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Just what the topic says.

I'm probably going to be setting up my empty 10 gallon with a pair of sparkling gouramis. I would, however, also like to add some type of shrimp (cherry, tiger, the so-called "Blue Buddha", etc.). The plan is to have the tank pretty well planted, so the shrimp would have spaces to hide. However, knowing the proclivities of other gouramis when it comes to inverts, I thought I'd check and see what those with a bit more experience with these particular fish thought.

Thanks a bunch!

Sparkling gouramis are little fish. Mine sometimes can't even eat large mosquito larvae and just go for the little ones. I doubt very much if they could fit a shrimp in their mouths. I don't think I have put any shrimp in my sparkling gourami tank yet.

I do have a few shrimp in my dwarf gourami tank and while the dw's will check them out closely, they don't seem compelled to eat them...yet.

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah, I figured that they would be a bit small to be a problem, but I've kept Dwarf Gouramis that absolutely tore ghost shrimp apart (in fact, I intentionally bought ghost shrimp and gutloaded them for the DGs to eat), and even had a rambunctious Honey Gourami that pecked an Amano to death.

Better safe than sorry, so I thought I'd check.

I had 6 Amano Shrimps in a community tank with Rummynose, Black Widows, Guppy's, SAE & a CL for 6 months, without any problems. It was a planted tank & nobody bothered the Amano Shrimps.

Now they are in a planted Tetra & Corydoras tank, without problems as well.

I never had any Gouramis to keep them with, so i cannot give you my experience with a Shrimp & Gourami mixture.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

I have two amano shrimps that have lived with, over the past 5ish years: Honduran Red Points, firemouths, dwarf gouramis, bolivian rams, angelfish, C. fasciata (giant/banded gouramis), paradisefish...hmmm - probably some others, too. Ghost shrimp tended to be eaten by the cichlids, but the amanos always lived on (becoming more furtive with aggressive fish).

With my current gouramis, they're out and about all the time and doing fine.

Definitely not !!!

I have four sparkling gourami juveniles from a spawn a while ago that I had to relocate temporarily - the largest of the four is just slightly larger than a neon tetra (at least it was when this tale began)

"They're too little and placid to eat my ninja shrimp" I thought... so in they went ... Really bad move for my poor little ninjas.

The gouramis couldn't eat them outright, but they tried... within days I was down to 2 little ninjas cowering in a hole in the DW that got picked on any time they ventured out.

Amanos or some of the other larger shrimp species might be OK... but I wouldn't risk it.

G_T

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

my glass shrimp were safe with my sparkling gourami