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In this thread I was trying to get aquascaping ideas for a small tank without a hood. Instead of a betta I've been thinking about stocking with shrimp but here's my silly question: will shrimp try to escape the tank, and are they actually able to do so? A betta isn't a problem, but I thought it would be nice to do something different.

Thanks

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Yes most shrimp will escape unless you cover the tank perfectly. My amano shrimp managed to get into the HOB filter even though I had a full hood (covered everything but an inch in front of HOB) I had to modify it to make it escape proof.

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man" Simpsons

Hi Theresa,

According to bewcat that never happened to me. Shrimp can't live without water. They will dry out fast!
But with my exp, shrimps don't escape. They jump(the flapping of their tails to move) when they are chased or attacked. I've lost a few due to fish chasing them around.
It's better to get peaceful fish with the shrimps. I'm not sure abt betta cause I never had them, but the stories I heard how aggresive they are, I'm not sure .

Good luck



Gee

!!I think I just learned somthing new!!

None of my shrimp have ever made an attempt to escape that I've ever seen... the only time they climb on anything that's sticking out of the tank (filter intakes, etc) is to graze on the algae that's on it, and then they leave...

I've heard of crabs and crayfish and stuff trying to escape, but never shrimp..

Hmmmm...it's a small tank, just over 2.5g, and I wanted the emphasis on plants. I was browsing Arizona Aquatic Gardens and saw a few different shrimp I like (I've only kept ghost shrimp in the past that became snacks ) I just wouldn't want to take a chance on losing any since I don't want to have a hood/cover on the tank.

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Occasionally they will wander up the filter outlet but they rarely leave the tank altogether. Possibly if being chased by a fast fish they might try to shoot away and accidentally catapult themselves out but most who actually get hit by a fish die anyway. My 5g cherry shrimp and trumpet snail tank is currently without a hood. It's sharing the end of a 4' lighting fixture with my 20g marine tank I just setup. So long as there are no agressive fish and you don't scare them really badly when doing tank maintenance they should be fine.

Any neocaridina species and most caridina species would be great for that small of a tank and would have bold coloring. My favorites of these are the cherry and rainbow shrimp. I would avoid japonica(amano shrimp)due to them occasionally showing agression in small tanks or tanks heavily stocked with other shrimp and they are a bit larger than some of the other common caridina species. I love the rainbows I got from azgardens but I added them to my community tank so they spend most of their time hiding from the fish and I can't catch them to move them to my new shrimp tank. They arrive pretty bland but in the past year I've seen 2 blues, 2 reds, 1yellow, and 1 brown hiding in the tank. The cherries in my 5g stand out from across the room despite the fact they are only around 3/4" in size.