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I'm looking at breaking into the world of crustacians by getting a couple of shrimp for my tank but am not sure which ones to go for or if I need some extra plants?
Tank details are:
21G, 14"x12"x30"
1 8" airstone, 1 6" airstone
In-tank filter (?Powerhead)
Lots of grass, one big leaved anubias nana plant, all real.
2 bits of driftwood.
Stocking:
3 Coolie Loaches
2 Hillstream Loaches
1 Angelfish (12cm long)
1 Saimese Fighting Fish
1 Peppered Cory
2 Silvertip Tetra
4 Platy's

Thoughts?

If you can find them locally at a low price you might was to try a ghost shrimp or two to start. I've had both bettas and loaches treat shrimp as snacks

As far as other shrimp, here are a couple of links with some specific species info:

Petshrimp.com

Arizona Aquatic Gardens

Good luck

~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is water at the bottom of the ocean

I'm betting that any small shrimp will end up as snacks. The angel and the betta would be most likely to kill shrimp, but they may leave them completely alone, until they figure out that shrimp are yummy anyway.
You might try larger shrimp like wood shrimp or bamboo shrimp. They get to be about 3 inches long are filter feeders, so there's no chance they;ll hurt your fish, and they are a little intimidating to most fish so they shouldn't be attacked by anything.
Another possibility is to get some dwarf crayfish like procambarus hinei or cambarellus shufeldtii. These crays get only about 2 inches long, and have very tiny claws, so they do not damage fish. Even small fish like tetras are safe with these tiny species of cray. They feed on detrius and leftover food and are really quite interesting to watch. You can find them on Aquabid from time to time, or one of the sellers there recently opened a web-based store at http://www.blueludo.com/

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Part of the reason I want one is to keep my plants algae free, but it's starting to look like my dreams of shrimp are going to be short lived
I may see if the LFS has some larger 1" ones that at worse will make some fine live feed and at best survive the turmoil of community tank life.

illustrae is there a site where i can get more info on those smaller crayfish..and Ghost shrimp eat alot of leftover foods and there interesting to watch.

10gallon: 8neons 5gallon: 1betta
1oto
2platys

I really wish it was easier to find more information on these crays, but I'm afraid I havn't found it yet.
Many of these crays are found in rivers and swamps in the south-central areas of the united states. If you send email to the guy who runs the site I linked, he'll answer any of your questions and is really quite knowledgeable about the crays he sells, and he has tons of experience keeping them. He keeps them as pets and really cares about his stock, so I would consider him a reliable source of information.

I have some p. hinei that I've had for about a year now, and in that time they've lived with fish as small as ottos and sparkling gouramis and never looked at them as food (unless they were already dead, in which case the carcass was nearly gone by the time I realized there had been a death). They've also lived with bully pearl gouramis, rambunctious SAEs, a terribly curious angelfish, and a humongous pleco, and they are still thriving. I feel bad for them sometimes, because the SAEs will take food right out of their claws, and the pleco will sometimes come to rest right on top of them without realizing it, but they seem none the worse for wear, and make a subtle but very interesting additon to a community tank.
Here's some links to pictures of mine. They're hard to photograph without a macro setting, but I did my best.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/Aquaria/pictures/pict0025_66.jpg
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/Aquaria/pictures/pict0007_30.jpg
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/Aquaria/pictures/pict0013_50.jpg
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/Aquaria/pictures/pict0010_42.jpg

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...