the legs off crickets and swam around with them sticking out between their teeth while a poor cricket floats at the top partially amputated. Didn't last long though before a large male would end the cricket's suffering. To place shrimp in the tank I had to lower them to the bottom in my net or hand in order to avoid the congos thinking they were food.

Natalie, that is a good point. If for some reason a lot of dead shrimp just kept piling up, that would present some water problems (hopefully that wouldn't happen ).

I'm pretty sure now that I want to get some sort of tetra! Those congo tetras sound awesome! I'd like my school to be about 12 fish though, and that many Congo's wouldn't fit in my 20L.

Do you guys know anything about lemon tetras? based on the profile on this site I think they could make a fun species tank. With some smaller ghost shrimp they might go to town...

Know anything about these lemon tetras (aka Flag tetras)?

I've accidentally had some problems with this recently, I bought some Amano shrimp two weeks ago and within 6 hours all of them had either escaped (I found 2 half way accross my living room!) or been eaten by my 9 year old angel fish. I had suspected my angel fish might eat them, what I didn't expect was that she swelled up and then didn't eat anything for 2 weeks and this morning I had to net her floating carcass out of the tank!